Imitation and Fontenelle in the French Baroque
Created | Updated May 11, 2003
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sjoh1661/
In Baroque France, the key to writing, playing and listening to music was the relationship between the music and the outside world: the music could not stand alone, but could only exist through its parallels with the reality outside it. When referring to this relationship, the French used the term “Imitation”, or “Imitation of Nature”. This idea was applied to all music, regardless of its scale, large or small. There is a very short keyboard piece by Couperin entitled “L’Empresse”, which is, predictably, a picture of an empress; it could easily be compared to a miniature portrait of the same empress, or perhaps a short anecdote about the princess. Music was seen as having parallels with other arts which are logical, but which are not entirely obvious: just as a king may be painted, or an amusing story may be told about the king, so a piece of music can be written about the king, and not merely for him. This extends (in practice as well as in theory) to other aspects of the world outside music, artificial and natural: birds, horses and wars are examples from the keyboard repertory.
The parallel with the artes dicendi (the spoken arts – grammar, rhetoric and dialectic) is linked with the history of Western music. For many centuries, music (at least that music classed as being a “high” art form) was inseparable from words. So when a composer came to set a text, the rhetorical devices he would use in the course of writing the music were dictated by the rhetorical principles by which the text itself was written. As Buelow says in his article “Rhetoric and Music” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music (vol. xxi, 260-274),
“Composers have therefore generally been influenced to some degree by rhetorical doctrines governing the setting of texts to music, and even after the growth of independent instrumental music, rhetorical principles continued for some time to be used not only for vocal music but for instrumental works too.”
He goes on to explain that the precise details of the relationship between music and rhetoric (or, more specifically, the relationship between musical and linguistic rhetorical devices) are something of an unknown quantity: rhetoric, he says, has been omitted from most modern educational systems, not being considered important, and so music scholars are unable to reconstruct the details of the principles of converting artes dicendi ideas into musical ones.
It is, however, easy to see that the most important philosophical idea in the compositional process of music of the French Baroque was expression. Batteux writes:
“What should it matter that there is a fine building in the valley if the night covers it? We are not asking for each musical gesture to have an exact sense, but for each to contribute towards a single sense … Each tone, each modulation, each reprise, should lead us towards a feeling, or impart it.”
Fontenelle’s question “Sonate, que me veux-tu?” (“Sonata, what do you want of me?”) is asked in the context of these principles. Burney looks upon this question with much disgust, saying that it would never have been asked by a real lover or judge of music. Burney is much more interested in the effects of music on the mind (“There is however a tranquil pleasure…to be derived from music, in which intellect and sensation are equally concerned.”) than the effects of the outside world on the music.
This reaction is certainly a rebuttal of the French idea of Imitation. The alternative to the French philosophy appears to be an Italian philosophy: Burney’s reply on behalf of the sonata, reproduced below, is certainly hinting at the Italian idea of music for music’s own sake:
“I would have you listen with attention and delight to the ingenuity of the composition, the neatness of the execution, sweetness of the melody and the richness of the harmony, as well as the charms of refined tones, lengthened and polished into passion.”
François Raguenet is on the opposite side of this particular table, writing “Our [French] operas are writ much better than the Italian; they are regular, coherent designs…On the other hand, the Italian operas are poor, incoherent rhapsodies without any connection or design;”. This refers to the difference between the Italian idea of packing an opera with show-stopping arias and the French insistence on a logical and consistent plot.
This war of words seems to be the a rather large philosophical divide, and is certainly an assistance in finding the solution to Buelow’s problem regarding the finer details of the relationship between rhetoric and music in the French Baroque.
In Baroque France, the key to writing, playing and listening to music was the relationship between the music and the outside world: the music could not stand alone, but could only exist through its parallels with the reality outside it. When referring to this relationship, the French used the term “Imitation”, or “Imitation of Nature”. This idea was applied to all music, regardless of its scale, large or small. There is a very short keyboard piece by Couperin entitled “L’Empresse”, which is, predictably, a picture of an empress; it could easily be compared to a miniature portrait of the same empress, or perhaps a short anecdote about the princess. Music was seen as having parallels with other arts which are logical, but which are not entirely obvious: just as a king may be painted, or an amusing story may be told about the king, so a piece of music can be written about the king, and not merely for him. This extends (in practice as well as in theory) to other aspects of the world outside music, artificial and natural: birds, horses and wars are examples from the keyboard repertory.
The parallel with the artes dicendi (the spoken arts – grammar, rhetoric and dialectic) is linked with the history of Western music. For many centuries, music (at least that music classed as being a “high” art form) was inseparable from words. So when a composer came to set a text, the rhetorical devices he would use in the course of writing the music were dictated by the rhetorical principles by which the text itself was written. As Buelow says in his article “Rhetoric and Music” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music (vol. xxi, 260-274),
“Composers have therefore generally been influenced to some degree by rhetorical doctrines governing the setting of texts to music, and even after the growth of independent instrumental music, rhetorical principles continued for some time to be used not only for vocal music but for instrumental works too.”
He goes on to explain that the precise details of the relationship between music and rhetoric (or, more specifically, the relationship between musical and linguistic rhetorical devices) are something of an unknown quantity: rhetoric, he says, has been omitted from most modern educational systems, not being considered important, and so music scholars are unable to reconstruct the details of the principles of converting artes dicendi ideas into musical ones.
It is, however, easy to see that the most important philosophical idea in the compositional process of music of the French Baroque was expression. Batteux writes:
“What should it matter that there is a fine building in the valley if the night covers it? We are not asking for each musical gesture to have an exact sense, but for each to contribute towards a single sense … Each tone, each modulation, each reprise, should lead us towards a feeling, or impart it.”
Fontenelle’s question “Sonate, que me veux-tu?” (“Sonata, what do you want of me?”) is asked in the context of these principles. Burney looks upon this question with much disgust, saying that it would never have been asked by a real lover or judge of music. Burney is much more interested in the effects of music on the mind (“There is however a tranquil pleasure…to be derived from music, in which intellect and sensation are equally concerned.”) than the effects of the outside world on the music.
This reaction is certainly a rebuttal of the French idea of Imitation. The alternative to the French philosophy appears to be an Italian philosophy: Burney’s reply on behalf of the sonata, reproduced below, is certainly hinting at the Italian idea of music for music’s own sake:
“I would have you listen with attention and delight to the ingenuity of the composition, the neatness of the execution, sweetness of the melody and the richness of the harmony, as well as the charms of refined tones, lengthened and polished into passion.”
François Raguenet is on the opposite side of this particular table, writing “Our [French] operas are writ much better than the Italian; they are regular, coherent designs…On the other hand, the Italian operas are poor, incoherent rhapsodies without any connection or design;”. This refers to the difference between the Italian idea of packing an opera with show-stopping arias and the French insistence on a logical and consistent plot.
This war of words seems to be the a rather large philosophical divide, and is certainly an assistance in finding the solution to Buelow’s problem regarding the finer details of the relationship between rhetoric and music in the French Baroque.
