Download Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Views on the Merits of French

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IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Views on the Merits of French and
Italian Music, Letter on French Music (1753)
Although not trained to be a professional musician, the famous philosopher JeanJacques Rousseau (1712–1778) demonstrated the same ardent passion for this subject as he did for the social and political issues of his day. Indeed, Rousseau was not
only a self-taught composer but also a trenchant writer on many musical topics.
Among his publications treating music are his Dissertation sur la musique (1743),
Lettre sur la musique françoise (1753), and Dictionnaire de la musique (1768).
Rousseau’s Letter on French Music was provoked by the Guerre des bouffons (War of
the Buffoons—drawn from the term “clownish,” buffa, in opera buffa), a polemical
war of words that broke out in Paris upon the arrival of Italian opera buffa, specifically
Pergolesi’s La serva padrona, in 1752. Sharp-tongued Jean-Jacques Rousseau initially
refrained from the fray but within a year had sided with the Italian faction and fired
off a withering attack on his native French music, his ninety-two-page Letter on French
Music. In the year in which Pergolesi’s opera reached Paris, Rousseau himself had created a model for composing comic opera in French, a work he titled Le Devin du village
(The Village Soothsayer; discussed at length in Chapter 41). This comic opera, the first
of its type in French, came to enjoy enormous popularity, not only in France but also
in other European countries. Young Mozart created a German version with the title
Bastien und Bastienne (1768), and peripatetic music critic Charles Burney (see In
Their Own Words for Chapters 38, 41, 42, and 43) did the same in English under the
title The Cunning Man (1766). Rarely in the history of ideas has a Frenchman attacked
his native art, in this case French music, with such vitriol.
Because the quarrel that broke out last year at Paris Opera led only to injuries, effected
by one side with great wit and by the other with great animosity, I had no wish to partake in it. This type of war didn’t appeal to me in any kind of way, and I felt strongly
that this was not the time to say reasonable things. Now, however, the bouffons have
been dismissed [left Paris], or almost so, and cabals are no longer at work, so I believe I
can hazard my own opinion, which I will offer with my usual frankness, without fear of
offending anyone. . . . [unpaginated prologue]
The Italians claim that our melody is flat and without any song, and all neutral nations unanimously confirm their judgment on this point. From our side, we accuse their
music of being bizarre and baroque [barroque]. I am more inclined to believe that one
party or the other is mistaken than be reduced to saying that in those countries, where
the sciences and all the arts have risen to such a high degree [such as Italy and France],
music is still yet to be born.
The least prejudiced among us would be quick to say that Italian and French music
are both good, each in its own genre, each for its own language that is appropriate to
it. But aside from the fact that other nations don’t agree with this notion of parity,
there remains the task of finding out which of the two languages is better fitted to vocal
music. . . . . [pp. 21ff]
Rousseau then goes on to describe several musical experiments that he conducted,
comparing French and Italian melody, two of which are related here.
I made another test that required fewer controls and that will appear to you to be more
decisive. I gave some Italians some beautiful French airs (see Chapter 35) of Lulli, and
to French musicians some of Leo and Pergolesi (see Chapter 41), and I observed that
although the French musicians had a difficult time interpreting the true taste of the
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pieces, they felt the melodies and drew from them, according to their manner, vocal
phrases of music, pleasing and well concluded. But the Italians, carefully solfeging our
most expressive airs, were able to recognize neither the phrases nor the melodic contour. For them it was not the kind of music that made sense, but only a succession of
notes placed without thought and somewhat haphazardly. They sang them exactly as
you would read Arabic words written in French letters.
The third experiment: I saw in Venice an Armenian, an intelligent man who had
never heard any music. At a concert a French solo was performed before him that began
with this verse: Temple sacré, séjour tranquille. This was followed by an aria of [Baldassare]
Galuppi that began this way: Voi che languite senza speranza. Each was sung, the French
in a mediocre way and the Italian poorly by a man accustomed only to French music
and very much an enthusiast of the music of Rameau. I observed that during the entirety
of the French song the Armenian showed more a sense of surprise than pleasure. But
everyone observed that during the first few bars of the Italian aria that his eyes became
soft—he was enchanted; he surrendered his soul to the effects of music, and although
he heard little of the text, the sounds alone were sufficient to entrance him. From that
moment on, one could not make him listen to any other French air.
But without looking further for examples, there are even among us many [French] persons who, knowing only our opera, believe in good faith to have no appreciation at all of
vocal music but have been shown the contrary by Italian melodies. This is precisely because
they think they don’t love music whereas in fact they love true music [Italian music].
I confess that many circumstances have made me doubt the existence of our [French]
melody and made me suspicious that it could be anything other than a kind of undulating plainchant that has nothing agreeable in and of itself, but pleases only when arbitrary ornaments are added, and only to those who are predisposed to find it beautiful.
Thus our music is hardly tolerable even to our own ears when executed by mediocre
voices who don’t have the skill to make it work. It takes someone like Fel and Juliotte
[Marie Fel and Pierre Jélyotte, then two leading singers of the French dramatic stage]
to sing French music. But any voice is good for Italian music because the beauties of
the Italian song are in the melody itself. In the case of French song, however, they
reside only in the art of the singer.
Three things appear to me to cause perfection in Italian melody. The first is the
sweetness of the language, that renders all inflexions easy, leaving to the taste of the
musician the freedom to make expressive choices, to vary even more the combinations, and to give to each performer a distinctive style, and moreover that each person
has his own gesture and tone that distinguishes him from all other singers.
The second is the boldness of the modulations, although prepared in a less servile
way than our French ones, are more pleasing because they are more easily perceived,
without imparting any harshness to the song, they add an energetic verve to the manner of expression. It is in this way that the musician, passing quickly from the tone
[tonic] of one key to another, avoiding when necessary intermediary and pedantic
transitions, gives expression to the reticence, the interruptions, the haltings that are
the language of impetuous passions, that the ardent [Pietro] Metastasio [dominant librettist of the mid-eighteenth century; see Chapter 41] employed so often [and] that
[Nicola] Porpora [teacher of Haydn], a Galuppi, a Cocchi, a Jumella, a Perez, and a
Terradeglias have known to render with success, and of which our lyric poets know as
little of as our musicians.
The third advantage, and that which gives to melody its greatest effect, is the extreme
precision of the beat that is to be felt even in the slowest movements as well as in the
most lively, a precision that renders song animated and interesting, and the accompaniments energetic and well concluded. These really multiply the songs by making as many
different melodies out of the same combination of pitches as there are ways of scanning
them. These bring to the heart every possible feeling and to the mind every imaginable
picture. These give to the musician the means to insert into each air the character of
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imaginable words, many of which we have no idea about, and which renders all the
movements proper to express all the characters or, at the will of the composer, renders
just a single movement appropriate to contrast and change the character.
Voilà, here, it seems to me, are the sources from which Italian song draws its charms
and energetic sound, to which may be added a new and very strong proof of the advantage of Italian melody: the fact that it does not require so often as our French music these
frequent changes of harmony that make of the basso continuo a true melody like that of
the soprano part. Those who find such great beauty in French melody should tell us to
where these things arise, or show us the advantages French music has over the Italian
style. . . . [pp. 30ff]
Moreover, it often happens that the Italian accompaniments are very far from always
being in unison with the voice. There are two very frequent cases in which the musicians separates them. One is when the voice, spinning around with such lightness on
the chords of the harmony, holds the attention to the point that the accompaniment
cannot share it, thus rendering the accompaniment so simple that the ear is affected
only by pleasant chords and no [competing] melody that can distract it. . . . [p. 39]
The languorous quality of our French language makes it inflexible to our voices and
a funeral tone perpetually reigns in our Opera and gives to all of our solos in French a
slow tempo in which the beat can be felt in neither the melody, nor the bass, nor the
accompaniment. Nothing is so inert, so lazy, or so languorous as these beautiful solos
that everyone admires while yawning. They attempt to touch the heart but only afflict
the ears.
The Italians are more clever in their adagios because when the melody is slow there
is no fear of the possibility that the feeling of the beat will disappear. They make the
bass march along in notes of equal duration, which clearly indicate the tempo, and
the accompaniment engages in a subdivision of the notes, which keeps the singer and
the ear in time, rendering the melody all the more pleasing and especially energetic
because of this precision. But the nature of the French language is such that this procedure is forbidden to our composers. For when the performer is constrained within the
beat, he cannot develop his voice or project his character, elongating his notes, accelerating, prolonging his sounds, or crying out at the top of his lungs, and consequently
he will no longer be applauded. . . . [pp. 66ff]
I think that I have made obvious to all that there is neither a clear beat nor a melody
in French music because the French language is not susceptible to either. French song
is only a continual squealing, intolerable to every unbiased ear; French harmony is
brutish, without expression and suggests nothing other than the filler material of a rank
beginner; the French “air” is not an air at all; and the French recitative is not at all a
recitative. From all this I conclude that the French do not have music, and that if they
ever do have it, it will be all the worse for them. [pp. 91ff]
Source: Translated from the original French of his Lettre sur la musique françoise (1753).
© 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.