The French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

 composer Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...

 wrote three books of Pièces de clavecin for the harpsichord

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

. The first, Premier Livre de Pièces de Clavecin, was published in 1706

1706 in music

-Events:*Louis-Antoine Dornel succeeds François d'Agincourt as organist at the church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine-en-la-Cité.*David Tecchler makes the cello now on loan to Denis Brott from the Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank....

; the second, Pièces de Clavessin, in 1724

1724 in music

-Events:*Johann Sebastian Bach composes the Sanctus for his later Mass in B minor.*John Frederick Lampe arrives in Britain.*Joseph Bodin de Boismortier moves to Paris from Perpignan....

; and the third, Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin, in 1726

1726 in music

-Events:*The Academy of Ancient Music is founded in London.*George Frideric Handel becomes a British subject.*Johann Sebastian Bach copies and performs 18 church cantatas written by his cousin, Johann Ludwig Bach....

 or 1727

1727 in music

- Events :*Farinelli performs at Bologna, where he meets his mentor, Antonio Bernacchi.*The Davidov-Morrini, ex General Dupont and Holroyd violins are made by Antonio Stradivari.*Johann Adolph Hasse arrives in Venice....

. They were followed in 1741

1741 in music

- Events :*November 25 – Marguerite-Antoinette Couperin, the first female court musician at the French court, sells her official post to Bernard de Bury.*Johann Friedrich Agricola arrives in Berlin to study musical composition under Johann Joachim Quantz....

 by Pièces de Clavecin en Concerts

Pièces de Clavecin en Concerts

The Pièces de clavecin en concert, published in 1741, constitute the only chamber music by Jean-Philippe Rameau and were composed in full maturity; they came after his music for solo harpsichord, and just before Les Indes galantes....

, in which the harpsichord can either be accompanied by violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

 and viola da gamba or played alone. An isolated piece, La Dauphine, survives from 1747

1747 in music

- Events :* April 31 Possible premiere of Johann Sebastian Bach's last St Mark Passion pastiche at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig. In addition to two movements by Bach, he incorporates seven arias from George Frideric Handel's Brockes Passion HWV 48 into the work.* Johann Sebastian Bach is...

.

Suite in A minor

1. Prélude
2. Allemande
   Allemande
   An allemande is one of the most popular instrumental dance forms in Baroque music, and a standard element of a suite...
   
    I
3. Allemande II
4. Courante
   Courante
   The courante, corrente, coranto and corant are some of the names given to a family of triple metre dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque era....
   
   
5. Gigue
   Gigue
   The gigue or giga is a lively baroque dance originating from the British jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th century and usually appears at the end of a suite...
   
   
6. Sarabande
   Sarabande
   In music, the sarabande is a dance in triple metre. The second and third beats of each measure are often tied, giving the dance a distinctive rhythm of quarter notes and eighth notes in alternation...
   
   s I — Sarabande II
7. Vénitienne
8. Gavotte
   Gavotte
   The gavotte originated as a French folk dance, taking its name from the Gavot people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné, where the dance originated. It is notated in 4/4 or 2/2 time and is of moderate tempo...
   
   
9. Menuet

c. 22 mins

Suite in E minor

1. Allemande
2. Courante
3. Gigue en Rondeau I
4. Gigue en Rondeau II
5. Le Rappel des Oiseaux
6. Rigaudon
   Rigaudon
   The rigaudon is a French baroque dance with a lively duple metre. The music is similar to that of a bourrée, but the rigaudon is rhythmically simpler with regular phrases ....
   
    I — Rigaudon II et Double
7. Musette
   Bal-musette
   Bal-musette is a style of French music and dance that first became popular in Paris in the 1880s.Auvergnats settled in large numbers in the 5th, 11th, and 12th districts of Paris during the 19th century, opening cafés and bars where patrons danced the bourrée to the accompaniment of musette de...
   
    en rondeau. Tendrement
8. Tambourin
   Tambourin
   A tambourin is a piece of music that imitates a drum, usually as a repetitive not-very-melodic figure in the bass.A tambourin itself is a small, two-headed drum of Arabic origin, mentioned as early as the 1080s . It was played together with a small flute .A tambourin, as a dance, hails from Provence...
   
   
9. La Villageoise. Rondeau

c. 22 mins

Suite in D major

1. Les Tendres Plaintes. Rondeau
2. Les Niais de Sologne
   Sologne
   Sologne , a region of north-central France extending over portions of the départements of Loiret, Loir-et-Cher and Cher...
   
    — Premier Double des Niais — Deuxième Double des Niais
3. Les Soupirs. Tendrement
4. La Joyeuse. Rondeau
5. La Follette. Rondeau
6. L'Entretien des Muses
7. Les Tourbillons. Rondeau
8. Les Cyclopes. Rondeau
9. Le Lardon. Menuet
10. La Boiteuse

c. 30 mins

Publication history

The exact date of publication, at Rameau's own expense, of the Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin remains a matter of some controversy. In his 1958 edition of the works, the editor Erwin Jacobi gave 1728 as the original publication date. Kenneth Gilbert, in his 1979 edition, followed suit. Others later argued that these works did not appear until 1729 or 1730. However, a recent reexamination of the publication date, based on the residence Rameau provided in the frontispiece

Book frontispiece

A frontispiece is a decorative illustration facing a book's title page. The frontispiece is the verso opposite the recto title page. Elaborate engraved frontispieces were in frequent use, especially in Bibles and in scholarly books, and many are masterpieces of engraving...

 (Rue des deux boules aux Trois Rois), suggests an earlier date, since Rameau's residence had changed by 1728. As a result of this and other evidence, the closest approximation for the original publication date stands between February 1726 and the summer of 1727. This dating is given further authentication by the comments of Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg

Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg

Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg was a German music critic, music-theorist and composer. He was friendly and active with many figures of the Enlightenment of the 18th century.-Life:...

, who provided their publication date as 1726. There are almost 40 extant copies of the original 1726/27 edition still in existence.

Two later editions followed both around 1760. The first (printed perhaps slightly before 1760) was simply a reimpression of the original engravings, although several plates were reengravings, suggesting that the original plates had undergone sufficient impression to wear them down to a state of illegibility. A second appeared in London under the title A Collection of Lessons for the harpsichord from the printer John Walsh which was based on the earlier Parisian edition.

Suite in A minor

1. Allemande
2. Courante
3. Sarabande
4. Les Trois Mains
5. Fanfarinette
6. La Triomphante
7. Gavotte avec les Doubles de la Gavotte

c. 33 mins

Suite in G major/G minor

1. Les Tricotets. Rondeau.
2. L'indifférente
3. Menuet I — Menuet II
4. La Poule
5. Les Triolets
6. Les Sauvages
7. L'Enharmonique. Gracieusement.
8. L'Égyptienne

c. 23 mins

Sources

• Siegbert Rampe, ed. Rameau: Pièces de Clavecin, Nouvelle édition intégrale 2 vols. (Bärenreiter, 2004)
• Cuthbert Girdlestone
  Cuthbert Girdlestone
  Cuthbert Morton Girdlestone was a British musicologist and literary scholar. He was educated at Cambridge and the Sorbonne, and thereafter took up the chair in French in Armstrong College, later to be King's College in Newcastle in 1926, a position he held until 1960...
  
   Jean-Philippe Rameau: His Life and Work (Dover paperback edition, 1969)
• The New Grove French Baroque Masters ed. Graham Sadler (Grove/Macmillan, 1988)

Lengths of pieces are taken from recordings by Trevor Pinnock

Trevor Pinnock

Trevor David Pinnock CBE is an English conductor, harpsichordist, and occasional organist and pianist.He is best known for his association with the period-performance orchestra The English Concert which he helped found and directed from the keyboard for over 30 years in baroque and early classical...

.