Page 109 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained
P. 109
BAROQUE 1600–1750 107
HIS WHOLE HEART
AND SOUL WERE IN
HIS HARPSICHORD
HIPPOLYTE ET ARICIE (1733),
JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU
alant music was born
IN CONTEXT out of opposition to the
G perceived complexity of
FOCUS Baroque music. While the latter
The style galante
was often characterized by
BEFORE seriousness and grandeur, the
1607 Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, style galante was elegant, light,
the earliest opera still in the and immediate.
current repertoire, is premiered One of the most lauded
in Mantua. advocates of this style was the
French composer Jean-Philippe
1673 The French operatic Rameau, whose first opera,
tradition was born with the Hippolyte et Aricie, premiered in
premiere of Jean-Baptiste Paris in 1733. Rameau cast his
Lully’s Cadmus et Hermione, opera in the conventional five-act US mezzo-soprano Jennifer Holloway
the first of Lully’s tragédies form of a tragédie en musique that plays Diane during a rehearsal of
en music (tragedy in music). was established by Jean-Baptiste Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie in the
Lully. In every other way, however, Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse, in 2009.
AFTER he broke Lully’s mold, using daring
1752 A performance of dissonances, longer phrase The debate between Lullistes and
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s structures, and an ornate approach Ramistes raged for several years,
opera buffa (comic opera) to melodic writing that came to during which Rameau released a
La serva padrona (“The typify the style galante. further four operas. In time,
servant turned mistress”) however, his music became more
ignites the Querelle des War of words accepted, and by the time of the
Bouffons, a dispute between Hippolyte et Aricie drew harsh Querelle des Bouffons in 1752, a
supporters of serious and criticism from so-called “Lullistes,” two-year dispute about the relative
comic opera. who feared that Rameau’s Italianate merits of French and Italian opera,
music threatened the iconic status Rameau’s music was considered
1774 Having reformed Italian of Lully’s operas in French culture. typically French. ■
opera, Christoph Willibald
Gluck composes Iphigénie See also: Le bourgeois gentilhomme 70–71 ■ Orfeo ed Euridice 118–119 ■
en Aulide for the Paris stage. The Magic Flute 134–137 ■ The Barber of Seville 148 ■ La traviata 174–175
US_106-107_Telemann_Rameau.indd 107 26/03/18 1:00 PM
