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These little
entertainments of Rameau are among the
more charming examples of social music
making in 18th century France. The
existence of a sound tradition in
amateur performance is always a source
of gratification to the professional
composer. During the 18th century a
tradition of this kind was fairly
widespread both in Europe and in
America. Bach wrote für Kenner und
Liebhaber e.g. for the
professional and the amateur, for those
who knew music and those who enjoyed it.
(A wise distinction, not without its
point today.) And nowhere in the 18th
century did the taste of the cultivated
amateur count for more than it did in
France. These pieces of Rameau have much
in them - either by instinct (a word
Rameau much admired) or by calculation -
for the pleasure of performers; for they
are alive, truly and continuously so
when one shapes the wonderful patterns
of sound with one's fingers. The
pleasure of the non-performing listener
is necessarily intimate and immediate,
for this is living room music, whether
performed live or on phonograph records.
This music, as delicate and as
unpretentious as it must in essence be,
has still no less noble a purpose than
to delight the ear, charm the intellect
and give pleasure to the soul.
Flexibility in medium of performance was
not only a long standing tradition in
Rameau's day, but a certain freedom in
the performer's exercise of options is
necessarily to the point in music as
sociable and usable as this. The Title
of the work in its 1741 edition reads as
follows: Pièces de clavecin, en
concertos, avec un violon ou une flute
et une viole ou un deuxieme violon
(Pieces for harpsichord in concert with
either a violin or flute and either a
viol or a second violin). In his
introduction (Advice to Performers)
Rameau further makes it clear that these
are essentially harpsichord pieces and
may be played as such without the added
parts. ("These pieces performed on the
harpsichord alone," he writes, "leave
nothing to be desired; one does not
suspect then that other instruments are
required.") Interestingly enough, when
the other instruments are added they
simetimes achieve an importance in the
musical texture which one would scarcely
suspect in view of yhe self-sufficient
harpsichord part. As for the
alternatives in the instruments to be
added, there was a certain predilection
for the flute among 18th century
amateurs, and, particularly in France, a
marked feeling against the violin as an
instrument which tended to dominate if
not, indeed, domineer over its
colleaues. It was not uncommon for the
18th century French composer to warn
violinists to moderate their tone; and
upon occasion the French violinist was
even enjoined to resist the brilliant
virtuoso blandishments fashionable among
contemporary Italian
composer-violinists. Gabriel Guillmain,
a contemporary of Rameau, issued in 1745
a group of harpsichord pieces "with
violin accompainiment", and admitted
that "he felt compelled to add that
part" semply "in order to conform to the
present taste." Howewer, he cautioned
that he found the violin "somewhat too
overbearing" and urged that the violin
part "be performed quite softly."
Rameau's strictures, if less blunty
expressed, amount to the same thing. His
advice to performers reads as follows:
"I have written some small concerted
compositions for harpsichord, a violin
or flute, and a gamba or second
violin. Four parts usually prevail. I
thought it well to publish them in
score, for not only must the three
instruments blend well togheter, and
the performers understand each other's
role, but above all, the violin and
gamba must yield to the harpsichord
and must distinguish that which is
only accompaniment from that which is
part of the subject, by solftening
their tone still more in the first
case. The long notes should be played
softly rather than forcibly, the short
notes very sweetly, and where the
notes follow each other without
interruption the rendition should be
mellow."
He then goes on to say that the pieces
can stand for harpsichord alone. As for
the manner of converting a violin
part quickly into a range
manageable upon a flute, Rameau provides
the performer with a few convenient
devices. Where the violin part goes too
low for the flute, he places an octave
mark (the number 8). All notes from the
number 8 to the letter U (unison) the
flute player simply renders an octave
higher. In rapid passages, he remarks,
furthermore that "It suffices to
substitute adjacent notes which are in
the same harmony for those which descend
too low, or to repeat those which one
considers suitable; except where one
finds small noteheads on the stems,
almost like specks, which indicate
exactly what should be played on the
flute."
The habit of titling instrumental pieces
is a long standing one in French music.
While the focus shifts from generation
to generation, certain general habits
are persistent enough for us to regard
them nore as a matter of national
temperament than as the peculiarity of a
particular period. Thus among the many
features that mark both Rameasu and
Debussy as characteristically French in
their keyboard music, is their common
mastery of the programmatic miniature.
Both are expert craftsmen, in their way
as perceptive in problems of musical
structure as the Germans. But abstract
design in large scale musical structures
is not anything either composer is
attuned to temperamentally. Rameau is
not a fugue-maker in the Bach manner,
anymore than Debussy is a symphonic
architect in the sense of a Beethoven.
Like everything else, national musical
temperament is subject to change; but
the 18th century French notion, so
marked in these pieces of Rameau, that
instrumental music is either "fit for
dancing" (proper à dancer) or for
use as a clear and delicate color
palette for painting images in tone, has
never entirely disappeared in French
music.
Notes by Abraham
Veinus, Syracuse University
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