Paris.

French capital city. It is situated on the River Seine, downstream from its junction with the River Marne. The city proper has a population of approximately 2.2 million, with approximately 10 million in the greater Paris area.

GORDON A. ANDERSON/THOMAS B. PAYNE (I), DANIEL HEARTZ/RICHARD FREEDMAN (II), JAMES R. ANTHONY (III; V, 1(i), 3–5), ELISABETH COOK (IV, introduction, 2, 3; V, 1(ii)), JOHN EBY (IV, 1), PAUL F. RICE (V, 2), DAVID CHARLTON, JOHN TREVITT/GUY GOSSELIN (VI), JANN PASLER (VII)

Paris

I. To 1450

The importance of Paris as a musical centre in medieval times lies chiefly in the period from the mid-12th century to the early 14th, when it led the European musical world in its institutions and in new methods of composition. Although there were other centres of great musical importance – the Benedictine abbeys of St Maur-des-Fossés and St Denis, the royal Ste Chapelle and the Augustinian abbey of St Victor, for example – the most celebrated activity occurred at Notre Dame. The cathedral nurtured some of the first recognized composers of stature, and they in turn realized some remarkable achievements: the earliest inclusive corpus of polyphonic liturgical music for the celebration of the Mass and Office; the first system of musical notation that clearly specified rhythmic values as well as pitches; and the development of major new musical genres. At Notre Dame not only organum but monophonic and polyphonic conductus attained their richest forms; and the creation of the motet from the discant sections of organum became a landmark in musical history. Moreover the most important musical theorists from about 1240 to 1350 all worked at, or had contact with, Parisian institutions.

1. Urban development.

1. Urban development.

The physical growth of medieval Paris was closely linked with the spread of Christianity and the city’s rise in political importance under Merovingian leadership late in the 5th century. Originally a Gallic settlement on what is now the Ile de la Cité, Paris, then called Lutetia, expanded to the left bank of the Seine soon after the Roman conquest in 53 bce. The early cathedral, evident already by the mid-5th century and first dedicated to St Stephen in the mid-7th, stood within the eastern quarter of the Ile de la Cité, just to the west of the present site of Notre Dame. Early in the 6th century Paris became the residence of the Merovingian king Clovis (ruled 482–511), a convert to Christianity, and thereafter saw many of its first major ecclesiastical foundations. Churches rose amid the vineyards on the left bank, among them basilicas dedicated to the Holy Apostles (later Ste Geneviève), to Vincent (later the abbey of St Germain-des-Prés) and to St Julien. By the middle of the 8th century there were many more, both in the south on the left bank and to the north, where St Germain-le-Rond (later St Germain-l’Auxerrois), St Martin (later the priory of St Martin-des-Champs) and the abbey of St Denis lay (founded in the 7th century by King Dagobert I).

During the Carolingian period the centre of the Holy Roman Empire moved east and Paris temporarily lost importance. Charlemagne (ruled 768–814), assisted by such scholars as Alcuin (c735–804) and Theodolphus of Orléans (c760–821), brought the liturgical and musical traditions of Rome north, displacing and absorbing the earlier Gallican liturgy and essentially condemning its music to oblivion, although occasional traces remain. Despite disruption and invasion in the 9th and 10th centuries, Paris continued to grow, as did the number and importance of its abbeys and churches. By the end of the 12th century the city had assumed the physical character it was to retain for the remainder of the Middle Ages: the Right Bank, principally the commercial quarter, became known as the Ville and acquired city walls in the 13th century; the cathedral and the royal palace dominated the Ile de la Cité; while the growing university and its ancillary institutions overwhelmed the Left Bank (hence the later name ‘Latin Quarter’).

With the reigns of Louis VII (ruled 1137–80) and his son Philip II Augustus (ruled 1180–1223), who expanded the kingdom to its largest extent and made Paris the seat of his government, new churches had appeared and continued to proliferate. On the Ile construction proceeded on Notre Dame (begun 1150s, high altar consecrated 1182), which together with the chevet of St Denis (1140–44) and the Ste Chapelle (1241–6; see fig.1) comprised important witnesses to the new style of Gothic architecture. Along with the building of such edifices there was equal attention devoted to the Parisian liturgy and its chant. The flourishing state of liturgical music is amply demonstrated by numerous chant manuscripts that have survived from Parisian centres, whose comparison reveals a rich complex of interrelationships in liturgical practice and music for many of the city’s institutions. By the 13th century an enormous increase in the demand for books, caused primarily by the university, led to a substantial growth in the profession of lay copying and manuscript illumination. Thus the central source of the polyphonic Notre Dame repertory, the Florence manuscript (I-Fl Plut.29.1; c1250), has been traced to an atelier with no monastic or collegiate connections, the professional shop of Johannes Grusch. Copying continued in the religious houses as well: liturgical manuscripts survive from Notre Dame itself, the Ste Chapelle, the churches of Ste Geneviève, St Germain-des-Prés, St Germain-l’Auxerrois, St Eustache, Notre Dame de l’Annonciation, St Magloire, St Denis, the Sorbonne, the Collège de Laon, the abbey of St Victor and many other places. In his capital Philip Augustus created an atmosphere in which peace reigned and the arts flourished, and Paris became an intellectual centre in which the monarch was pre-eminent.

The Black Death, the Hundred Years War and revolutionary agitation interrupted the prosperity of Paris in the 14th century. Further disturbances and loss of prestige occurred in the 15th century during the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, which culminated in 1422 with the English occupation of the city. It was not until 1436 that Paris once again became the seat of a French king, the weak and timorous Charles VII, at the beginning of whose reign the city’s economy was in ruins, its population depleted and its university overcome by intellectual stagnation. The rapid decline in the fortunes of Paris is reflected in its music, which after a spectacular ascendancy in the ‘Notre Dame epoch’ lost impetus during the next two centuries.

Paris, §I: To 1450

2. The university.

The early development of the University of Paris remains obscure, although the tradition of ecclesiastical education suggests that the city’s churches and monasteries would have encouraged learning from their earliest times. By the mid-12th century two important classes of schools were well established and together formed the stadium at Paris: the foremost consisted of those instructors who practised in the environs of the cathedral and were administered by the chancellor, who controlled the licentia docendi; the other group comprised the schools of ecclesiastical institutions, the most prominent of which were St Victor and Mont-Ste-Geneviève. At this time the university was a loose association of teaching masters (magistri) and students (scolares parisienses) who for the most part became organized into separate political and cultural ‘nations’ within the studium.

The growing independence of the schools from the chancellor’s control informs much of the history of the University of Paris in the first quarter of the 13th century. The largest strides occurred early in the tenure of Philip the Chancellor (1217–36), himself a prolific author of conductus and motet texts. By 1231, after numerous legal wranglings and several teaching strikes by the masters, the university was able to ally itself effectively with the papacy and check the chancellor’s power. Bulla fulminante and Aurelianis civitas, two conductus from around this time and both ascribable to Philip, paint vivid pictures of the crises that attended the University of Paris and neighbouring schools.

Continuing in the tradition established in the 12th century, the university attracted the most celebrated teachers of Europe during the 13th and 14th. The ranks of its masters opened to admit Dominicans and Franciscans beginning in 1229, and from their midst came such lights as Bonaventura (d 1274), Albertus Magnus (d 1280) and Thomas Aquinas (d 1274). Among all this activity the teaching of music held an important place as one of the foundational liberal arts; university statutes of 1215 made provision for ‘extraordinary’ lectures (on religious holidays) when ‘[students] shall study nothing except philosophy, rhetoric and the Quadrivium’. Although medieval records are not precise on how the teaching of music was effected at this time, numerous indirect sources suggest that it was practised both as a science and as a craft at the University of Paris, which became renowned for its teaching of the seven liberal arts. A former student at Paris, Guy da Basoches, left a description of Paris of about 1175, which is the earliest of many similar documents: ‘On this island, the seven sisters, to wit, the liberal arts, have secured an eternal abiding place for themselves’. Practical music-making, too, was mentioned by Matthew Paris, who related that in 1254 Henry III of England was welcomed in Paris with ‘special songs and instrumental music’ performed by the scolares parisienses ‘mostly from the English-German nation’. Books used by Parisian scholars often contain sections devoted to music, inventories of the various nations of the university include chant books, and instruction in chanting was given in some colleges and nations. In 1413 the English-German nation appointed a Parisian bachelor of medicine, Henri de Saxe, as organist of its church, St Mathurin; two years later he had gained the same post at Notre Dame. Many choirmasters of the grammar schools and singers in the royal chapel held ties to the university; and, before their matriculation, many scholars received musical training in the choir schools, including the maîtrise of Notre Dame.

Paris, §I: To 1450

3. Music theory.

The writings of professors and students of the university were highly esteemed during the 12th and 13th centuries; no centre in the medieval world of learning was as important as Paris. The study of music theory, if only as a philosophical branch of mathematics, is attested by several treatises written by former students that have portions devoted to music: the De eodem et diverso by Adelard of Bath (fl c1120) and chapter 13 of Gossouin’s Image du monde (1245), for example. Robert Grosseteste (c1170–1253) and Robert Kilwardby (d 1279), both alumni of the university, included sections on music in their philosophical writings. Alain de Lille (d 1202), sometime teacher at Paris and the author of a conductus preserved in the Florence codex, discussed the psychological effects of music as well as musical Intervals in the allegorical poem Anticlaudianus.

But by far the most important treatises are those which discuss the exciting new art of polyphony, its diverse genres and styles, and its methods of rhythmical notation. The latter topic in particular was to become the focus of the most progressive theoretical treatises throughout the later development of the Notre Dame school (after c1250) and during the important changes which occurred early in the 14th century with the French Ars Nova. Although these works are not directly specified by the university curriculum, they provide many oblique associations with it in their organization, terminology and methods of argument; and many, if not all, of their known authors or compilers evince some contact with the city and its schools. Examples include the Tractatus de musica (late 13th century) assembled ‘for the use of students’ by Hieronymus de Moravia, who taught at the Dominican monastery of St Jacques in Paris. He included a unique chapter on the playing of string instruments with the bow and four treatises on mensural notation. Among these, the first, the Discantus positio vulgaris (c1220s–40s?), is probably the earliest extant treatise to discuss the rhythmic practices associated with Notre Dame polyphony; the second is the seminal De mensurabili musica (1240s–60s?) ascribed to a Johannes de Garlandia, who included a chapter on modal combinations and a discussion of melodic figures; the third is the pivotal Ars cantus mensurabilis of Franco of Cologne (c1280), which laid the foundations of later rhythmic notations.

Situated chronologically between the Garlandian and Franconian works is the Tractatus de musica of Lambertus, who expanded the number of rhythmic modes beyond Garlandia’s conventional six, and who was vigorously attacked for it by the St Emmeram Anonymus (1279). Garlandian principles continue to be the focus in the fruitful work of an English student of Paris, Coussemaker’s Anonymus 4. His tract presents an amplified discussion of both regular and irregular modes and gives invaluable historical information about Notre Dame music and its great composers, Leoninus and Perotinus. Similarly Johannes de Grocheio, possibly a Paris teacher, supplied a unique sociological view of Parisian music at the turn of the century in his De musica. But the summa of all Ars Antiqua theory comes from a writer who had also been a student at Paris: in his Speculum musice Jacobus of Liège dealt with both musica speculativa and musica practica, and showed that he had first-hand knowledge of each.

That Paris was in the forefront of the latest trends is demonstrated by the treatises of Johannes de Muris, a musician, mathematician, astronomer and teacher at the Sorbonne, whose Notitia artis musice (c1321) shows that he had links with Philippe de Vitry (1291–1361). Muris’s treatises found a wide dissemination throughout western Europe and his mathematical work, Musica speculativa secundum Boetium, superseded Boethius’s original as the standard musical text for students of the universities well into the Renaissance. All aspects of music come under Muris’s keen scrutiny – speculative theory, rhythm, notation, prolation, alteration, isorhythmic motet and ballade forms – and many later musical tracts are clearly based on his teaching. His universal fame is an indication of the great interest in music of all kinds at the University of Paris in the Middle Ages. It points to the high position that the city held when it was designated ‘the mother of all learning’ and sustained the study of music through its cathedral and university.

Paris, §I: To 1450

4. Practical music.

Musical activity in Paris during the Middle Ages is attested by a variety of witnesses. Liturgical documents describe the melodic content of Parisian ceremony, both the chant that sounded within church walls and that of outside stational processions. In the greater establishments on major feasts – particularly at Notre Dame – highly skilled solo singers also spun out organa, conductus and possibly motets, and the organ accompanied or elaborated specific choral chants. Notre Dame first acquired such an instrument by 1332, and they also appear at St Séverin (c1350), St Germain-l’Auxerrois (1402) and St Jacques-de-la-Boucherie (1427) during this period.

Numerous sources of polyphony suggest a thriving interest in the most novel musical forms within the city, particularly in the diverse species of motets that came to populate the ‘new’ musical repertory of the 13th and early 14th centuries. Principal manuscripts such as the Florence codex, one of the Wolfenbüttel sources (D-W 1099), and the Bamberg (D-Bs Lit. 115), Montpellier (F-MOf H 196) and La Clayette (F-Pn n.a.l.13521) manuscripts all claim Parisian origin. Their widespread geographical dissemination and that of numerous other small sources indicates the allure that the new musica mensurabilis of Paris once exerted in musical centres as far afield as Spain, Poland and England. Some of the works in these manuscripts even point to events in the city’s history, as they mourn the loss of kings and clerics, celebrate their coronations and investiture or castigate all levels of society for corrupt behaviour. This last issue is particularly well represented in the first great musical monument of the Ars Nova, Gervès du Bus’s Roman de Fauvel (F-Pn fr.146), a vivid allegorical satire on political intrigue in the royal court, compiled in Paris about 1317 by Chaillou de Pesstain. A vibrant impression of Parisian city life appears in the texts of a 13th-century motet On parole de batre/A Paris soir/Frese nouvele from the Montpellier manuscript, which was taken over and expanded into a larger piece in the mid-14th century, Je comence ma chanson/Et je servi/Soules viex (I–IVc).

Knowledge of specific composers and poets points to several illustrious individuals with ties to the schools, churches and courts of Paris. Many more must have lived or worked in the city, yet relatively few are named, and details of their lives are often sparser still. Of particular interest is the renowned philosopher Peter Abelard (1079–1142), who created hymns, planctus and a lost repertory of secular song, the latter almost certainly while teaching within the cathedral close. The poets Alain de Lille, Walter of Châtillon and Peter of Blois were also connected at one point to the schools of Paris and have left several of their songs in Parisian manuscripts. Notre Dame in particular owes its early musical fame to Adam of St Victor (d 1146), who wrote many sequences in his capacity as cantor of the cathedral before he retired to the abbey whose name he familiarly bears; while the great composers of polyphonic music Leoninus (d c1201) and Perotinus (Petrus Succentor?; d 1238), said to be the authors of the Magnus liber organi of Notre Dame, are now nearly legendary. Other lights of Notre Dame include cantor Albertus Parisiensis (d 1177), Adam’s successor and the author of a conductus in the Codex Calixtinus; Philip the Chancellor (d 1236), mentioned above, whose poetic activities may also include the first examples of the medieval motet; and the religious and secular music of the later composers Aubert Billard, Guillaume Benoît and Etienne Grossin.

In other milieux, Parisian vernacular composition is represented by Li Moine de St Denis (fl 1230s), who contributed a motet to the Montpellier codex; by the chansons of the trouvère Moniot de Paris; and by Jehannot de L'Escurel. The polymath Philippe de Vitry, perhaps responsible for the musical manuscript of the Roman de Fauvel and the creation of the isorhythmic motet, spent long periods in Paris in the service of the court and even had a three-month stint as a canon at Notre Dame. Franco of Cologne and Petrus de Cruce likewise give evidence of at least a fleeting connection to the city; and it seems likely that some of the surviving French secular music from the later 14th century (ed. W. Apel, CMM, liii, 1970–71) comes from Parisian composers, although only Pierre des Molins and Jehan Vaillant are actually described as having lived there. In the early 15th century Nicolas Grenon was at Paris from about 1399 to 1403 and, according to Martin le Franc (Le champion des dames, c1440), Johannes Carmen, Johannes Cesaris and Johannes Tapissier ‘astounded all Paris’ with their new methods of composition.

References in sermons, literature, non-musical treatises and written records can often illuminate the music enjoyed in lay and public circles of Paris during the Middle Ages; the preaching of the clergy, the texts of romances, chansons and motets, and the injunctions of civic documents are altogether replete with references to urban music-making, dance and minstrelsy. From them we learn that citizens from many walks of life often took part in caroles, where refrain songs and, possibly, instrumental pieces such as ductiae and estampies formed the musical framework for public dancing in the open air. Paris was also a focal point for professional singers and players of secular music. In September 1321 a group of 37 ‘menestreus et menestrelles, jongleurs et jongleresses’ petitioned the provost of Paris to enact a set of legal statutes that would regulate the behaviour of their members and set rules for those who sought to join their enterprise. The successive names given to a certain street in Paris demonstrate that an association of minstrels had formed part of the city’s population for some time: ‘Vicus viellarotum’ (1225), ‘Vicus ioculatorum’ (1236) and finally ‘Rue aus Jongleurs’, where the 1321 statutes indicate that potential customers could hire entertainment for their feasts and celebrations. From such evidence we may infer that popular and dance music were assiduously practised in Paris at all times throughout the Middle Ages.

Paris

II. 1450–1600

Paris, §II: 1450–1600

1. Ile de la Cité.

The musical history of Renaissance Paris aptly reflects the principal institutions that dominated cultural and political life there. On the Ile de la Cité, historically the centre of ecclesiastical and secular governance, the cathedral of Notre Dame and the Ste Chapelle du Palais (parish church of the nearby royal residence in Paris) continued to be important centres of musical production. In the late 15th century the royal courts of Charles VIII and Louis XI spent considerable parts of the year travelling among various châteaux of the Loire valley, but by about 1500 Paris had become a more regular place of royal residence and a centre of artistic patronage.

A musician working in the royal maison of King François I (1515–47), for instance, would by ancient convention have belonged to one of three separate departments of this suitably vast (but surprisingly mobile) juggernaut of official attendants: a staff of domestic servants (the chambre), clerics and singers charged with the observance of sacred liturgy (the chapelle), and officials for public ceremony and military protection (the écurie). Each of these administrative divisions carried with it an implied set of social circumstances, constraints whose operation can at times be detected in the music of those who sang and played at court.

The royal chambre of the 1530s and 40s included a small vocal ensemble and several instrumentalists, musicians who were above all prized as interpreters of the French chansons, dance music and instrumental solos that served as private musical entertainment for the king and his guests. Among this group were several Italian players, including the famous Mantuan lutenist Alberto da Ripa, whose contrapuntal skill and extraordinary feeling for the sonorous qualities of his instrument were held in high regard by the princes and prelates for whom he played. But if Ripa enjoyed a pre-eminent reputation among patrons and literati of the early 16th century, it was not until after both his death and the death of his royal patron that his music was made available to the general public, edited (with permission of the new king, Henri II, who ruled between 1547 and 1559) by Guillaume Morlaye, one of the great lutenist’s pupils, in collaboration with the printing firm of Fezandat. In a dedicatory epistle to Henri, Morlaye justified the patent commercialism of the venture by offering lavish praise for French monarchs – including two of ‘the most noble, virtuous and magnanimous kings in Europe’, namely François I and Henri II, who had until now carefully guarded Albert’s music as a private domain. Appropriating this formerly secret and socially restricted art as an object of profit and commodity for public enjoyment, Morlaye’s print hints at the growing interdependence of aristocratic Patronage and bourgeois commerce. If printers came to rely on princes for protection from competition, rulers looked to the press for the ready means to promote the princely virtue of their sponsorship of private music.

Whereas music in the royal chambre was directed principally at the creation of personal and private meanings for aristocratic audiences, that of the écurie was aimed at the ceremonial and political requirements of the monarchy as it faced a wide French public. The subtle blend of a small vocal ensemble and the quiet resonance of the lute had no place in the écurie, where the musical forces consisted of outdoor instrumentalists: drummers and pipers attached to the military guard plus trumpeters and shawm players (including some Italian instrumentalists) who played during large social dances and public processions. Complementing gesture and visual spectacle, their playing called attention in sound to the sort of flamboyant display that accompanied elevated status. When Henri II and Catherine de’ Medici made their official entry into the city of Paris as King and Queen of France in 1549, for example, the accompanying spectacle would have been the envy of any aristocratic couple. The procession from the Porte St Denis to Notre Dame and the nearby royal palace involved thousands of participants – cavalry, merchants, civic officials, scholars, courtiers and princes.

In addition to their ensembles of public and private musicians, French monarchs seem to have had several church choirs in their direct service. By the 1530s François’ own chapelle was by far the largest of his musical organizations, an institution boasting nearly three dozen adult singers (plus choirboys) divided between two specialist choirs – one for liturgical plainchant and another for musique, or polyphonic compositions. The Ste Chapelle du Palais, not far from the royal Parisian residence, also had its own professional choir, an organization that, like the king’s chapel, was very much at the centre of musical life under the French monarchs. Many of the composers active in these establishments were also the same composers who figured prominently in the early production of the royal music printer, Pierre Attaingnant. Claudin de Sermisy (c1490–1562) had been a minor cleric at the Ste Chapelle long before his appointment to the rank of sous-maître in the royal chapel (in practice he was the musical director, although the titular leadership of the group was in the hands of an aristocrat, Cardinal François de Tournon), where from the 1530s until his death he held a prestigious canonical post. Pierre Certon, a close contemporary of Sermisy, began musical service in Paris at Notre Dame, but later joined the Ste Chapelle as a clerc and then as maître des enfants, a post he held from 1536 until his death in 1572. Like Sermisy, Certon enjoyed the favour of several French monarchs, who conferred upon him the title of chantre de la chapelle du Roy and compositeur de musique de la chapelle du Roy. Either or both of these positions may have been purely honorific, but the distinction suggests the prestige and enduring protection that French rulers lavished on their favourite composers and singers, among whom are counted not only Sermisy and Certon, but a series of other important French musicians of the 16th century: Jean Conseil, Antonius Divitis, Mathieu Gascongne, Jean Richafort, Pierre Sandrin [Regnault], Antoine Mornable, Nicolas de La Grotte, Jean Maillard, Guillaume Costeley and Eustache Du Caurroy. Indeed, the pursuit of ecclesiastical offices for musicians prompted François I, like other French kings before him, to intercede with ecclesiastical authorities on behalf of his singers in order to obtain for them benefices or other canonical appointments, not only in Paris, but throughout the kingdom. Notre Dame de Paris serves as a case in point, for although it was to an unusual degree a cathedral built and maintained through the beneficence of a clerical élite, royal patronage was also important there. Royal foundations for the construction and maintenance of buildings and of services, such that, in Craig Wright’s view, the sanctuary of Notre Dame was increasingly appropriated as ‘a stage from which to project to his numerous subjects a positive image of the most Christian King’ (Wright, 1989). The abbey of St Denis, just beyond the confines of the city of Paris itself, was yet another locus to enjoy royal musical and ecclesiastical patronage.

Paris, §II: 1450–1600

2. The Ville.

Elsewhere in Paris, too, were important centres of aristocratic musical patronage. The Hôtel (now Musée) de Cluny on the left bank of the Seine, Parisian residence of the powerful Cardinal Jean de Lorraine, doubtless served as a locus of musical activity. A prodigious patron of music and the other arts, Jean is known to have a band of Italian instrumentalists in his service, and for a time to have been a protector of Alberto da Ripa. Indeed, throughout the 16th century members of the Lorraine-Guise family collaborated with each other and with the royal household as patrons of music and musicians. Jacques Arcadelt, the northern composer who had worked in the Italian peninsula during the 1540s, returned to Paris in the entourage of Cardinal Charles de Lorraine (nephew of Jean), and eventually became a member of the royal musical household there. Pierre Clereau and Pierre Sandrin, too, enjoyed the protection of the powerful and widely travelled Guise clan, and it seems significant that these two composers, along with Arcadelt, were among the first to pursue the implications of Ronsard’s classicizing poetics. Another important venue for the nascent air de cour was the Parisian musical and literary salon of Catherine de Clermont, the Comtesse de Retz, which boasted an impressive range of musical visitors and an equally impressive collection of instruments.

In addition to the various observances endowed by the ruling élite, many other religious communities in Paris also used music for devotional purposes. In the late 16th century, for instance, a Jesuit college there legislated against overly complex sacred polyphony and the use of instruments in the liturgy. French Protestants, too, directed vocal music towards pious aims. Claude Goudimel, a composer central to the development of the Huguenot polyphonic psalter, was active in Paris through the 1550s and 1560s, at first as a member of the university community and then as an editor to the Du Chemin publishing firm. He was killed in the anti-Protestant violence that shook Paris in 1572. Claude Le Jeune, too, wrote music for Protestant audiences in late 16th-century Paris. According to Mersenne, Le Jeune’s Dodecacorde (a collection of psalm settings organized according to Zarlino’s disposition of the 12 melodic modes that was first printed in 1598) was still in manuscript form when the composer fled Paris in the anti-Huguenot riots of 1590, and was saved for later publication by Jacques Mauduit, a friend of the composer.

Elsewhere in Paris citizens might encounter music to entertain rather than edify or inspire. The parish church of St Merry on the right bank of the Seine, for instance, was the site of the Confrérie de St Julien-des-Ménétriers, the religious organization of the minstrels of Paris. Founded during the 14th century, the corporation and its confraternity periodically chose from among their ranks a leader, the roi or maître des ménétriers, whose title was summarily approved by the King of France. This chief minstrel, by authority of his guild and the throne, oversaw the rules of conduct and contract by which all members of this popular band of Parisian players were obliged to abide. Musical standards, too, were enforced by the organization, and no doubt some of the dance tunes, arrangements and variation techniques promoted in printed books and manuals by musicians such as Claude Gervaise (for the royal printer Attaingnant) and Jean d’Estrée (for the printer Du Chemin) derived from the traditions of the ménétriers whose administrative locus was in the parish of St Merry. With so much performing in evidence, it should not be surprising that instrument making flourished in the city; some 70 builders are known by name from the period 1540–1610. Inventories reveal that a single builder might have as many as 600 instruments of all kinds, either finished or in construction, including some that were imported, mainly from Italy.

The Ville was also the centre of theatrical enterprise. As early as the beginning of the 15th century the Confrérie de la Passion used a hall next to the Trinité, near the Porte St Denis, to perform its mystery and morality plays interspersed with farces and sotties; Arnoul Greban’s Vray mistère de la Passion (c1452) is the best-known example. By the 16th century this offshoot of medieval liturgical drama was no longer controlled by the clergy and had become a popular spectacle of dubious moral character, performed by lay actors. Yet the guild did not loosen its control on the revenues but enjoyed a legal monopoly. In 1548 it erected the first Parisian theatre specifically designed as such since Roman times. This playhouse was at the heart of the most populous quarter, near Les Halles and St Eustache, and was known as the Hôtel de Bourgogne. It was occasionally leased out to other companies, particularly the Enfants sans Souci, an amateur group from the milieu of the law courts.

Many of these theatrical performances, which alternatively range among the conventions of moral allegory and political farce, allude to the timbres and texts of monophonic chansons that apparently enjoyed wide circulation among aristocratic and popular urban audiences alike. The texts and tunes of these chansons are known through two important courtly manuscripts of the early 16th century and through later collections of printed poems. Composers such as Antoine de Févin and Jean Mouton, and others closely linked with the Paris and with the French royal court, acknowledged the currency of these tunes, arranging a considerable number of them for three and four voices.

Elsewhere in the city of Paris, music took yet other forms, quite different from either the theatrical chansons of the urban farces or the polyphonic chansons or solo airs of the aristocratic salons and courts. By the 14th century it was customary for sovereigns and other dignitaries to make their formal entrance into Paris via the Porte St Denis, then traverse the length of the rue St Denis to the Châtelet before crossing to the Ile. Certain fixed stations along this route came to be the traditional sites for pageants, tableaux vivants and architectural monuments; the stations were the Porte St Denis, the fountain of the Ponceau, the Trinité, the Porte aux Peintres, the Holy Innocents (near which the fountain decorated by Goujon as a memorial to Henri II’s entry in 1549 still stands), and at the Châtelet. A final pageant station was traditional before the entrance to the Palais Royal on the Ile. These events constituted street theatre in several senses. The populace marvelled at the majesty of the sovereign, who was preceded by trumpets and followed by a magnificent retinue, an awesome sight that Jean Fouquet captured in his fine miniatures (fig.4). Before every pageant station the nobility stopped to witness a spectacle that often included theatrical machinery, speeches, inscriptions and instrumentally accompanied songs and dances, in which the minstrels’ guild participated. Such entertainments were locally planned and financed, being organized at the Hôtel de Ville by the civil authorities of Paris; they were often allegorical jumbles of ancient history, myth, superstition and folklore.

The last two generations of Valois preferred the various Italian troupes of comedians that visited Paris, such as the famous Venetian group known as I Gelosi, invited by Henri III in 1577. They played in the Salle du Petit-Bourbon, which fell into royal hands after the treason of Charles de Bourbon in 1524. Attempts by the guild to exercise its privileges and force the Italians to play in the Hôtel de Bourgogne were foiled by royal opposition. The performances of I Gelosi were the first in which female players appeared in Paris, and they caused as much surprise and delight as the dancing and the almost continuous sounding of music, during the acts and the entr’actes. The all-night performance of the Balet comique de la Royne to an audience of over 9000, staged in the same hall in 1581 (see fig.5) probably also employed such spectacles (see McGowan, 1963).

Paris, §II: 1450–1600

3. The university.

During the 13th to 15th centuries several colleges were founded in the university, the most notable being the one endowed by Robert de Sorbonne in 1257. The university colleges were mostly charitable institutions, and the focus of their teaching was religious doctrine. Many dioceses throughout France established scholarships for several years’ training in one of the Parisian colleges. Each college had a chapel where the students were required to attend daily services and sing chant, in which they were given instruction. But music otherwise had little place in the university, unless it was studied in connection with mathematics. Some of the most learned men of the French Renaissance echoed a largely medieval theoretical heritage when they presented geometric and proportional justifications for elemental intervals of sound. Jacques Le Febvre d’Etaples, professor in the Collège de Cardinal Lemoine (he was also teacher of the Swiss music theorist Heinrich Glarean), published just such a speculative treatise, Musica libris quatuor demonstrata, at Paris in 1496, while Oronce Finé, first professor of mathematics at the Collège de France, wrote a similarly abstract consideration of sound and proportions, the Protomathesis, that appeared in 1532. Not all musical activity in the university community was so abstract, however. Janequin was enrolled as a student there during the years around 1550 (when he was already in his sixth decade), as was Claude Goudimel. Maximilian Guilliaud, whose Rudiments de musique practique was one of several books addressed to young students that the Du Chemin enterprise issued during the 1550s, was himself a member of the Collège de Navarre.

Paris, §II: 1450–1600

4. Music publishing.

The concentration of learning on the Left Bank made the university an unparalleled centre for the diffusion and extension of knowledge. Long before the introduction of the printing press the scriptoria around the colleges supported a vast industry of paper and parchment makers, scribes, illuminators, binders and book-sellers, all organized into guilds, and all subject to the governance of the university. The rector of the Sorbonne introduced printing into France in 1470, importing three German printers; immediately printing presses were so rapidly established throughout the quarter that by 1500 Paris became one of the leading European publishing centres, both in quality and quantity.

The impetus for early printing at the Sorbonne had come from scholars who wished to produce better texts in order to restore the ancient languages and literatures, pagan as well as Judeo-Christian, a peculiarly Renaissance phenomenon. Soon the printing industry was turned to other uses, such as the publication of liturgical service books; Parisian printers were the chief suppliers to the dioceses of northern France and England. The first plainchant printed in France (1494) was inscribed ‘to the masters of the Sorbonne to use in their chapel’. This branch of Parisian printing led to the development of the printing of mensural music. Michel Toulouze, a neighbour of Guerson in the Clos Bruneau, printed chant books and also made some attempts at printing mensural notes in the last years of the 15th century. His edition of Guerson’s Regulae (c1500) was the first of 15 brought out by various publishers until the middle of the 16th century. Pierre Attaingnant began as a liturgical printer in the 1520s with a business and premises in the rue de la Harpe inherited from his father-in-law, Philippe Pigouchet. By 1528 he perfected a method of printing mensural notes from type with a single impression, which made mass-production possible.

Exactly who bought and used any of these books will remain something of a topic for continuing investigation. Among the books issued by Attaingnant, for instance, were volumes of sacred music conceived with audiences at court and in French regional churches clearly in mind. But in addition to these ceremonial or public uses of printed music, it is also evident that the new medium was destined in many instances for private domestic enjoyment. Indeed, not long after its advent in France, printed music books were already to be counted among the most prized personal possessions of urban bureaucrats and merchants. At the time of his death in 1544, for instance, the personal library of Jean de Badonvillier, an official in the Paris chambre des comptes, contained a printed collection of masses, two of Attaingnant’s chanson anthologies, and printed books of motets by Claudin de Sermisy and Johannes Lupi.

François I gave Attaingnant a monopoly on music printing, but at his death (1547) this was broken. Du Chemin set up a shop in the rue St Jean de Latran, followed a few years later by the partnership of Adrian Le Roy and Robert Ballard in the nearby rue St Jean de Beauvais. Issuing dozens of volumes of sacred and secular music, from Arcadelt in the 1550s to Lassus in the 1570s and Le Jeune in the 1580s, the Ballards eventually eliminated all competition and founded a publishing dynasty that was to last for several generations.

The next generation of academically inclined poets and musicians was preoccupied less with the new chanson than with humanist notions of reviving ancient song. Jean Dorat, professor of Greek, gathered around him at the Collège de Coqueret a group of disciples that included Ronsard, Du Bellay, Tyard, Baïf and Etienne Jodelle, the ‘Pléiade’. Ronsard’s Amours (1552) were produced in collaboration with Goudimel, Janequin and Certon, master of the children at the Ste Chapelle. Humanist experiment became more and more apparent in the chansons of the third quarter of the century, leading to the radical solution of musique mesurée. Baïf and the composer J.T. de Courville, its creators, founded an Académie de Poésie et de Musique to propagate the new style in Baïf’s house in the rue des Fossés St Victor (1571). Lassus was sufficiently impressed by the style to attempt it during his visits to Paris (1572–4), when he also wrote the music for the Ballet des polonais, in collaboration with Dorat. After the death of Charles IX (1574) the Académie was increasingly controlled by Henri III, holding its meetings in the Louvre.

The revival of ancient theatre attempted by Jodelle, Baïf, Garnier and Du Bellay (c1550) (erudite attempts to provide the French language with an equivalent to Greek tragedy) aroused no interest at the Hôtel de Bourgogne across the Seine, and its performances eventually took place on improvised stages in the various colleges, or in the provinces. There is perhaps no clearer example of the difference in atmosphere that separated the Ville from the university. Until the late 16th century only a few narrow bridges crossed the Seine; however, Henri III built a great stone bridge of unprecedented width, linking the Ile, Ville and university – the Pont Neuf – and the tripartite division of Paris subsequently became less significant. The religious wars split Paris; after Henri III’s flight to Chartres in 1588 the Guises and the Sainte-Ligues controlled the capital until Henri de Navarre abjured Protestantism in 1593.

Paris

III. 1600–1723

1. General.

2. Religious institutions.

3. Theatres.

4. Orchestras.

5. Private concerts.

Paris, §III: 1600–1723

1. General.

During the 17th century the population of Paris increased from a quarter to over half a million. By 1702 the city had been divided into 20 quarters, whose boundaries remained relatively stable until the Revolution. After Mazarin’s death the medieval face of Paris was changed. ‘It may very well be’, wrote Martin Lister, ‘that Paris is in a manner a new city within this 40 years. ’Tis certain since this King came to the Crown, ’tis so much altered for the better’ (A Journey to Paris in the Year 1698, London, 1699). Perrault’s colonnade of the Louvre (1667–74), Le Nôtre’s Tuileries gardens (1667), Porte St Denis (1672) and Porte St Martin (1674), the Place des Victoires (1686) and the Place Vendôme (1699) all reflect the spirit of the grand siècle.

Colbert, complying with Louis XIV’s passion for order, completed the plans for royal academies that would centralize the artistic and intellectual life of the regime. In 1661 only the Académie Française (established by Richelieu in 1635) and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (1648) existed; Colbert founded five additional academies: the Académie Royale de Danse (1661), Académie des Inscriptions, Médailles et Belles-lettres (1663), Académie des Sciences (1666), Académies d’Opéra (1669, becoming the Académie Royale de Musique in 1672) and Académie Royale d’Architecture (1671).

The quarters of Paris bordering the Right Bank (St Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, Ste Opportune, the Louvre, Les Halles, St Eustache, La Grève, St Martin-des-Champs) were little affected by the city’s rebuilding. They were noisy, crowded and malodorous, with narrow, winding streets and houses built so high that Montesquieu’s Persian deemed them occupied ‘only by astrologers’. Shops of luthiers and harpsichord builders were found there, and many dancing masters and instrumentalists belonging to the Confrérie de St Julien-des-Ménétriers lived there, especially along the streets bordering the rue St Martin. In the nearby parishes of St Merry, St Nicolas-des-Champs and St Jacques-de-la-Boucherie were the homes of most of the organ makers of Paris.

The Marais was the most fashionable quarter during the first half of the 17th century. Here was the salon précieux of Mlle de Scudéry, and in the Hôtel Carnavelet Mme de Sévigné found ‘bel air, une belle cour, un beau jardin’. In the spacious town houses of the nobility music was an adornment and a mark of distinction; divertissements were performed in the salles or courtyards of the hôtels. Such was the divertissement composed by André Campra in 1697 for the Duke of Sully to honour the Duke of Chartres. Marie de Lorraine, Duchess of Guise, employed 12 singers and several instrumentalists at the Hôtel du Marais (now the Musée des Archives Nationales) on the rue de Chaume. For the last 16 years of her life her composer-in-residence was Marc-Antoine Charpentier, who wrote eight dramatic works for her and many petits motets for performance in her chapel, which adjoined the Grande Salle of her hôtel.

The Marais’ claim to fashionable society was challenged by other quarters. A pleasing stylistic unity characterized Christophe Marie’s development of the Ile St Louis between 1614 and 1646. As early as 1624 Catherine de Vivonne had established her Hôtel de Rambouillet, the headquarters of préciosité, on the rue de l’Oratoire-du-Louvre. With the completion of Richelieu’s Palais du Cardinal in 1634 (known as the Palais Royal from 1643, when Anne of Austria made it her residence) the Marais had a serious rival, and later in the century two more in the neighbouring quarters of St Honoré and Butte St Roch. Describing the Palais Royal section in 1643 Corneille wrote: ‘We must presume from these superb roofs that all the inhabitants are gods or kings’ (Le menteur) – a conceit flattering to the élite who lived there. Men of influence in government, letters and the arts preferred these quarters.

Mazarin’s sumptuous palace, one section of which, the Hôtel de Nevers, was converted into the Bibliothèque Nationale in 1721, set the tone for the rue de Richelieu, which soon became ‘one of the most beautiful and straight streets of Paris’ (G. Brice, A New Description of Paris, 1687). During the reign of Louis XIV this and nearby streets were inhabited by such members of the ‘vile bourgeoisie’ (Saint-Simon) as Colbert and Louvois. Many of this class, prototypes of the 18th-century middle-class entrepreneur, found it distinctly advantageous socially to present concerts in their salons. Monsieur Jourdain (Le bourgeois gentilhomme, Act 2 scene i) was advised to have a concert at his home ‘every Wednesday or Thursday’ if he wanted to be considered a person of quality. From 1715 to 1725 Antoine Crozat, the wealthy treasurer of the Etats du Languedoc, held two weekly concerts at his home on the rue de Richelieu (see fig.8 below).

Because of their central location and proximity to the Opéra these quarters were favoured by both composers and performers. Four of Lully’s houses were in the Palais Royal quarter, and Lalande maintained a large dwelling in the rue Ste Anne, as did the king’s harpsichordist, D’Anglebert. Destouches lived next to the church of St Roch, and Mouret resided in the Place du Palais Royal next to the Café de la Régence from 1717 to 1734. From 1724 until his death François Couperin (ii) lived at the corner of the rue Neuve des Bons Enfants (now rue Radziwill) and the rue des Petits Champs; he may have been acquainted with Rameau, who at the time of his marriage (1726) also lived in the rue des Petits Champs.

Paris, §III: 1600–1723

2. Religious institutions.

In addition to the Chapelle Royale (see §V, 1 below), the churches of Paris frequented by the royalty during the period of Louis XIII and Louis XIV were Notre Dame, St Germain-l’Auxerrois (the parish church of the Louvre), the Ste Chapelle, the chapel of the Tuileries palace, the convent of the Feuillants in the rue de Vauguard and the convent of the Théatins, established on the Quai Malaquais by Mazarin in 1648. The maîtrises of these churches produced conservative music throughout much of this period. However, the two conventual chapels, together with the Augustinians’ chapel in the Place des Victoires and that of the Jesuits in the Faubourg St Antoine, were generally more responsive to secular influences stemming from the air de cour and from opera. Italian influence was especially strong in the chapel of the Théatins, whose priests were called ‘pères du chant’ and whose music was under Lorenzani’s direction from 1685 to at least 1687. The aristocracy flocked to hear his petits motets at regular Wednesday performances, and in November 1685 the Mercure galant complained that the Théatins, ‘under the pretext of devotion to the souls in Purgatory, sang a veritable opera in their church … where seats could be rented for ten sols’.

Many Parisian convents were also known for their musical activities. Antoine Boësset taught the nuns of the abbey of Montmartre and the sweetness of the nuns’ voices at the convent of the Assumption ‘attracted many of the beau monde every Saturday to their litanies’ (Sauval, i, p.470).

The nuns of the abbey of Longchamp were permitted to use singers from the Opéra for the annual Good Friday Tenebrae service. The origin of the ‘Promenades de Longchamp’ may be traced to the great number of fashionable Parisians in attendance at this service for which François Couperin composed his Leçons de ténèbres (c1714).

The Ceremoniale parisiense (1662) gave ecclesiastical sanction to the conservative bias of the Paris churches. The stern voice of the Council of Trent is heard in this document, which warns against using any instrument but the organ in church. Undoubtedly it made some composers reluctant to use obbligato instruments, particularly in masses. Plainchant had been accompanied by the serpent at the Ste Chapelle since 1651, but it was not until the end of the century that Campra was permitted to introduce violins at Notre Dame. The repressive measures of the Ceremoniale were evidently relaxed for special occasions; for the celebration of the birth of the Duke of Burgundy a ‘concert of trumpets, oboes and violins’ began the Vespers at Notre Dame (Mercure galant, October 1682). It is clear from an ordinance of the Archbishop of Paris (1674) that the secularization of religious music, attacked so vehemently by Le Cerf de la Viéville (Comparaison de la musique italienne et de la musique française, 1705), was already in evidence. The ordinance condemned singing profane or secular music in any chapel or church, and ‘inviting others, through tickets or publicity to come and hear the music as though it were a spectacle or theatre performance’.

According to a document (in BrenetM, p.243) given to François Chaperon, his duties as maître de musique at the Ste Chapelle (1679–98) included teaching music to the choirboys, and composing and conducting all music performed. Some of Chaperon’s important predecessors at the Ste Chapelle had been the conservative and quarrelsome Artus Aux-Cousteaux (maître de musique, c1643–51) and three composers who were important to the development of the double chorus motet in France: Formé (canon, 1626–38), Veillot (canon, 1651–8) and Thomas Gobert (canon, 1651–72). From Chaperon’s death in 1698 until his own death in 1704 Charpentier was in control of the considerable musical forces of the Ste Chapelle; he was succeeded by Nicolas Bernier, who remained there until 1726.

Except for Veillot (maître de musique, 1640–43), Campra (1694–1700) and Lallouette (1700–16; 1718–27), those in charge of music at Notre Dame were among the most conservative of French composers; they generally wrote a cappella masses in Renaissance style. Frémart (1625–40) preceded Veillot, who was followed by Cosset (1643–6). The surviving music of Pierre Robert dates from his tenure at the Chapelle Royale rather than his ten-year service at Notre Dame (1653–63). Mignon (maître de chapelle at Notre Dame, 1664–94) wrote six masses, which, with their Lullian homophony and occasional madrigalisms, are generally less conservative than those of his predecessors.

The maîtrise at St Germain-l’Auxerrois was led by the conservative Péchon in the 1640s. More important was Chaperon, who used his position there as a stepping-stone to the Ste Chapelle, and who numbered among his singers Lalande and Marais, both of whom left the maîtrise in 1672. Chaperon was followed by Minoret (who left in 1683), Jean-Baptist Fossart and, finally, Nicolas Bernier (1698–1704) who, like Chaperon, went directly from St Germain to the Ste Chapelle.

Certain Paris churches were important in the development of the French classical organ. Parisian and Norman organ builders such as Valeran Héman, Claude de Villiers, Delaunay, Pierre and Alexandre Thierry, Etienne Enoc, Pierre Desenclos and Robert Clicquot created a type of organ which became standardized by the late 1660s and remained so for a century. The typical four-manual classical French organ is exemplified by those at Notre Dame, St Louis-des-Invalides, St Paul, St Germain-des-Prés, St Merry and St Gervais. Among the more important Paris organists, who composed music ideally suited to the unique colour combinations of this instrument, are: Louis Couperin (St Gervais, 1653–61); Du Mont (St Paul, 1643–84); Etienne Richard (St Nicolas-des-Champs and, after 1652, St Jacques-de-la-Boucherie); Nivers (St Sulpice, 1654–1714); Lebègue (St Merry, 1664–1702); Gigault (St Honoré, St Martin-des-Champs, St Nicolas-des-Champs and the Hôpital du Saint Esprit); Raison (abbey of Ste Geneviève, 1666–1714, and the convent of the Jacobins, rue St Jacques, 1687–1719); François Couperin (ii) (St Gervais, 1685–1723); Louis Marchand (Jesuit College, 1689, St Benoît, St Honoré, 1703–7, and the convent of the Cordeliers, 1717–32); Louis Nicolas Clérambault (St Sulpice, 1714, and the convent of the Jacobins, rue St Jacques, 1719), Jean-François Dandrieu (St Merry, 1704); Dagincourt (Ste Madeleine-en-la-Cité, 1701–6); Dornel (Ste Madeleine-en-la-Cité, 1706–16, and the abbey of Ste Geneviève, 1716) and Daquin (Petit St Antoine, 1706, St Paul, 1727, and the convent of the Cordeliers, 1732). The Ceremoniale parisiense, in the hierarchical spirit of the age, lay down careful rules for Parisian organists (see Dufourcq, 1955) which partly explain the uniform style of the organ music by many of these composers.

The Jesuit institutions in Paris played a leading role in the musical life of the city from 1603, the date of their recall, until the suppression of the order in 1761. The Jesuit church of St Louis in the Marais quarter had a sumptuous gallery, and was an ideal place to hear the masses and motets of Charpentier (appointed musical director c1684). The Collège de Clermont (founded in 1561 and known as the Collège Louis-le-Grand after 1683) was a Jesuit school in the rue St Jacques for the sons of wealthy Parisians. One of the two annual spectacles performed there marked the completion of a year’s work early in August; it included a Latin tragedy and French intermèdes that often related to the tragedy, and beginning in 1684, sacred tragédies en musique were composed for the occasion. The most important of these is Charpentier’s David et Jonathas (1688). Among other composers serving this college were Lalande, Collasse, Campra, Lallouette, Desmarets, Clérambault, Beauchamps and Royer.

Paris, §III: 1600–1723

3. Theatres.

Parisian theatres were in a precarious position during the 17th century because of changes in taste, lack of royal support, jealous rivalries, repressive patents and poor financial management. However, at various times between the establishment of Molière’s company in Paris (1658) and that of Lully’s Académie Royale de Musique (1672) Parisians were offered a wide variety of entertainment at a number of theatres: the Hôtel de Bourgogne (now 29 rue Etienne Marcel); the Petit Bourbon, located approximately where the colonnade of the Louvre now stands; two theatres in the Palais Royal; the Théâtre du Marais (now 90 rue Vieille du Temple); the Salle des Machines in the Tuileries palace; and the Académie d’Opéra, erected on the Bouteille tennis court which extended from the rue de Seine (now no.42) to the rue des Fossés-de-Nesles (now 43 rue Mazarine), opposite the rue de Guénégaud.

At the Hôtel de Bourgogne a permanent company was formed in 1629 to play tragedies. In the same year the king awarded the company an annual grant of 12,000 livres, double the amount later given to the Marais and the Palais Royal. The king granted the Petit Bourbon to Molière and his comedians in 1658 and later (1661) also the larger of the theatres in the Palais Royal.

Molière’s Palais Royal company achieved its greatest success in elaborate performances of the Molière–Lully comédies-ballets for the court at Versailles, St Germain-en-Laye, Fontainebleau and Chambord. Molière’s final comédie-ballet, Le malade imaginaire, had music by Charpentier, being written after Molière’s break with Lully; though planned for the court, it was performed at the Palais Royal. On Molière’s death (1673) his Palais Royal company merged with that of the Théâtre du Marais to form the Théâtre Guénégaud, in the same theatre that had housed the Académie d’Opéra.

Charpentier provided music for the Théâtre Guénégaud and its successor the Comédie-Française, formed by an amalgamation with the Hôtel de Bourgogne company at the command of Louis XIV in 1680. Between Charpentier’s 1673 and 1685 versions of Le malade imaginaire he composed music for 14 productions of plays by Thomas and Pierre Corneille, Donneau de Visé, Poisson, Baron and Dancourt. Other composers who worked for the Comédie-Française were Gillier, Grandval, Raison, Lalande, Mouret and Jean-Baptiste Quinault.

Sauval found the Petit Bourbon theatre, dating from the days of the Valois kings, the ‘highest and longest [hall] in the realm’. Until its demolition in 1660, to make way for Perrault’s colonnade, this hall served both Molière’s company and the Comédie-Italienne. The court ballets, balls and masquerades of Louis XIII and the young Louis XIV took place there, as well as in the Grande Salle of the Louvre, the Grande Salle of the Tuileries Palace, the Palais Royal (See fig.7) and the salles of the Hôtel de Ville and the Arsenal. The Ballet comique de la reine (1581) and two of the seven Italian operas introduced to Paris by Mazarin were performed at the Petit Bourbon (Sacrati’s La finta pazza, 1645, and Caproli’s Le nozze di Peleo e di Theti, 1654).

From 1634 to 1673 the Théâtre du Marais (capacity 1500) responded to the French taste for elaborate mises-en-scene in productions of pièces à machines. In Corneille’s Andromède Dassoucy’s music functions only to ‘satisfy the ears of the spectators while the eyes are engaged watching the descent or ascent of a machine’ (preface). Closer to opera is Claude Boyer’s Les amours de Jupiter et de Sémélé (1666), in which spoken drama is subordinated to dance, machine and Mollier’s music.

Another theatre designed to support huge machinery was known as the Théâtre des Machines. The septuagenarian architect Gaspare Vigarani and his two sons built it between 1659 and 1662 in the Tuileries palace for Mazarin, who died before its completion. Cavalli’s Ercole amante was performed there in 1662 as a posthumous finale to Mazarin’s ill-fated efforts to win the French over to Italian opera. This hall, according to Sauval, could accommodate 7000 people, and its stage machinery could elevate more than 100 performers at once. It was an immense failure; in 1665 Bernini expressed the general complaint that no-one could hear anything at all. After great expense, three years of construction and six years of use, it ceased regular performances.

Perrin’s short-lived Académie d’Opéra opened on 3 March 1671 with his and Cambert’s Pomone, usually considered the first French opera. The theatre was fashioned from the Bouteille tennis court in the rue des Fossés de Nesles (today 42 rue Mazarine). After a series of misadventures had led him to a debtors’ prison Perrin sold his privilege (which he had held since 1669) to Lully, and on 1 April 1672 the Académie d’Opéra was forced to close.

The first two productions of Lully’s new Académie Royale de Musique (Les fêtes de l’Amour et de Bacchus, 15 November 1672, and Cadmus et Hermione, 27 April 1673) were performed in a theatre built hastily by Carlo Vigarani at the Bel Air tennis court on the rue de Vaugirard (now between the Odéon theatre and the Luxembourg gardens). After Molière’s death Lully was given the theatre of the Palais Royal free of charge (28 April 1673). With the 3000 livres given to him by the king, Lully instructed Vigarani to prepare the Palais Royal for the production of operas. This was completed early in 1674. The Palais Royal is the most important theatre in the history of the French lyric stage during the grand siècle. Cavalli’s Egisto (‘we were only 20 or 30 and we almost died of boredom and the cold’, Mme de Motteville) and Luigi Rossi’s Orfeo were performed there in 1646 and 1647 respectively. In 1651 Louis XIV made his début as a dancer there, in the Ballet de Cassandre, and from 1661 to 1673 the theatre served Molière’s company and the Comédie-Italienne alternately. It was the home of French opera from 1673 until it burnt down in 1763; from 1673 until the death of the Regent Philippe, Duke of Orléans, in 1723, over 100 stage works were performed there, including the 13 tragédies en musique by Lully and works in the same genre by Collasse, Campra, Destouches, Mouret and others. From 1697 (L’Europe galante) popular opéras-ballets by Campra, Montéclair and Mouret challenged the supremacy of the tragédie en musique and, in spite of some opposition from aestheticians, returned the comic muse to the stage of the Palais Royal.

Built by Le Mercier and opened in 1641, the theatre was much longer than it was wide (fig.7). By Lully’s time it had a parterre, an amphitheatre, a double balcony and three rows of boxes (the king’s box was first on the right facing the stage, and the queen’s first on the left; see Opera, fig.35). The theatre was cramped. Lagrave (p.86) estimated that its capacity was between 1300 and 1400, although it contained only 1270 seats. Its stage was small. Riccoboni wrote: ‘The Decorations of the Stage of the Opera are very handsome, but not to be compared with those of Italy, the Smallness of the Stage not admitting of their being either so large or so magnificent as those of the vast Theatres of Venice, Milan, etc’. (1741, p.152). The price of admission was double that of the other theatres (see Lagrave, pp.46ff). Performances began at 5.15 on Tuesdays, Thursdays (only in winter), Fridays and Sundays, and it was closed for 23 days during the Easter season and for 11 days for other religious feasts. The printed libretto (livret) was sold at the door of the theatre before each performance. It cost 30 sols.

In 1712 Louis XIV ordered the construction of an annexe to the Académie Royale de Musique, rue St Nicaise. Known as the Magasin de l’Opéra, it contained a school of singing, a school of dance, administrative offices, a library, rehearsal halls and a ballroom. The rules governing all the activities of the Académie Royale de Musique are fully described in two royal ordinances of 1713 and 1714 (in Durey de Noinville, i, pp.105–46); they reveal an administration generally sensitive to the needs of the singers, dancers, instrumentalists, conductors, stage designers, machinists and tailors employed by the Opéra. There were six sopranos, three hautes-contres, two tenors and three basses among the solo singers. It is not possible to fix the exact number of choristers at the Paris Opéra during Lully’s tenure. The names of the chorus members did not appear in the librettos until 1699. The fluctuating numbers in the first decade of the 18th century (30 in 1701, 22 in 1704, 32 in 1706) reflect the economic woes of the Opéra under the direction of Jean-Nicolas de Francine, Lully’s son-in-law (see La Gorce 1979, p.177). The dancers consisted of 12 men and 10 women (for details concerning the Opéra orchestra, see below).

Lully’s original privilege (March 1672) gave him administrative control of the Académie Royale de Musique for his lifetime and extended this to his heirs. His son-in-law Francine shared the privilege with Hyacinthe Gaureault du Mont in 1698. Problems of finance and discipline plagued the opera in the early 18th century, and in 1713 Destouches was appointed inspecteur-général to maintain order and discipline. When Francine retired in 1728 Destouches took over as director of the opera. In 1715, with the permission of the regent, the Académie Royale de Musique sponsored all-night public masked balls at the Palais Royal; these rapidly became a favourite pastime in Paris (see Durey de Noinville, i, p.164).

The Comédie-Italienne had been popular since its arrival in the city during the reign of Henri III. The troupe, led by Scaramouche, alternated with Molière’s company at the Petit Bourbon and, after 1660, at the Palais Royal. On the creation of the Comédie-Française (1680) the Italians took over the Hôtel de Bourgogne, where they performed until they were deported in May 1697 for having satirized Mme de Maintenon in La fausse prude (8 January 1696). The repertory of this so-called Ancien Théâtre Italien (see Gherardi) included many parodies of Lully’s operas. Of the 55 plays mentioned in Gherardi 43 use music extensively, despite the fact that Lully’s patent of 22 April 1673 had reduced the number of musicians who might appear in any performance outside the Académie Royale de Musique to two vocalists and six instrumentalists. Among the identified composers who wrote for the Ancien Théâtre Italien are Lully, Cambert, Masse and Gillier.

By 1680 Paris had only three regular theatre companies: the Opéra, the Comédie-Française and the Comédie-Italienne. Each competed for public favour and jealously guarded its monopolies. Nowhere may the arrogance of power be better observed than in the attempts of the Opéra and the Comédie-Française to suppress the popular entertainments at the Théâtres de la Foire.

The Foire St Germain (3 February to Palm Sunday) and the Foire St Laurent (17 June to the end of September) had been the scene of farces and acrobatic displays since the Middle Ages; however, they became a threat to the Opéra and the Comédie-Française only in 1697, when they adopted the repertory of the expelled Comédie-Italienne (see Théâtres de la Foire). The early years of the 18th century saw the Opéra and the Comédie-Française involved in a series of legal battles aimed at preventing the forains from speaking or singing on their stages. It is a tribute to the imagination of creative men and women that the Théâtres de la Foire (who took the name of Opéra-Comique in 1715) found ways of circumventing the repressive edicts of their powerful rivals.

Philippe of Orléans became regent in 1715, and lost no time in calling the Italians back to Paris. In 1716 the Nouveau Théâtre Italien was established at the Palais Royal under the direction of Luigi Riccoboni (known as Lélio). French plays by Autreau, Marivaux, Fuzelier and others were introduced into the repertory side by side with comedies by Riccoboni and parodies by Dominique and Romagnesi. From 1717 until the year before his death in 1738 Mouret was the chief composer of the Nouveau Théâtre Italien.

Paris, §III: 1600–1723

4. Orchestras.

The most important orchestra in Paris from the foundation of the Académie Royale de Musique to the death of the regent was the orchestra of the Opéra. Precise information concerning its membership under the direction of Lully is lacking. The earliest known source that gives information about the Opéra orchestra is an archival document of 1704 (La Gorce, 1979). The orchestra, like the chorus, was divided into a grand and petit choeur. The grand choeur consisted of nine violins, eight violas (divided into three parts), eight basses de violons (after 1700 usually violoncellos), eight winds (oboes, transverse flutes or, more usually, recorders and bassoons) and one set of kettledrums. The petit choeur consisted of two violins, two basses de violons, two bass viols and (after 1700) one double bass, one harpsichord and two theorbos. According to the Royal Ordinances of 1713 and 1714, two transverse flutes were added to the petit choeur. Supernumeraries must have been hired to play the trumpet, musette and cromorne parts occasionally called for in Lully’s operas. A batteur de mesure directed the orchestra. According to the Royal Ordinance of 1713, the Opéra orchestra had 48 members (Durey de Noinville, i, 121ff), a number that hardly varied for half a century. Members of the Opéra orchestra were often used in concerts independent of the opera performances at the Palais Royal. 30 members gathered half an hour before dancing began at the public masked balls to present a concert of ‘important morceaux de Symphonie by the best masters’. Once a year, on St Louis Eve (24 August), free public concerts for the city of Paris were given in the Tuileries gardens by vocalists and instrumentalists from the Académie and were attended by the king. The repertory was largely made up of overtures, dances and large choral sections from Lully’s operas (see BrenetC, p.169). After Lully’s death the Opéra orchestra was conducted by Marais (1695–1710), Lacoste (1710–14), Mouret (1714–18) and Jean-Féry Rebel (1718–33).

Hidden in the notarial contracts of the Minutier Central are references to two Paris chamber orchestras dating from the first years of Louis XIV’s reign (see Dufourcq, 1954). The first, founded in 1656, was a string orchestra of 12 players under the direction of Léonard de Lorge, which gave a concert lasting an hour every Saturday. The second was a string orchestra of 11 players, dating from 1667, whose concerts were given on Wednesdays under the direction of Henry Mathieu.

From the Middle Ages the street musicians of Paris had been organized in various guilds. In the 17th century the minstrels’ guild, the Confrérie de St Julien-des-Ménétriers, was the powerful and paternalistic protector of the ‘dancing-masters and players of instruments both high and low and the oboes’ of Paris. The articles governing the syndicate assured a remarkable degree of protection for its members, who were hired to perform for weddings, engagement parties, banquets, masquerades, street serenades and formal concerts. The leader of the Confrérie was known as the roi des ménétriers, and later as the roi des violons. By the middle of the 17th century many of the Confrérie’s better players were absorbed into the 24 Violons, the Petits Violons, the Ecurie or the Opéra orchestra and its influence began to decline, although as late as 1660 Guillaume Dumanoir (i), then roi des violons, had 200 performers under his command. In that year the dancing-masters declared their independence from the Confrérie and a year later established their own Académie Royale de Danse. Guillaume Michel Dumanoir, who took control of the Confrérie in 1668, tried in vain to bring ‘composers, organists and masters of the harpsichord’ under the jurisdiction of his syndicate. The king’s organists Lebègue, Nivers, Buterne and François Couperin, with the authority of the king behind them, removed the threat of control by the Confrérie (Lettres patentes, 25 June 1707); the syndicate became the butt of musical jokes, such as Couperin’s ‘Les fastes de la grande et ancienne Mxnxstrxndxsx’ (Ordre no.11).

Paris, §III: 1600–1723

5. Private concerts.

The journals, gazettes, almanachs, letters and memoirs of the 17th and early 18th centuries document the active concert life of the haut monde of Parisian society, embracing both the nobility and the middle class. Jacques de Gouy, unfamiliar with either the earlier concerts of Mauduit at Baïf’s Académie de Poésie et de Musique or the concerts of voices and instruments, of viols and harpsichord and of lutes described by Mersenne, believed the ‘first concerts’ to have been some concerts spirituels given before 1650 in the home of the king’s organist, Pierre Chabanceau de La Barre (iii). At the end of the 17th century another series of concerts spirituels, organized weekly by Abbé Mathieu in his presbytery at St André-des-Arts, helped to popularize the music of Luigi Rossi, Cavalli, Carissimi, Corelli, Cazzati and other Italian composers.

In 1641 Chambonnières began the popular series of midday concerts given by the ‘Assemblée des Honestes Curieux’ on Wednesdays and Saturdays at his home. Titon du Tillet recorded that Sainte-Colombe, violist and teacher of Marais, gave family concerts in which he and his two daughters played viols. Christian Huygens wrote to his father in glowing terms about the concerts given by ‘Monsieur Lambert and Mlle Hilaire, his sister-in-law, who sings like an angel’. Some concerts seem to have been particularly ambitious. In December 1678 the Mercure galant described the concerts ‘in the manner of small operas’ given by Mollier at his home every Thursday, and Dangeau stated that the music-loving Princess of Conti had a performance of Alceste mounted in her home.

Towards the end of the reign of Louis XIV Paris took the place of Versailles as a musical centre; the town house or country château substituted for the centralized court. By the end of the regency (1723), according to Nemeitz, one could hear a concert every day in Paris; he specifically mentioned concerts ‘at the homes of the Duke of Aumont, Ambassador to England … Abbé Grave, Mlle de Maes, who ordinarily gave one a week; and then at the home of Mons Clérambault, who gave one about every 15 days or three weeks’.

Paris

IV. 1723–89

During the 18th century French became established as the universal language of Europe’s educated classes, and Paris provided the lead in most cultural matters. The one exception was music, where the influence of Italian and German musicians proved increasingly crucial across Europe as the century progressed. In addition to its reputation for taste and elegance, 18th-century Paris was one of the most active intellectual centres of Europe, matched only by London and Amsterdam. Home to the Encyclopedists – Diderot, D’Alembert, Rousseau, Grimm and d’Holbach – the French capital provided ample scope for the discussion and dissemination of ideas through its numerous salons frequented by a cosmopolitan society. Here the revolution in beliefs took place. The second half of the century witnessed the rapid growth of pamphlets and periodicals and of music publishing and engraving. Firms like Sieber, Boivin, La Chevardière and, later, Pleyel issued music of French, German and Italian origin and developed close links with publishing firms in other European cities. The capital’s expansion, evident in the growth in population and in a vast array of new buildings, meant that Paris gradually replaced Versailles as a focus for intellectual and cultural activities. As these transferred from the court to Parisian town houses or to country mansions, so musical patronage shifted away from the king, eroding the power of royal authority established so pervasively by Louis XIV.

1. Religious institutions.

2. Concert life.

3. Theatres.

Paris, §IV: 1723–89

1. Religious institutions.

Sacred choral music continued to be written in Paris through the 18th century, although after 1725 it developed principally at the Concert Spirituel rather than in the churches. The noble grand motet Versaillais, embodied in the works of Lalande, endured for another 50 years, but after 1740, stimulated by paying audiences and the influence of opera and instrumental music, Mondonville and others began to introduce tuneful melodies, crowd-pleasing virtuosity and colourful instrumental effects into the genre. With this new popular element motets flourished in churches and on stage for much of the century, although they were out of favour in Paris by the time of the Revolution.

Few churches actually had the resources for choral music, chant generally being considered sufficient. Many visitors remarked on this, including William Jones, in 1777:

‘In the services of their church, they seldom practise more than the plain song, accompanied in the unison or octave by a leathern serpent …. I asked, how it happened that they did not affect harmony more, and sing in parts, as we do in the services of the choir? They answered, that it was purposely avoided, lest the people should bestow all their attention to the music, and forget their errand to the church.’

Churches that continued a tradition of choral music – notably Notre Dame, the Ste Chapelle and St Germain l’Auxerrois, and the Holy Innocents – continued to celebrate major feast days with motets and masses, but they could no longer boast maîtres like Charpentier, Campra and Bernier. Two of the maîtres who held posts at these churches in the second half of the century are important: François Giroust, maître at the Saints-Innocents, converted his popularity at the Concert Spirituel into a post at the Chapelle Royale; Jean-François Le Sueur achieved notoriety at Notre Dame before moving to the world of opera.

Churches invariably drew large audiences for special musical events, which were always well advertised. Mrs Cradock writes of paying about a shilling each to get good seats for Pentecost Mass at Notre Dame, and sending a servant to hold them in advance. Mercier says that Vespers, the most popular service, was dubbed l’opéra des gueux (beggars’ opera). It was so fashionable at the Saints-Innocents under Abbé Roze that in 1778 the poor were excluded, and the archbishop had to intervene. Le Sueur created a storm of controversy in 1787 when he tried to convert major church feasts at Notre Dame into spectacular musical productions. He drew in huge crowds but subsequently lost his job. A popular annual event was St Cecilia’s day at St Mathurin, which the city’s musicians turned into a musical extravaganza.

By the middle of the century the severe liturgical organ tradition of Lebègue, Nivers, Couperin and Grigny had been supplanted by a more decorative style, associated with Marchand, Dandrieu, Clérambault and Du Mage. After an organ was installed at the Concert Spirituel in 1748, the trend towards concert use of the instrument increased, and a new generation of virtuosos emerged. They filled their masses and Vespers with dances, theatrical airs and elaborate variations, especially on the Magnificat and Te Deum. Although this development is lamented by modern scholars (as it was by English and German visitors at the time), organists have rarely enjoyed such popularity. Daquin was renowned for his noëls, as was G.-A. Calvière for his sonic effects. Balbastre attracted so many listeners to St Roch that his messes de minuit and Te Deums were forbidden by the archbishop; a similar ban was imposed at St Germain-des-Prés.

Paris, §IV: 1723–89

2. Concert life.

Paris cultivated an active concert life from the earliest years of the 18th century, although many events were patronized by the upper echelons of society only. About 1730 the German traveller Nemitz referred, in his Séjour de Paris (in F-Pn), to private events organized at the homes of several illustrious patrons, including the premier gentilhomme and English ambassador the Duc d’Aumont, the Prince de Conti Louis-Armand de Bourbon, and Antoine Crozat, grand trésorier of the Ordre du Saint-Esprit, and his brother Pierre (see fig.8). The Concert Italien, which developed from the Crozats’ private concerts, was established in 1724 by Mme de Prie and offered twice-weekly subscription concerts, initially in the Salle du Louvre and from 1726 at the Palais des Tuileries. These, however, were eclipsed by a venture established at a similar time and destined to become the century’s most famous concert institution, the Concert Spirituel.

Founded by Anne Danican Philidor, the Concert Spirituel presented its inaugural concert on 18 March 1725 and quickly established a reputation as an important forum for new music and platform for virtuosos of all nationalities. Philidor was granted the privilege by the Opéra to stage concerts of instrumental and sacred music (to Latin texts) on religious feast days when theatres were closed, using the Opéra’s own orchestra and soloists; other singers were drawn from the Chapelle Royale and from Parisian churches. The use of French and the performance of operatic scenes were not allowed. Various infringements occurred, particularly from the beginning of 1728 when concerts incorporating secular French music were staged twice a week. This was also the year when Philidor transferred his privilege to Jean-Joseph Mouret, Michel de Lanny and Pierre Simard, who carried out their duties until the Opéra assumed control in 1734.

Concerts were given until 1784 in the specially prepared Salle des Suisses at the Tuileries. The return of Louis XVI to the palace necessitated a move to the Salle des Machines where the acoustics and décor were far inferior. Others occurred in 1789, one year before the Concert Spirituel was disbanded, first to the Salle Favart and then to the Opéra’s new home at the Théâtre de la Porte-St-Martin.

Marie Antier and Catherine Lemaure were among the Opéra’s soloists to appear during the early years of the enterprise; they were followed by Marie Fel, Pierre Jélyotte and, later, by Joseph Legros (who took over the directorship in 1777), Sophie Arnould and Rosalie Levasseur. The vocal repertory of the Concert Spirituel included motets (grands motets by Lalande were particularly popular), cantatas, airs italiens and, from the mid-century, French oratorios. Italian singers appeared as early as 1726: first Giovanni Battista Palmerini then Domenico Annibali, Maria Monza and, most notably, Caffarelli, who sang two Italian ariettes on 5 November 1753. The German tenor Anton Raaff appeared in nine concerts in 1778. Native and foreign instrumentalists contracted by the Concert Spirituel included a host of talented violinists, among them Jean-Baptiste Anet and Jean-Pierre Guignon (who indulged in a contest in 1725) and Jean-Marie Leclair. Parisian audiences were introduced to a variety of Italian sonatas and concertos, and these not only encouraged the dissemination of Italian music in the French capital but also accelerated the transition to the Italian-style violin. Works were often executed by their composers; failing that, Vivaldi's concertos provided an admirable showpiece. Other instrumentalists included the cellists Jean-Pierre and Jean-Louis Duport, and the flautists Michel Blavet and Pierre-Gabriel Buffardin. The installation of a new organ in 1748 (under Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer’s directorship) led to the popularization of the organ concerto, spearheaded by Claude Balbastre between 1755 and 1762; and in the 1760s the Germans Christian Hochbrucker and Philippe-Jacques Meyer created a new vogue for the harp.

From the middle of the century, instrumental works by German and Austrian composers were incorporated with greater frequency into the repertory of the Concert Spirituel. Symphonies by Johann Stamitz, which were the first to include clarinets in Paris, encouraged the orchestra to expand and led to an interest in the French symphony by composers such as François-Joseph Gossec, Simon Leduc and Joseph Boulogne de Saint-Georges. On 15 August 1762 the orchestra dispensed with their batteur de mesure, Gaviniès leading the first violins and Nicolas Capron the seconds; by 1775, when the directorship was in the hands of Gaviniès, Gossec and Leduc, the orchestra comprised 58 players (there was also a choir of 44 to support 11 soloists) and rehearsals were efficient and well planned. In the intervening period, Mondonville had served as director (1755–62), programming many of his own compositions, followed by the triumvirate Antoine Dauvergne, Gabriel Capperan and Nicolas-René Joliveau. Symphonies by Haydn were heard from 1777 (fig.9), and in 1778 Mozart’s Symphony no.31, k297/300a, received its première. Distinguished soloists in later years included Viotti, Boccherini and Kreutzer.

In 1769 a subscription series known as the Concert des Amateurs was established. Backed financially by the fermier général La Haye and the intendant général Claude-François-Marie Rigoley, Comte d’Ogny, concerts were given weekly between December and March at the Hôtel de Soubise, conducted by Gossec, and these quickly acquired a high reputation. After Gossec moved to the Concert Spirituel, Saint-Georges became chef d’orchestre until the society disbanded in 1781. It was replaced by the Concert de la Loge Olympique, whose venue until 1786 was the Palais Royal and thereafter the Salle des Gardes at the Tuileries. Haydn’s ‘Paris’ symphonies (nos.82–7) were commissioned by d’Ogny and performed by the society during their 1787 season; in 1788, the year before the enterprise ceased, its orchestra numbered 74 and was comparable in size to that of the Opéra.

Throughout the century concert life continued to flourish in the homes of musically inclined members of the aristocracy. Between 1731 and 1762 concerts organized by the fermier général La Riche de La Pouplinière (initially at his Parisian town house and from 1747 at his château in Passy) were well patronized and introduced some of the century’s most important works and performers to the Parisian musical world. La Pouplinière engaged a succession of notable music directors – Rameau, Stamitz and Gossec – and provided opportunities to celebrated and lesser-known musicians of all nationalities. Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie was first performed by La Pouplinière’s musicians; and Gossec recounts how, on the advice of Stamitz, this orchestra was the first to introduce horns on a regular basis. Indeed, many important instrumental works performed at the Concert Spirituel were heard first at La Pouplinière’s. Another notable patron was Louis-François de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, who, from about 1761 to 1771, held gatherings of writers, politicians, philosophers, artists and musicians, and earned the reputation, after La Pouplinière’s death, of hosting the most famous concerts in Paris. Musicians in his employment included Johann Schobert, Jean Joseph Rodolphe, Pierre Vachon, Josef Kohaut and, as chef d’orchestre, Jean-Claude Trial.

Until 1789 Parisian concert life, though one of the richest in Europe, remained mainly the pleasure of a social élite. Occasional open-air celebrations enticed a wider public, but it was not until the Revolution that entertainment for the masses began to develop on any significant scale.

Paris, §IV: 1723–89

3. Theatres.

For much of the 18th century the main Parisian theatres were engaged in a bitter rivalry born of the monopolies established by Louis XIV and the subvention of these by enterprising entrepreneurs. Of the four public theatres, the Opéra enjoyed the highest status and wielded the greatest power. Royal subsidies were also provided for the Comédie-Française and, from 1723, for the Comédie-Italienne (recalled in 1716 after 19 years’ absence): members of both troupes were allowed to style themselves comédiens ordinaires du roi. The unofficial Opéra-Comique, while probably the most popular theatre among Parisians, led the most precarious existence (operating seasonally at the fairs of St Germain and St Laurent) until its merger with the Comédie-Italienne in 1762. It had to contend with the jealousies of its official rivals, was entirely dependent on box-office receipts and was surpressed entirely for certain periods.

Although the impression created by the Opéra was of an illustrious and luxurious theatre, the institution was in reality plagued by financial difficulties for much of the century and pursued the least adventurous programming policy of any Parisian theatre. Far many more old works than new sustained the repertory. At least one opera by Lully was revived each year until 1779, an indication that while Rameau was partially successful in breaking away from the grip of the past, it was Gluck’s impact on the tragédie lyrique in the 1770s and 80s that proved more significant. Once his works were established in the Opéra’s repertory, the challenge from an influx of Italian composers – premières by Piccinni and Sacchini were given alongside performances of works by Paisiello and Anfossi – proved irresistible. The more varied programming and competition this engendered, manifest in the public controversy between Gluckists and Piccinnists, certainly provided a much-needed boost to the Opéra’s revenues, as had the earlier Querelle des Bouffons (1752–4).

For the visitor the Opéra retained much of its splendour and it continued to provide a public setting for the aristocracy. Performances were staged four times a week throughout the year except during Lent. Visitors (though not habitués) were impressed by the machinery and decorations, although some were critical of the theatre’s small capacity (under 1300). When, in 1763, the old rectangular Palais Royal was razed by fire, the company moved temporarily to the enormous Salle des Machines (cap. 8000) at the Tuileries palace. A new theatre, designed by P.-L. Moreau, was built on the original site and opened in 1770. Architectural improvements, including a rounded interior, allowed for better lines of vision to the stage and increased the capacity to 2000. However, fire again destroyed the building, on 8 June 1781; within a few months a new theatre had been constructed near Porte-St-Martin, and this was to remain the Opéra’s home until 1794.

Like the Opéra, the Comédie-Italienne experienced financial problems throughout the century, caused primarily by continual expansion (without a corresponding increase in revenue) but also by the success of the Opéra-Comique. Initial ploys – recruiting playwrights such as Le Sage and Fuzelier from their rivals and relocating to the fairgrounds once their petitions had forced the regular theatres to close (1721–3) – made little difference to long-term fortunes. However, the repertory it presented at the Hôtel de Bourgogne (fig.10 was perhaps the most diverse of all the Parisian theatres, including Italian farces, French plays, ballets, vaudeville comedies and parodies. Particularly successful were Pierre Baurans’ parodies, staged in the 1750s, of Italian pieces heard at the Opéra during the Querelle des Bouffons.

The Opéra-Comique, having survived half a century of vicissitudes, reopened after a seven-year closure in 1752, under the direction of Jean Monnet. The involvement of such figures as Favart, Noverre, Vadé, Dauvergne, Duni and Sedaine brought great success to the venture, prompting sustained machinations by the Comédie-Italienne which led to the merger of the two companies in 1762. The long-term advantage to the Opéra-Comique of playing to audiences throughout the year was offset by the fact that only five of its players were integrated into the new troupe: Laruette, Audinot, Clairval and Mlles Deschamps and Nessel. Attendance revived (most notably on nights when opéras comiques were presented) and the varied repertory continued with certain restrictions: opera in Italian, choruses and recitative were all forbidden. On 28 April 1783 the company moved to a new theatre, the Salle Favart (cap. 1282) designed by J.F. Heurtier. The design was less than perfect and various faults were corrected the following year by C. de Wailly.

The centre of Parisian marketplace entertainment shifted after 1762 to the fashionable Boulevard du Temple which, by 1789, boasted several theatres including the Ambigu-Comique. Many of these maintained the ethos of the fair theatres, performing farces, pantomimes, marionette plays and occasional opéras comiques and providing rigorous competition for the official establishments.

Paris

V. Music at court outside Paris

5. Saint Germain-en-Laye.

Paris, §V: Music at court outside Paris

Marie Leczinksa and her children played several instruments – Mme Henriette was painted by Nattier performing on the bass viol (see Viol, fig.12) – and the queen established concerts (the Concerts de la Reine) that took place in her Grand Cabinet. Programmes included cantatas, motets and instrumental music by Lalande, Leclair, Destouches and Campra, among others, as well as individual acts of operas. Italian musicians were well received, the memoirs of the Duc de Luynes recounting visits by Bordoni, Cuzzoni and Farinelli. More spectacular were the lavish productions staged to celebrate important royal occasions: a hastily erected theatre in the Grande Ecurie served, in 1745, as the venue for Rameau's La princesse de Navarre, commissioned in honour of the dauphin’s marriage to Maria Teresa of Spain (fig.17). Other operas by Rameau received their premières under such circumstances at Versailles.

Mme de Pompadour’s arrival at court highlighted the vogue for amateur theatricals among the aristocracy in the 18th century. In 1747 she launched her Théâtre des Petits Cabinets, initially intended as a social diversion for an intimate gathering of friends in her private apartments (fig.18). In less than two years the growth of her project necessitated a move to a larger venue; with the Duc de la Vallière as director, the librettist Paradis de Moncrif served as sous-directeur, François Rebel as chef d’orchestre and Dehesse as maître de ballet. The company’s repertory began by mixing plays with operas, but musical works came to predominate, particularly those with a pastoral emphasis. In all, 33 different operas were staged, around one third newly commissioned, with Mme de Pompadour generally taking the leading role. Notable premières included Rameau’s Les surprises de l’Amour (1748). Excessive costs led the king to intervene and abandon the enterprise in 1750 – performances continued until 1753 at Bellevue – and in 1761 he ordered that the Chambre be merged with the Chapelle.

The construction of a permanent theatre at Versailles, a project first planned by Louis XIV, was finally realized in 1770 under the direction of the architect A.-J. Gabriel (visiting troupes up until this time had performed in either the Cour des Princes or the Grand Ecurie). The inaugural performance on 16 May of Lully’s Persée celebrated the dauphin’s marriage to Marie Antoinette. After the death of Louis XV in 1774 the new queen resurrected the fashion for amateur performance at her private theatre in the Trianon. Here opéras comiques by important composers of the day were staged, Marie Antoinette taking such leading roles as Jenny (Monsigny’s Le roi et le fermier) and Colette (Rousseau’s Le devin du village).

Paris, §V: Music at court outside Paris

2. Fontainebleau.

The château of Fontainebleau, situated some 70 km south of Paris, originated in the 12th century but was enlarged during the reign of François I (1515–47). The building programme continued during subsequent reigns, and the interior of the château was much enriched by Louis XIII (reigned 1610–43). While the abundant hunting attracted the French court to the area (and had done so since the 12th century), there were also evening entertainments in the château. During the reign of Louis XIV concerts, operas and plays were performed by the king’s royal musicians, members of the Académie Royale de Musique and the leading theatrical troupes in Paris. Indeed, when the country’s finances permitted, the annual voyage to Fontainebleau, usually in the early autumn, resulted in a showcase for the performing arts symbolic of the wealth, power and magnificence of both the court and the country at large.

A variety of the larger rooms and galleries served as performance venues in the château; however, it was in the Salle de la Belle Cheminée that the majority of theatrical and operatic performances were given. A stage equipped with machinery was installed by 1682, although no fixed seating was introduced at this time. The theatre was renovated for the wedding of Louis XV in 1725, and stage boxes and balconies were installed to increase the seating area. At the same time, a partitioned area for an orchestra was introduced. A subsequent renovation, completed for the voyage of 1754, increased the available seating and corrected problems with the stage itself. The theatre’s maximum capacity appears to have been around 700. While the narrow width of the building created problems which were never fully resolved, this theatre was probably the court’s finest until the construction of the Versailles opera house in 1770.

Many operatic works were performed at the château. Louis XIV supervised the rehearsals of Destouches’ new works there, including Issé (1697), Amadis de Grèce (1698) and Omphale (1700). A renewed emphasis on opera during the second half of the 18th century resulted in premières of works by Rameau, Mondonville, La Borde, Francœur, Grétry and others. Rousseau left an amusing account of the first performance of his Le devin du village (1752) in his Confessions. During the reign of Louis XVI, works by foreign-born composers (notably Gluck, Piccinni, Salieri and Sacchini) were presented. The triumphant première of Piccinni’s Didon took place at the château in 1783.

Louis XVI’s court did not return to Fontainebleau after 1786. Restored by Napoleon, the château remained popular with the court during the Restoration and the Second Empire, although the association with music, and opera in particular, declined. Fire destroyed the theatre in 1856, and a new, smaller theatre was installed in the Louis XV wing in the following year.

Paris, §V: Music at court outside Paris

3. Saint-Cyr.

Mme de Maintenon established the Maison Royale St-Louis de Saint-Cyr in the village of Saint-Cyr, just west of Versailles, in June 1686 with the approval of her husband Louis XIV. The school was designed to house about 250 daughters of impoverished army officers and noblemen and to educate them in the pious and simple virtues. Its importance lies in the amount of music composed for the ‘usage de l’église et communauté des dames et demoiselles…à Saint-Cyr’.

In 1688 Mme de Maintenon commissioned Racine to write a tragedy combining piety with diversion. Esther, with incidental music by Jean-Baptiste Moreau, was given its first complete performance on 26 January 1689 before an audience including Louis XIV and Bossuet. There were four revivals the following month, one of which was attended by the recently exiled James II and Queen Mary of England. Although Mme de Maintenon found her young charges more eager to sing the melodies of Esther than the psalms, she permitted a second Racine–Moreau tragedy, Athalie, to be performed (5 January 1691) – this time without décor and costumes. Recognizing the power of music to distract her charges, Mme de Maintenon exercised considerable control over the music performed at Saint-Cyr. She found, for example, too many ornaments and extended vocal melismas in certain motets by Nivers and went so far as to forbid the performance of one of these, Adjuro vos, which she deemed ‘trop tendre’.

Two other composers contributed to the musical life of Saint-Cyr: Nivers, who was organist and singing teacher from 1686 to his death in 1714, and his successor Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, who held the position until 1721, when he was replaced by his son, César-François-Nicolas.

Between them Nivers and Clérambault composed almost 100 motets for one or two solo voices alternating with a two-part chorus; many are without continuo. The extensive music section of the Saint-Cyr library (now in F-Pn and F-V) also included motets by Lalande, Campra and Mondonville; Racine’s cantiques spirituelles in musical settings by Lalande, Moreau, Collasse and Marchand; sacred cantatas by Clérambault; airs spirituels by L’Affilard, Nivers and Clérambault; and noëls by Pellegrin and Colletet. Besides Moreau’s incidental music for Esther and Athalie the library had simplified versions of Jephté by Nivers and Iphigénie by Campra and Desmarets, in addition to arrangements of Lully’s operatic prologues and three manuscript collections of dances. The Maison Royale was closed in 1793.

Paris, §V: Music at court outside Paris

4. Sceaux.

The château at Sceaux, designed by Perrault and decorated by Lebrun, was a favourite site for court entertainments throughout the reign of Louis XIV. On 16 July 1685, for example, the Marquis de Seignlay provided a divertissement for the king and the court that included a performance of the pastorale Idylle sur la paix by Racine with music by Lully.

Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, the Duke of Maine, purchased the château in 1699 for his talented wife Anne-Louise de Bourbon. The duchess soon surrounded herself with a pléiade of well-known musicians and poets. In Les divertissemens de Sceaux of 1712, Abbé Genest described her divertissements as ‘pure amusement, unrehearsed … a type of impromptu entertainment’. During this early period, from 1702 to 1714, the divertissements often took place not at Sceaux but at the nearby château of Châtenay, owned by Nicolas de Malezieu. The only composer mentioned during this period is Matho. In 1714 the duchess initiated her famous Grandes Nuits de Sceaux – diversions on a grand scale. The most important of these took place on 16 evenings between 31 July 1714 and 15 May 1715. Despite the disapproval of Saint-Simon (‘Sceaux was more than ever the theatre of the follies of the Duchess of Maine … [and] of the ruin of her husband’), the Grandes Nuits became the most fashionable aristocratic entertainment at the close of the reign of le roi soleil.

Many of the productions called for music; among the composers employed were Mouret, Bernier, Bourgeois, Collin de Blamont, Courbois and Marchand (probably one of the ‘Versailles Marchands’, perhaps Pierre-Nicolas, rather than Louis). Most of the music was composed by Mouret, who was surintendant of the duchess’s music from 1709 to about 1730.

Lyric comedies (e.g. Mouret’s Les amours de Ragonde), plays, dramatic divertissements, ballets en action (long before Cahusac and Noverre) and cantatas (e.g. Bernier’s Les nuits de Sceaux, 1715) were performed in a garden setting designed by Le Nôtre. The Grandes Nuits de Sceaux ended abruptly with the death of Louis XIV.

Paris, §V: Music at court outside Paris

5. Saint Germain-en-Laye.

French kings began using Saint Germain-en-Laye as a residence in the Middle Ages. By the mid-17th century the town had a population of about 10,000 and boasted two châteaux. François I had the château vieux almost completely reconstructed, retaining only the 13th-century chapel and the 14th-century keep. Louis XIV had a commodious salle des comédies with loges constructed in the west wing. It accommodated the large, elaborate machines of C. Vigarani (see Massip, 1976, pp.118–19) and had a rehearsal hall. The château neuf was built for Henri II, enlarged by Henri IV and demolished by Charles X. Louis XIV was born in the château neuf in 1638, just five years before Louis XIII died there.

As the favoured royal residence of Louis XIV before his move to Versailles, Saint Germain-en-Laye witnessed all manner of court entertainments. The following Lully ballets were first performed there: Les muses (1666); La pastorale comique (1667); Le Sicilien (1667); Les amants magnifiques (1670, when Louis XIV appeared as dancer for the last time); Ballet des ballets (1671); and Le triomphe de l’amour (1681). Some of Lully’s operas were first performed there too; Thésée (1675); Atys (1676; see fig.19); Isis (1677); and Proserpine (1680).

The court’s move to Versailles in 1682–3 naturally diminished the number of fêtes performed at Saint Germain-en-Laye. However, a second flowering occurred when Louis XIV invited the exiled English King James II to settle there (1690–1701) with his son, who continued the Stuart court as James III (1701–12). An Italian, Innocenzo Fede (b 1661), was their maître de musique. During the later period, this court must have been a ‘centre of intense musical activity’ (Corp, 1995, p.222). Besides Fede’s music for the royal chapel, the repertory included Italian arias, sonatas and cantatas. The Bibliothèque Nationale preserves these today in a collection of seven volumes copied under Philidor’s direction.

Paris

VI. 1789–1870

The period from the Revolution to the fall of the Second Empire was one of extreme instability in French society and politics. There was an enormous growth in industry and in urban living, great advances were made in pure and applied science, and by 1830 the government was controlled by a wealthy middle class. The social changes of the period are an essential background feature of French Romanticism, and the impact of these changes created crises of conscience in many artists.

From the fall of the Bastille (14 July 1789) to the fall of Robespierre (27 July 1794) the Revolution took its most radical course; the Directory (1795–9) was a period of consolidation. On 9 November 1799 Napoleon’s coup d’état of Brumaire established the Consulate, and in 1804 he crowned himself emperor in Paris. The period ended with Napoleon’s abdication (1814) and defeat at Waterloo (18 June 1815).

The Bourbon Restoration saw first the moderate but weak Louis XVIII (king from 1814), who was followed by the right-wing, pro-clerical Charles X in 1824. Charles’ repressive measures prompted the Revolution of 1830. Louis-Philippe’s constitutional ‘July Monarchy’ (1830–48) oversaw the prosperity of the commercial class and the increasing and sometimes active discontent of the working class. Socialist theory and organization became firmly established. In 1848 the monarchy was overthrown and the Second Republic founded with Louis Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon I, as president; in 1852 he was elected emperor, thus becoming Napoleon III. This Second Empire lasted until 3 September 1870.

1. Religious institutions.

2. Patronage.

3. Opera companies, theatres.

4. Concert life.

5. Education.

6. Criticism, publishing and instrument making.

Paris, §VI: 1789–1870

1. Religious institutions.

The Chapelle Royale in the Tuileries had 35 instrumentalists when it was closed down in 1792. Napoleon reinstituted the Chapelle a decade later, bringing the orchestra up to 50 and the choir to 34 by 1810; he also had a new building constructed by early 1806. Paisiello was the initial director of music, with responsibility for composition, and was succeeded in 1804 by Le Sueur. J.P.E. Martini was co-director in 1814, and he was replaced on his death in 1816 by Cherubini. C.-H. Plantade was the maître de musique from about 1814 until the dissolution of the new Chapelle Royale in the July Revolution of 1830; by that time 115 persons were attached to it, including 54 singers. Napoleon III re-established the Chapelle; in 1862 Auber was maître de chapelle and Tilmant conductor.

Immediately before the Revolution, in 1786–7, Le Sueur had mounted his own large-scale orchestral and choral music at Notre Dame. Other churches saw large forces, often augmented by amateur musicians, on special occasions; normally, however, the organ and small ensmebles or a serpent sufficed. By the end of 1792 organized Christian worship had ceased in Paris, but the situation was alleviated by Napoleon’s Concordat of 1801. Meanwhile some churches were converted in 1793–4 for the practice of ‘natural’ religion, particularly the Culte de l’Etre Suprême, and it seems probable that singing was accompanied by groups of orchestral instruments.

From 1802 recovery in Christian worship was slow; the Church was impoverished and its music at a low ebb. By 1813 cathedrals and parishes in France were reduced musically to plainchant, and competent organists were few. A handful of maîtrises were re-established with state help from 1813. Paris was one such privileged diocese (see §5 below), but lack of consistent funds meant that little distinctive musical activity was carried on before the mid-19th century. By then the poor level of musical taste in worship had become a cause for public concern. The government responded in 1853 by giving support to Niedermeyer’s Ecole de Musique Religieuse et Classique, with the intention that this school should train personnel to revivify church music and the maîtrises throughout France.

Important events in the history of the organ in Paris were the appointment of François Benoist as organ professor at the Conservatoire (1819) and that of the virtuoso Boëly, one of the earlier French exponents of Bach’s music, to St Germain-l’Auxerrois (1837). Noted organists of the succeeding generation appointed to important Parisian churches in the late 1850s and early 1860s were Antoine Batiste and Bazille (both at St Eustache), Louis Lefébure-Wély (St Sulpice, 1863), Charles Chauvet (St Merry, 1866; Trinité, 1869), Gigout (St Augustin, 1863), Saint-Saëns (Madeleine, 1857) and Franck (Ste Clotilde, 1859). Technique in general, and especially pedal technique, was probably not highly developed, for much of the inherited repertory consisted of arrangements of opera pieces requiring little or no pedal work. Credit for reforming that situation is due to Franck and his epoch-making Six pièces (1860–62), to the inspiration afforded by the model playing of the Belgian J.N. Lemmens (and his teacher Adolf Friedrich Hesse), and most profoundly to the builder Cavaillé-Coll, who systematically rebuilt many Parisian instruments (including those of Notre Dame, Ste Clotilde, St Sulpice and the Trinité), providing the means for the later achievements of the composer-performers Widor and Guilmant. His first design (1833), for the abbey church of St Denis, was realized in 1841.

Paris, §VI: 1789–1870

2. Patronage.

The Revolution temporarily stopped aristocratic and bourgeois patronage, substituting little by direct means. The foundation of the Conservatoire by the state in 1795 (see §5 below), however, created many new salaried teaching posts, which were relatively secure and carried prestige. During the Napoleonic era, the Bourbon restoration and the July monarchy the state commissioned a few works from composers for ceremonies, for example Berlioz’s Grande messe des morts (1837) and Symphonie funèbre et triomphale (1840, for the tenth anniversary of the 1830 Revolution).

Napoleon’s amnesty for the exiles led to an early return of private patronage. A press report of May 1803 notes that ‘M. and Mme Ladurner entertained a brilliant circle where, among others, amateurs and distinguished virtuosos were heard’. Thus musical salons continued from the old century to the new. The fortunes made by industrialists, bankers and others made Paris immensely wealthy. Fashionable pianists such as Liszt, Chopin and Sigismund Thalberg were patronized as expensive teachers. Chopin gave as few as seven public recitals in Paris, but gave eight or nine piano lessons a day at 20 francs a lesson. Charles Hallé was asked to educate a banker’s family simply by playing the piano to them one evening a week. Wealthy publishers also became patrons: Armand Bertin of the Journal des débats ran a salon and was rumoured to have been the source of Paganini’s gift of 20,000 francs to Berlioz in 1838; Maurice Schlesinger, the music publisher who also ran the Gazette musicale, sponsored concerts and supported the young Richard Wagner (1840–42) with commissions and with money; and the Erard family of music publishers and manufacturers were also powerful patrons. A successful début in the theatre was of great consequence for a composing career, and the directors of the various opera houses wielded great influence since they could commission or refuse operas for production. As ‘commercial patrons’, however, they could not afford to allow conflicts of taste between the composer and the public.

From time to time a number of awards for composition were instituted, often biassed towards opera: the Prix Cressent (opera, opéra comique); Prix Rossini (lyrical or sacred composition); Prix Mombinne (opéra comique); Prix de Saussay (librettos); Prix Nicolo (vocal composition); and the Prix Chartier (instituted 1861 for chamber music). The music Prix de Rome was founded in 1803 and awarded annually until 1968 by the Académie des Beaux-Arts to composition students; winners spent four years at the Villa Medici, sending their work back to Paris. This prize immediately gave a certain degree of recognition to young composers, some of whom began writing stage works in Italy.

Paris, §VI: 1789–1870

3. Opera companies, theatres.

The story of opera and theatre life in Paris is particularly complex because of the way in which companies and theatres were named. The Opéra commonly means the Académie Royale (or Impériale) de Musique, but it can also refer to the building used at any one time by that company; this practice was also common among other companies and theatres. A building might also be known by the name of a previous patron or company, and theatres quite often burnt down and were rebuilt elsewhere, to be christened with the name of an old or new company, or an old or new patron. Only the most important of the Parisian companies and theatres are discussed below.

Laws passed in 1791–2 that made it possible for anybody to open a public theatre profoundly changed the status quo; the resulting abundance of new spectacles included opéra comique, melodrama and vaudeville. Under the Empire an evident increase in the number of debased entertainments led Napoleon in 1807 to reduce the total number of theatres to eight: the Opéra, Opéra-Comique, Théâtre Italien (Théâtre de l’imperatrice, later Odéon), Théâtre Français, Vaudeville, Variétés, Gaîté and Ambigu-Comique. The first three were the ‘official’ musical theatres, but the others all possessed small orchestras. Under the Restoration the Théâtre de la Porte-St-Martin and the Gymnase opened, performing lighter pieces, and the Théâtre Italien became a strong rival to the Opéra and the Opéra-Comique. The immense variety and vitality of the Parisian musical stage is seen especially in companies like the Ambigu-Comique, whose repertory is forgotten, but which achieved high standards and originality within the limits of its activity.

(i) The Opéra.

(ii) Théâtre Italien.

(iii) Théâtre de Monsieur.

(iv) Théâtre (National) de l’Opéra-Comique.

(v) Théâtre Italien.

(vi) Théâtre Lyrique.

(vii) Other theatres.

Paris, §VI, 3: 1789–1870: Opera companies, theatres

(i) The Opéra.

The principal opera company of Paris underwent several changes of title as the result of political events. The main ones were, from 1791, Théâtre de l’Opéra; from 1794, Théâtre des Arts; from 1804, Académie Impériale de Musique; and from 1814, Académie Royale de Musique, except for the Hundred Days. The company also occupied several theatres: from 1781, Théâtre de la Porte-St-Martin; from 1794, Théâtre Montansier (cap. 1650); during 1820–21, the first Salle Favart and the Salle Louvois (Broignart, 1791); and from 16 August 1821, the new permanent premises in the rue Le Peletier (built by Debret, cap. 1954; fig.20). Gas lighting, which revolutionized stage effects, was introduced in 1822.

The Opéra was administered by the City of Paris during much of the 1790s, but Napoleon gradually arrogated it. In 1802 he retained the right to determine expenses for new works; his Minister of the Interior had the power of veto. In the reforms of 1807, when Picard became director, Napoleon sought to make the Opéra the privileged state showpiece it had traditionally been; he exercised influence over the selection of the repertory and in 1811 imposed dues payable to the Opéra by smaller theatres, fully restoring the position under the ancien régime, arrangements that persisted until the July Monarchy. Directorships, including those of Viotti (from 1819) and Habeneck (from 1821), tended to be of short duration; conductors during this period were Jean-Baptiste Rey (i) (until his death in 1810), Persuis (until 1817), Rodolphe Kreutzer (until 1824) and Habeneck and Valentino (until 1831). The orchestra was large, with an average of 70 players, and maintained a high standard, owing its fame not least to soloists like Baillot, Gustave Vogt and Dauprat. Conversely the French style of dramatic singing was often censured. Gradually the impact of Italian singing was felt, particularly through the influence of Rossini. Famous female singers at the Opéra included Branchu, Gavaudan, Dorus-Gras, Malibran, Viardot and Cinti-Damoreau, and male singers Lays, Adolphe and Louis Nourrit, Derivis, Lainez and later Lafont, Duprez and Faure.

Important premières at the Opéra included Le Sueur’s Ossian (1804), Spontini’s La vestale (1807) and Fernand Cortez (1809) and Kreutzer’s Abel (1810). Earlier works were constantly revived, for example Gluck’s Orphée (1800) and Alceste (1803) and Rousseau’s Le devin du village (1810). Famous works were imported from elsewhere; Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro was seen in 1793, Die Zauberflöte (as Les mystères d’Isis) in 1801 and Don Giovanni in 1805, though all three in mutilated form. Rossini appeared with Le siège de Corinthe in 1826, Moïse (1827) and Le comte Ory (1828), three scores revised from earlier works. His only original work for the Parisian stage was Guillaume Tell (1829), which, with Auber’s revolution-inciting La muette de Portici (1828), established the style of French grand opera which became current during the reign of Louis-Philippe. This almost always involved a historical or semi-historical plot; there were large casts, sumptuous costumes, highly realistic scenery and complex stage machinery. Under the directorship of Véron (1831–5) this formula was exploited with signal acumen in Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable (1831); his librettist, Eugène Scribe (fig.21), became a specialist in providing texts for these sometimes bloodcurdling spectacles, such as Auber’s Gustave III (1833) and Halévy’s La Juive (1835). It would be hard to overestimate the role played by Ciceri, the Opéra’s chief designer from 1824 to 1847, whose designs corresponded to the intentions of grand opera. Following the staggering reception accorded Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots (1836) this species declined in quality, if not quantity. The directorships of Duponchel (1835–41) and Pillet (1841–7) were notable mainly for the tragic failure of Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini (1838), the commissioning of Donizetti’s La favorite (1840) and an authentic version of Weber's Der Freischütz (1841), given in French with recitatives by Berlioz.

Conductors from the July Monarchy on were Habeneck (1831–46), Girard (1846–60), Dietsch (1860–63) and Hainl (1863–72). The early part of the Second Empire and the directorships of Roqueplan (1847–54), Crosnier (1854–6) and Royer (1856–62) were largely uneventful. Meyerbeer’s position as the leading figure in grand opera was confirmed with Le prophète (1849), and he exerted a strong influence on Verdi’s French opera, Les vêpres siciliennes, which had its première at the Opéra in 1855. Gounod’s early Sapho (1851) and La Nonne sanglante (1854), an avowedly Meyerbeerian piece, made an inauspicious beginning. The first performance of the Opéra version of Wagner’s Tannhäuser, with the obligatory ballet, took place on 13 March 1861. Meyerbeer’s reputation was reaffirmed after his death (1864) with L’Africaine (1865) and by his pervasive influence on Verdi’s second Opéra commission, Don Carlos (1867). Gounod’s Faust (Théâtre Lyrique, 1859) quickly established itself as a classic in its Opéra version (1869). Before then, as far back as 1852, few memorable new French works had been staged: the two by Gounod above and his artfully Meyerbeerian La reine de Saba (1862), Herculanum by Félicien David (1859) and Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas (1868).

Ballet was at least as popular as opera, and ballets were normally worked into operatic evenings (as in Tannhäuser) if they did not actually round off the opera itself. Several ballets, now forgotten, remained very popular; in the period up to 1830 at least, that could be said of few new operas. Notable ballets included Catel’s Alexandre chez Apelles (1808) on account of its large measure of original music, Sor’s Cendrillon (1823), and La fille mal gardée (1828) with music arranged and composed by Hérold. There followed Adolphe Adam’s second ballet Giselle (1841) and Burgmüller’s sequel La péri (1843; fig.22), both with choreography by Jean Coralli. Adam remained the foremost writer of ballet music until his Le corsair (1856). No comparable figure appeared until Delibes, who first collaborated with Minkus on La source (1866), and whose Coppélia (1870) was the last important work to be given in the old Opéra building before it burnt down on 29 October 1873. The outstanding dancers and choreographers came from the Vestris and Gardel families; Louis Antoine Duport was a rival of Auguste Vestris. Later male dancers included Jules Perrot, the greatest before Nizhinsky, and Lucien and Marius Petipa. Notable ballerinas were Maria Taglioni (the Sylphide) and Carlotta Grisi (Giselle), with some competition from Fanny Elssler.

Paris, §VI, 3: 1789–1870: Opera companies, theatres

(ii) Théâtre Italien.

(Comédie-Italienne, Théâtre Favart, later Opéra-Comique). This well-established company did not present Italian works during the period under consideration but was a French company in which opéra comique as a form matured with the works of Grétry and Dalayrac. It moved to the Salle Favart in 1783. In the 1790s it was forced into competition with the Feydeau company (see below), and gave new works by Méhul (Euphrosine, 1790), Dalayrac (Marianne, 1796), Henri-Montan Berton (Le délire, Montano et Stéphanie, 1799), Rodolphe Kreutzer and the young Boieldieu (Le calife de Bagdad, 1800). As in other theatres of the time both serious opéras comiques (revolutionary, classical or historical) and comedies were played. The company disbanded in 1801 and later the same year combined with the Feydeau company.

Paris, §VI, 3: 1789–1870: Opera companies, theatres

(iii) Théâtre de Monsieur.

(later Théâtre Feydeau). Founded just before the Revolution by L. Autié and Viotti, the company adopted the name of its patron, Monsieur, Comte de Provence, later Louis XVIII. Performances in 1789 were in the Tuileries, in 1790 in the Foire St Germain and from 1791 in the newly built Salle Feydeau, a neo-classical theatre in the rue Feydeau designed by Le Grand and Molinos (see fig.24). Italian opera (Pergolesi, Sarti, Paisiello etc.) and plays were given. The first important French opera given was Cherubini’s Lodoïska (1791, famed for its final conflagration scene), which established it as a second Opéra-Comique company in competition with that at the Favart. Lodoïska was followed by Le Sueur’s Paul et Virginie (1794), Pierre Gaveaux’s Léonore (1798; libretto the source of Beethoven’s Fidelio) and Cherubini’s Médée (1797) and Les deux journées (1800). It merged with the Favart company in 1801 and was called the Opéra-Comique. The excellent orchestra of the theatre gave many concerts there; other ensembles also used the building for concerts until its demolition in 1829.

Paris, §VI, 3: 1789–1870: Opera companies, theatres

(iv) Théâtre (National) de l’Opéra-Comique.

This new company, comprising the Favart and Feydeau companies, was formally created by act of government on 16 September 1801 and given official status in 1807. It occupied various theatres until 1805, when it moved to the Salle Feydeau. Its beginning was secure and high standards were maintained. Spontini’s first French works were given there and subsequently many famous opéras comiques by Méhul (Joseph, 1807), Boieldieu, whose La dame blanche (1825) came to symbolize the genre as well as the institution (despite the influence of Rossini), Isouard, Auber and Hérold. The company remained at the Salle Feydeau until 1829, when it moved to the Salle Ventadour. In 1832 it moved to the first Théâtre des Nouveautés in the Place de la Bourse (opened 1827) and in 1840 to the second Salle Favart (rebuilt by Charpentier) where it remained, except for the 1853 season, until the building burnt down in 1887, having been restored by Crépinet in 1879.

As Boieldieu’s career drew to a close in the 1830s younger men produced a brilliant stream of more robust entertainment pieces: Auber’s Fra Diavolo (1830), Le cheval de bronze (1835), Le domino noir (1837) and Les diamants de la couronne (1841); Hérold’s Zampa (1831) and Le pré aux clercs (1832); and Adam’s Le chalet (1834) and Le postillon de Longjumeau (1836). The only other noteworthy event of the period was the première of Donizetti’s La fille du régiment in 1840.

The type of opéra comique prevalent in the 1830s was later cultivated by Thomas in Le Caïd (1849) and Raymond (1851) but otherwise the Second Empire saw the establishment of a more frivolous and deliberately sentimental type, sometimes called operetta, typified in Adam’s Si j’étais roi (1852) and, particularly, Massé’s Les noces de Jeannette (1853). The term ‘opéra comique’ ceases to have real meaning from that time onwards, when the company suffered intense competition from Offenbach’s genuine operettas at the Bouffes-Parisiens, except in the academic sense of musical numbers with spoken dialogue. In 1846 the Opéra-Comique let its hall and singers for an unfortunate performance of La damnation de Faust, conducted by Berlioz himself. Emile Perrin, the new impresario of the Opéra-Comique, dedicated himself to renewing the repertory, and by 1862 Meyerbeer, Auber, Halévy and Ambroise Thomas dominated it. The first Meyerbeer opera for the Opéra-Comique was L’étoile du nord (1854); it had had 100 performances by February 1855. In that same month the first of the many settings of Manon Lescaut (this one by Auber) was mounted, without great success.

Paris, §VI, 3: 1789–1870: Opera companies, theatres

(v) Théâtre Italien.

(known also as Opéra-Bouffe). The beginnings of this new troupe lay in Napoleon’s preference for Italian music and the imaginative speculations of the aging Mlle Montansier. It primarily gave Italian opera and had no relationship with the Comédie-Italienne. Financial difficulties beset the company from its first performance on 31 May 1801 at the Salle Olympique and at the Salle Favart (1802), but it prospered from 1804, when Picard brought it under the wing of the Théâtre Louvois; it was called the Théâtre de l’Impératrice from then until 1809. It later performed at the Odéon (1808–15) and then until 1841 in different theatres, including the Salle Favart (1825–38). Its directors included Spontini (1810–12) and Rossini (1824–6). According to Spohr, in 1820 Parisians preferred its orchestra to that of the Opéra. Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro was given in 1807, Così fan tutte in 1809 and Don Giovanni in 1811. Before Rossini’s advent Zingarelli, Paisiello, Cimarosa and Salieri were the composers most often performed.

The first of the many Rossini operas to be given were L’italiana in Algeri (1817) and Il barbiere di Siviglia (1819). Rossini, as director, produced Meyerbeer’s Il crociato in Egitto in 1825, the first work by this composer to be given in Paris. Bellini’s I puritani and Norma were both given in 1835, the former (which was specially commissioned) with a cast including Giulia Grisi, Lablache, and Mario and Antonio Tamburini – artists whose names became inseparably linked with the Théâtre Italien in this period. Donizetti’s Anna Bolena (1831; his first work given in Paris), L’elisir d’amore (1839) and Lucia di Lammermoor (1837) were included in the repertory.

The company’s sojourn at the Salle Ventadour (1841–76; fig.24) began well with a lavish production of Rossini’s Semiramide and continued with the success of Don Pasquale (1843), commissioned from Donizetti. The last major events at the theatre, and in the company’s history, were productions of Verdi’s Nabucco in 1845 and Ernani in 1846, after which the institution lost its distinctive character.

Paris, §VI, 3: 1789–1870: Opera companies, theatres

(vi) Théâtre Lyrique.

The most important rival company to the Opéra and Opéra-Comique in the second half of the century opened in 1851 as the Opéra-National at the Théâtre Historique under the direction of Edmond Seveste. Under his brother Jules Seveste (1852–4) it was known as the Théâtre Lyrique. Emile Perrin ran it briefly before the directorship went to the 30-year-old Léon Carvalho and his wife, Marie Miolan, in 1855. From then the theatre acquired an enviable artistic reputation, due largely to Gounod’s Le médecin malgré lui (1858), Faust (with spoken dialogue, 1859), Philémon et Baucis (1860), Mireille (1864) and Roméo et Juliette (1867; fig.25). In 1862 the company moved to the building in the Place du Châtelet (cap. 1243) that subsequently became the Théâtre des Nations, then the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt and finally the Théâtre de la Ville. Apart from a short break in 1860–61 Carvalho remained in control until 1868; during that last period he gave the important premières of Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles (1863) and La jolie fille de Perth (1867), as well as the last three acts (abridged) of Berlioz’s Les Troyens (1863). Carvalho had a tendency to alter the works he presented in order to bring them in line with his own idea of dramaturgy; nevertheless, he was successful and energetic, and his resignation in 1868 marked the end of the Théâtre Lyrique’s period of eminence. He was succeeded by Pasdeloup (1868–70), who mounted Wagner’s Rienzi in 1869 but who, like many later impresarios, failed to revive the company, which performed in a succession of different theatres for one or two seasons at a time.

Paris, §VI, 3: 1789–1870: Opera companies, theatres

(vii) Other theatres.

Two well-known companies that were suppressed in 1807 were the Théâtre des Associés and the Théâtre des Jeunes Artistes, a troupe of child actors who gave comedies, pantomimes and vaudevilles. Of those that survived, the Ambigu-Comique was perhaps the most distinguished secondary theatre. For 20 years before the Revolution a topical repertory of pantomime with music was performed; declamation and singing were legally prohibited, although these restrictions could be disregarded in the 1780s when enthusiasm and semi-official support for the lesser theatres permitted. The orchestra was small, but its music was essential, since it expressed the mimed emotions and enhanced all manner of stage effects. As far as is known music was arranged more often than composed. When this company rose to new eminence after 1800 with Pixérécourt’s melodramas in dialogue, music had a less crucial, though still important, role to play. Overtures, dances, speeches and effects all required music. Quaisain and Louis Alexandre Piccinni were the principal composer-arrangers.

When the Théâtre Italien left the Odéon in 1815 the latter theatre presented a mixture of plays, vaudevilles and opéras comiques. There in 1824 and 1826 Castil-Blaze put on his notorious arrangements of Weber’s Der Freischütz and Euryanthe, given as Robin des bois and La forêt de Sénart respectively.

The Théâtre de la Porte-St-Martin was another interesting company that survived the decree of 1807. It opened in September 1802, and though forced to shut in 1807, it reopened as the Théâtre des Jeux-Gymniques on 1 January 1810. It made a speciality of melodrama, pantomime and ballet, and the popularity of its ballets Les chevaliers de la table ronde (1811) – with Franconi’s horses – and Lise et Colin dans leur ménage (1812) was such that the Opéra successfully applied for an injunction, on the grounds that it had infringed the older theatre’s sole right to give ballets ‘of a noble and gracious style, such as those whose subjects derive from mythology or history’. However, the company again reopened (under its original name) in December 1814, with an official licence to present ballet, and its reputation was sustained and admired. Chief choreographers were Jean Aumer (from 1802), Frédéric Blache (from 1814), Jean Coralli (1825–9) and then Petit. Older ballets such as Les six ingénus, Annette et Lubin and Le déserteur were given, but also newer creations than helped to pave the way of the Romantic style, such as La laitière polonaise (1817) with its skating dance and Rosine et Almaviva. The great acrobat-dancer Mazurier appeared here from 1823 to his death in 1828. Towards the 1840s a series of fairy plays and reviews were given, featuring a corps de ballet and brilliant soloists. Such were La biche au bois (1845) and La belle aux cheveux d’or (1847). With the arrival of the ballerina as romantic heroine and the necessity for a new style of group choreography, the Porte-St-Martin found regular ballet performances too costly to maintain, and the drama company predominated after 1850.

Information on the many small boulevard theatres is in Brazier (1838), Beaulieu (1905) and Cain (1906).

Paris, §VI: 1789–1870

4. Concert life.

Theatres were most commonly used for concerts up to 1810, especially the Opéra and the Salle Feydeau. The first true concert hall of the period was that built for the Conservatoire, designed by Delannoy and opened in 1811 (fig.26). At this time the Conservatoire buildings stood on the gardens of the old Menus-Plaisirs, near the junction of today’s rue Bergère and rue du Faubourg Poissonnière. The hall (which still exists) was U-shaped, with the orchestra at the straight end, and had a capacity of 1055. Little natural light entered, and oil was used instead of gas lighting to lessen the risk of fire. This hall was used by students and great virtuosos, by Conservatoire and other orchestras, and by chamber groups.

The Concert Spirituel ceased in 1790 with the abolition of royal privileges, but the great momentum of concert life generated in the final two decades of the ancien régime could not simply cease. The new Feydeau theatre orchestra gave highly popular concerts; and overtures, concertos and symphonies were performed during theatrical evenings at the Feydeau, the Favart and the Opéra. Military music could be heard at concerts during the years 1793–5. Under the Directory the Feydeau concerts rose to new heights, and brilliant soloists became the attraction: Punto, Baillot, Rode, J.X. Lefèvre and Ozi. Napoleon had his personal ‘Band of the First Consul’, with 27 musicians, and doubtless he was imitated. But the taste for larger orchestral groups led in 1798 to the founding of a subscription society, the Concerts de la rue de Cléry. Its greatest popularity was during 1800–03; in the 1802–3 season it gave 12 concerts, at which one or two Haydn symphonies were almost invariably played. J.F. Reichardt wished that Haydn could hear these performances himself. After 1803 the society declined until it ceased in 1805. The Concerts de la rue Grenelle were begun in 1803 as part of a musical ‘academy’ for professionals and amateurs; the venture and its orchestra lasted only three years.

The newly formed Conservatoire had given annual prizewinners’ concerts since 1797, but on 6 November 1800 the first pupils’ concert proper took place; thereafter between five and 12 concerts were given each year, running (like the Cléry concerts) from winter to early summer. The orchestra comprised about 60 players, both teachers and pupils, and the performances soon became valued for their excellence and the eclectic planning of their programmes: music for orchestra by Haydn, Méhul and Cherubini; for voices by Cimarosa, Winter, Salieri, Gluck and Rameau; compositions by senior students; symphonies and opera excerpts by Mozart; and Beethoven’s first three symphonies. The young prizewinner Habeneck directed these concerts from 1806 until 1815, when financial difficulties diminished the number of concerts; they ceased in 1824.

The promulgation of the Concordat (1802) prompted the revival of concerts spirituels from 1805 at various theatres, but they were dull reflections of the original series. The Société Académique des Enfants d’Apollon, dormant since 1789, was revived in 1807.

New ventures during the Restoration included the appearance of a Concert des Amateurs series in 1825 at the Tivoli d’Hiver; Théophile Tilmant first performed there as a conductor. Other important developments owed their existence to Habeneck; from 1818 he directed a new series of three annual Holy Week concerts at the Opéra. Some works by Beethoven were given, including the Second Symphony and the popular Allegretto of the Seventh. On 5 February 1828, having become inspector general of the Conservatoire, Habeneck, with the Minister of Arts and others, formally initiated a new concert series, the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire; the orchestra consisted of past and present pupils (76 string players and 25 wind). The first of the six annual concerts was on 9 March 1828 and began with Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’; Habeneck’s enthusiastic followers had already been preparing for over a year. The second concert was devoted entirely to Beethoven and included the Third Piano Concerto and the Violin Concerto; the third concert included the Fifth Symphony and Egmont Overture. These and subsequent concerts finally established Beethoven in France (fig.27).

Habeneck’s successors were the violinist Narcisse Girard (14 January 1849), another violinist (and Habeneck’s sub-conductor) Théophile Tilmant (13 January 1861) and François Hainl (10 January 1864), already conductor of the Opéra, who was elected in preference to Deldevez and Berlioz. Hainl’s successful regime saw the redecoration of the Conservatoire concert hall in 1865 and the tentative inclusion of Wagner in the programmes.

The initiative of Habeneck was undoubtedly responsible for the proliferation of concert series in the late 1820s and early 1830s, such as L’Athénée Musical (1829–44) founded by Chelard. Most of these, like Fétis’s Concerts Historiques (four concerts in 1832–3) and later Berlioz’s Société Philharmonique (1850–51), were similarly short-lived. The Société Ste Cécile (1850–55), founded by François Seghers, presented some works by Mendelssohn and Schubert. Schumann was also performed; at the time he was considered avant-garde, and exercised considerable influence over the younger generation.

Of far greater importance was the Société des Jeunes Artistes du Conservatoire, founded by Pasdeloup in 1852 to present recognized masterpieces alongside music by young composers. It gave its first performance on 20 February 1853; the orchestra was drawn from the best of the Conservatoire students and comprised 62 players (including the 17-year-old Lamoureux) and a choir of 40 conducted by Antoine Batiste. From its inception the society was an important influence in French musical life, and continued Habeneck’s work by firmly establishing the French reputation of the Viennese Classics and of Mendelssohn and Schumann. Indeed, some of the earliest French works presented, such as the curious symphonies of Gounod and the Second Symphony of Saint-Saëns, were among the earliest works in ‘classical’ forms by Frenchmen. In 1856 when Auber, the director of the Conservatoire, became patron, its name was changed to Société des Jeunes Artistes du Conservatoire Impérial de Musique; but by 1861 it had a large deficit, and Pasdeloup initiated the series Concerts Populaires de Musique Classique at the Cirque Napoléon (Cirque d’Hiver after 1870). In spite of the inexpensive seats (5 francs maximum, compared with 12 at the Conservatoire) the enterprise repaid itself after only three of the six Sunday afternoon concerts in the first season, and Pasdeloup booked the theatre for a year. The orchestra consisted of 56 strings and 25 wind, and included 44 Conservatoire premier prix winners. Until the war of 1870 the series was an unquestionable artistic and financial success.

Under Louis-Philippe a distinct public demand brought about many light classical concerts, typically with a promenade audience and dancing during the quadrilles. Promenade concerts were extremely popular; when Henri Valentino started his Concerts Valentino in October 1837 he found that the public preferred dance evenings to whole symphonies, but the enterprise ended in April 1841. In 1833 Philippe Musard inaugurated the promenade and dance concert in a hall in the rue St Honoré; his orchestra was large (about 90 players) and disciplined and Mozart and Beethoven rubbed shoulders with Musard’s own quadrilles. By 1837 he was giving summer promenade concerts in an immense marquee in the Champs-Elysées. The formula was adopted by Jullien in Paris from 1836 to 1839 and by Jules Rivière at the Casino Paganini and the Jardin d’Hiver; summer concerts were also given at the Jardin Turc, the Champs-Elysées and the Tuileries gardens. Berlioz, for example, gave a concert in a temporary exhibition hall erected for the Festival of Industrial Products in the Champs-Elysées in 1844 (see Berlioz, Hector, fig.5) and early in 1845 gave four concerts in the huge arena of the Théâtre Franconi.

The public performance of chamber music in Paris was, before mid-century, maintained by small groups of enthusiasts. Baillot, the moving spirit of instrumental music of the time, led various quartets from 1814, and played Beethoven’s op.135 in 1828 and op.131 in March 1829 (when Berlioz heard it) and Mendelssohn’s Quartet op.13 in February 1832, during the composer’s visit to Paris. From 1836 the double bass player Achille Gouffé sponsored weekly private performances and an annual public concert in the Salle Pleyel, devoted mainly to Haydn, Mozart and Boccherini. Two quartets were founded to perform the quartets of Beethoven. The Bohrer Quartet (1830–31) specialized in the late string quartets, and the Société Maurin-Chevillard (also called the Société des Derniers Quatuors de Beethoven), performed the ‘Grosse Fuge’ in the Salle Herz in 1852 and toured Germany in 1855–6.

Other ensembles included the Société Alard-Chevillard (1837–48), the Société Alard-Franchomme (1847–70) and the Dancla Quartet (1838–70). The Armingaud-Jacquard Quartet (1856–68) performed mainly Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann, and regularly played with such famous pianists as Anton Rubinstein, Saint-Saëns (1860) and Clara Schumann (1862–3). The Lamoureux Quartet, founded in 1860, gave the first popular public concerts of chamber music in Paris, in the Salle Herz and the Salle Pleyel (fig.29).

The impetus for the starting of Choron’s school in 1817 (see §5 below) was choral training and performance. Choron edited and taught earlier music, either ignored or unsuccessfully attempted by the Conservatoire; particularly memorable concerts were given in 1826–8, featuring Palestrina, Jommelli, Handel and others. Choron’s work was continued in Desiré Beaulieu’s Société des Concerts de Chant Classique. In 1843 the Prince de la Moskowa founded the Société pour la Musique Vocale Religieuse et Classique; he himself directed the performances of 16th- and 17th-century music. The popular choral movement in Paris, the Orphéon, was started in 1833 by G.L.B. Wilhem. This male-voice society gave its first concert in 1836, 300 strong; a decade later there were 1600 members (fig.30). After 1860 the Orphéon was divided into Left and Right Bank sections; its conductors included Gounod (1852), Pasdeloup and Bazin (both in 1860). In 1868 Pasdeloup founded the Société des Oratorios, which gave the first Paris performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion at the Panthéon.

The numerous open-air festivals of the Revolution generally incorporated music; in Paris it was typically provided by wind players of the National Guard, later the Institut National de Musique, and by the end of 1793 between 55 and 65 players could be called upon. Important festivals were the Fête de la Fédération (14 July 1790) and Voltaire’s reburial (11 July 1791). The latter, planned in neo-classical style by the painter J.-L. David, established a visual pattern that was matched in music by the soberly triumphant hymns of Gossec, Catel, Cherubini and Méhul. The famous Fète de l’Etre Suprème ordained by Robespierre (8 June 1794; fig.31) involved thousands of spectators, some of whom may have been hurriedly tutored two days before by members of the Institut. David’s plans specified 100 drums, and both these plans and engravings of the event show three or four trumpeters on top of a tall column to lead the public in the Marseillaise. Napoleonic festivals incorporated large-scale choral and orchestral works by Le Sueur, Méhul and Paisiello. They celebrated the battle of Marengo (on 14 July 1800), the Concordat (on Easter Day 1802) and Napoleon’s coronation (2 December 1804).

Paris, §VI: 1789–1870

5. Education.

The maîtrises (church choir schools), traditional institutions for the musical education of males, were closed in the wake of anti-clerical activity. In Paris, however, an Ecole Royale de Chant (the predecessor of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique) had been founded in 1784, largely through the efforts of Gossec, initially with 15 male and female pupils. Sarrette, who had organized the musicians of the National Guard, obtained permission in June 1792 for a music school attached to it and in 1793 had this made into the Institut National de Musique; by the end of 1794 there were 80 pupils. On 3 August 1795 the Conservatoire was legally founded by the National Convention, and included the personnel of the older Ecole Royale de Chant. The first group of 351 pupils entered in October 1796, and were taught by 115 professors.

The early achievements of the Conservatoire were the successful training of a generation of instrumentalists, publication of many tutors and establishment of a free library. Its early failings were the inability to produce well-equipped singers, too little training in fundamental musicianship and lack of provision for boarders. Attacks on the new institution were made by Le Sueur (dismissed in 1802 when Napoleon reduced the staff for economy reasons) and others favouring the maîtrises. The Conservatoire was closed by the Bourbon restoration, and reopened in 1816 as the Ecole Royale de Musique. Perne was director, succeeded by Cherubini in 1822. The latter quickly laid down the hierarchy through counterpoint, harmony and fugue towards composition; but it is noteworthy that even in 1808 prospective harmony students were required to ‘know the piano’.

Antoine Reicha’s teaching was important as a complement to the Conservatoire. After settling in Paris in 1808 he took many private composition pupils. His emphasis on German models, especially Bach, was new at the time, and his methods were thorough and successful, and appeared in several publications. Habeneck’s development, for instance, has been credited to Reicha’s teaching.

Choron, whose Principes de composition appeared in 1808–10, also published early music. Choron’s reputation involved him in the reorganization of the maîtrises (from 1813) and in 1817 he founded his own school of music. His teaching was based on the editing, study and performance of early vocal music; choral instruction involved teaching individual parts by heart and then combining them. Choron composed pieces suited to this technique, and later applied the method to large ensembles of untutored workers and children, believing singing to be for the good of civilization. Government support followed public recognition around 1824, but the revolution of 1830 put an end to this aid, and the school closed.

In 1813 some money was voted for the setting up of maîtrises in major dioceses, including Paris, but funds were often insufficient and variable. Central treasury support from 1826 was severely cut in 1830, and the depressed condition of the maîtrises persisted. In about 1853 official support was given to Niedermeyer’s new Ecole de Musique Religieuse et Classique, conceived as a continuation of Choron’s work. (The government hoped it would provide competent musicians for churches and maîtrises.) The curriculum included the study of the organ, 16th-century counterpoint and the ecclesiastical modes. Saint-Saëns was appointed professor of piano on Niedermeyer’s death in 1861 and among his first pupils were Fauré, Gigout and Messager.

Paris, §VI: 1789–1870

6. Criticism, publishing and instrument making.

The first specifically musical journal of the period was the Correspondance des amateurs musiciens (1802–5). Before this, notices of musical events appeared in the Journal des spectacles and Courrier des spectacles; retrospective information formed the substance of the annual Almanach des spectacles. The Tablettes de polymnie (1810–11) stands as forerunner of the many periodicals that proliferated with French Romanticism, beginning with Fétis’s La revue musicale (1827–35). This was combined in 1835 with the short-lived Gazette musicale de Paris to become La revue et gazette musicale de Paris, which ran until 1880.

The Journal des débats, founded in 1791, had a long tradition of musical criticism before Berlioz joined the staff in 1835. The other principal music critics were Comettant (Le siècle), Escudier and the vituperative Scudo (Revue des deux mondes). These and other writers produced an enormous quantity of occasional writing about music.

Music publishing was not adversely affected during the troubled decade of 1789–99, and the intense activity of the ancien régime continued. Royal privileges vanished, and musical education and commercial and domestic music-making were catered for in a vast output of engraved music. All genres were published, and the trend towards keyboard arrangements was well under way before 1800, but full scores of operas rather than vocal scores continued to be issued at the beginning of the 19th century. As music periodicals became more common the custom of including piano music or songs to attract subscribers was established. Lithography was introduced to Paris in 1802 but took time to make its impact. Few composers published their own music (Dalayrac and Pleyel are exceptions), although Cherubini, Méhul, Kreutzer, Rode, Isouard and Boieldieu set up a joint venture from 1802 to 1811. Principal houses in the earlier period were Erard, Gaveau, Imbault, Leduc (which survives), Sieber and Pleyel; and later Choudens, Costallat, Durand, Hamelle and Schlesinger.

Paris was an important European centre of instrument making. Among the most important makers were Cousineau (harps), Erard (harps, pianos), Pleyel (pianos), Triébert (woodwind), Buffet (woodwind), Savary (woodwind), Courtois (brass) and Sax (brass); many string instruments from 19th-century Paris are increasingly valued, especially those by Lupot, F.L. Pique and Vuillaume.

Paris

VII. After 1870

Paris, §VII: After 1870

1. Introduction.

Since the Third Republic, whose leaders believed that music should serve the public good, Paris’s function as the centre of musical life in France has changed and expanded. Just as the country’s social, financial, and political élite all live in Paris, so too is much of the French musical world based in the city. A majority of the country’s patrons, producers, composers, musical instrument manufacturers, performers, publishers, critics and teachers, together with a large potential public, form an interactive network of overlapping forces. A large range of performance venues – not only prestigious theatres, concert halls, museums, cultural centres and private homes, but also brasseries, jazz clubs, parks and even the metro – makes an intense concentration of creative activity possible. The symbolism of place embedded in Paris’s geography gives meaning to every musical event. Some spaces – such as the Palais Garnier (Théâtre National de l’Opéra) and the great Champs de Mars – remind listeners of the socio-political contexts in which music earlier thrived. Others – such as the adjustable hall (espace de projection) of IRCAM – imply new relationships between composer, performer and public. Great musical instruments abound, not only in the Conservatoire’s museum, but also in the 19th-century halls of the major piano manufacturers (the Salle Pleyel, Salle Erard and Salle Gaveau), the multitude of Parisian churches and the studios of musical research. The Conservatoire has drawn to the capital the country’s finest and assured a continual succession of highly trained musicians. Always receptive to a wide range of musicians from around the world, including Stravinsky, Falla, Enescu, Sidney Bechet, Elliott Carter and Xenakis, partly, in recent years, because of its recording studios, it has also attracted some of the best musicians of world beat from Africa, the Arab world and the Antilles. Unremitting vitality and ferocious competition have fed Parisians’ ceaseless search for distinction, thereby assuring constant change in their musical tastes and activity.

What makes Paris distinct as a musical centre is what links the musical world with the world of politics. Because republican (and later socialist) leaders have believed that music can have a healthy moral influence, shape people’s identity and behaviour and, as a collaborative medium, promote respect for social institutions, they have subsidized it with significant state funding. They have also looked to it as a means of enhancing national pride and exhibiting France’s prestige abroad. This support has ranged from hundreds of thousands of francs – 80% of both the Opéra’s annual budget in the 19th century and the Ensemble InterContemporain’s budget from 1977 – to a few thousand for smaller organizations serving some national priority. It has also made possible music’s extensive role in the city’s Universal Exhibitions of 1878, 1889, 1900, 1931 and 1937 and in numerous international congresses, such as those devoted to music history in 1900 and radio art in 1937.

For the most important musical institutions in the country – the Opéra, Opéra-Comique and the Paris Conservatoire – the rhythm of existence has depended on the goodwill of the Chambre des Députés. So, too, after 1879 and, especially, 1920 certain smaller concert societies and amateur music groups looked to the state for help. Even though the arts budget has never been more than 0·3% of the state’s total, each year during the annual budget discussions the nation’s deputies review the subsidies of these organizations and their cahiers de charge, and what is expected in return for this support. During times of political turmoil the largest budget item, the Opéra, has provoked heated debate. Some have thought it should turn a profit, and its receipts are regularly published in the press and followed avidly by the general public; others, more concerned about the Opéra’s utility as a reflection of larger political issues, have forced changes in its repertory. In 1879, for example, those who argued for musical museums as guardians of national traditions prevailed; those who insisted that the leading institutions serve as outlets for new work by living French composers forced changes in 1891 at the Opéra and in 1898 at the Opéra-Comique; those wanting more popular works performed there have influenced decisions made shortly after World War II and also more recently. From the internal conflicts between those in the Chambre des Députés who have demanded that music be more accessible to les classes populaires and those who have preferred to protect élitist traditions and the international reputation of French music have also come various attempts to ‘return art to the people’. This has included four versions of an Opéra Populaire in Paris (1874; 1879–80; summer seasons in 1879–82 and 1883–4; 1900–01; and again in the late 1930s). It has also resulted in recurring efforts at decentralization, especially after 1901; the expansion of radio in the late 1930s; and the Jeunesses Musicales around the country in the 1940s and 50s.

Because of the state’s perspective on music’s role in society, control of much of the musical world emanates from Paris. The continuity of French traditions can be linked to this centralization of power, a relic of France’s monarchical past. In 1870 music was placed under the Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, which in 1932 changed its name to the Ministry of National Education. Except for two short periods when there was a separate arts minister, from November 1881 to January 1882 and later in the 1930s under the Popular Front, the arts were confined to a division, department or under-secretary of state. This changed in the Fifth Republic. In 1959 the government created a Ministry of Cultural Affairs to take control of the arts. A separate music section was created in 1970. Despite these changes, however, the administration of the arts has remained at the Palais Royal. Close geographical proximity to their most expensive responsibilities – the Opéra, Comédie Française, Opéra-Comique and, more recently, IRCAM – has assured not only institutional accountability but also the government’s continued support. A similar relationship with the orchestras of Colonne and Lamoureux led to instigating cahiers de charge for such associations, beginning in 1897. Until 1940 this meant regular state review of their performances of new French music, their ticket prices and the number of their concerts at reduced prices or seats available to the blind or poor. Other branches of government have also had direct influence on the musical world. For many years, the requirement that performing organizations get permission from the Préfecture de la Police before holding public concerts meant that the government was involved in overseeing the activities of private concert societies and amateur music groups. Riots outside the Opéra’s first production of Lohengrin in 1891 (see France, fig.17) and continued threats by anti-German patriots at other concerts made maintenance of social order one of the main criteria for censuring repertory.

One of the results of this relationship to the state has been a concentration of educational institutions and important competitions in Paris. Arguably the most important step toward a career for any musician has been entrance into the Paris Conservatoire, never an easy task. According to Pistone (1979), in 1900 210 singers competed for 21 places, 195 pianists for 27 places and 131 violinists for 14. Although there have always been other music schools in Paris – the most important being the Ecole Niedermeyer (founded 1853), the Schola Cantorum (founded 1894) and the Ecole Normale de Musique (founded 1919) – a premier prix from the Paris Conservatoire virtually assures a musician of a career. Not only has study with teachers from Massenet and Fauré to Messiaen had a major impact on composers from Ravel and Schmitt to Boulez and Grisey, the pre-eminent composition competition at the Conservatoire, the Prix de Rome (ended in 1968), exposed a composer’s work to the review of the six most powerful musicians in the country, those at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, all of whom had to live in Paris. This group not only chose the winner, it also sponsored Parisian performances of the winner’s work composed during three subsequent years in Rome. Since the 1870s the Académie has also awarded other composition prizes, including the Cressent, Rossini, Monbinne and Nicolo prizes. In 1876 the City of Paris began to offer its own composition prize, the music equivalent of the annual salon for painters. This prize included 10,000 francs for a Parisian première.

Another effect of state support has been technological innovation in Paris, as symbolized by the Eiffel Tower of 1889. In the 19th century the great Parisian exhibitions encouraged a race for new patents, resulting in the double-keyboard piano, the chromatic harp and hundreds of other new instruments. The installation of Cavaillé-Coll organs in St Sulpice, Ste Madeleine-en-la-Cité, La Trinité, Notre Dame, the Princesse de Polignac’s salon and elsewhere helped stimulate a new way of writing for the instrument. In 1881 the Opéra’s use of electric lighting and the théâtrephone to transmit music to listeners outside the hall transformed the public’s experience of theatre. In the 20th century the film and radio industries based in Paris have provided new opportunities for musicians. Since 1948 music research has been an integral part of work at the radio. The Groupes de recherches musicales (founded 1958), directed by Pierre Schaeffer and later François Bayle, invented electro-acoustic music there. Music research and creation became departments of the Maison de la Radio in 1975. They have also been priorities at the computer research facilities of IRCAM in the 1980s and 90s.

More indirectly, Paris has also proved immensely stimulating for musicians seeking inspiration, fame and fortune. Cafés, journal headquarters, bookstores and private homes have provided important contexts for discussing ideas, performing music and building bonds. In the early 1880s Debussy, who came from the working class, visited daily the bourgeois home of Mme Vasnier for whom he wrote some of his best songs and whose encouragement was an important part of his early career. He met Satie at the Auberge du Clou and Proust at the Café Wéber. In the early 1890s he discussed occultist and symbolist ideas with poets and other writers at the Revue Blanche and at the bookstore, the Librairie de l’Art Indépendent. He also attended Mallarmé’s Tuesday salon. In the 1920s Adrienne Monnier’s bookstore and Jean Wiener’s Gaya bar similarly attracted composers such as Ravel, Auric and Poulenc and singers such as Maurice Chevalier, together with Cocteau, Picasso, Tzara, Paul Poiret and others for jazz performances.

As a centre of innovation and intellectual life, Paris has long been an arbiter of taste and fashion. As part of la vie mondaine, musical performances have provided élite audiences with numerous opportunities to see and be seen. Before World War I especially, the huge ornate staircase and numerous boxes of the Palais Garnier, completed in 1875, served as a backdrop to the theatre’s elegant public (fig.32). Some have asserted that the Opéra was a ‘neutral terrain for the privileged’, a momentary escape from listeners’ fierce political differences. Others point to the allure of snobisme, or the élite public’s desire to stay abreast of the most recent trends, whether represented by Wagner, the Ballets Russes or, more recently, computer music. Such an appeal grew increasingly important after 1900 as producers used ‘scandals’ to draw crowds and generate interest. Linking fashion, luxury and music between 1905 and 1913, Gabriel Astruc attracted aristocrats, wealthy industrialists and financiers to over 1000 performances he presented. This strategy contributed to the success of his annual spring series of Italian operas, his succession of foreign visitors (Caruso in 1905, the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1910 and Toscanini in 1911) and his Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, which opened in 1913 with Debussy’s Jeux and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.

From the late 19th century, however, increasing numbers of bourgeois listeners were drawn to concerts, replacing the wealthy élite as the largest component of the Parsian musical public. Concert series conducted by Pasdeloup (founded 1861 as the Concerts Populaires), Colonne (founded 1873 as the Concert National; fig.33) and Lamoureux (founded 1881), all still functioning, eventually built huge audiences of two to three thousand people who came Sunday after Sunday for 24 weeks per season. Some paid only one franc or less. By the 1890s arts director Gustave Larroumet credited these associations with spreading the taste for music more than the opera houses or the most prestigious Parisian orchestra, the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire (founded 1828), whose subscription seats rarely changed hands. Some critics, such as Camille Mauclair, thought these concerts helped people ‘forget their misery, flee from who they were and find who they wanted to be’. They helped to make music an integral part of city life.

The tactics used by the orchestral associations set important precedents for their successors. As with other forms of bourgeois diversion, like reading and drawing, organizers understood that concerts needed to nourish and educate as well as entertain. In 1885–6 Colonne decided that his concerts that season would ‘form a complete summary of the history of music’ and be accompanied by programmes with extensive notes written by Charles Malherbe, archivist at the Opéra. By 1900 such notes were a major part of a Parisian listener’s experience. Concert repertory also reflected a desire to teach. Not only the major orchestras but also soloists such as Marie Jaëll and Edouard Risler occasionally performed works in series, such as the symphonies or sonatas of Beethoven in chronological order. At the end of the 19th century they also dug up neglected works from the past and combined old and new on concert programmes. The juxtaposition of old works and classics of modern music with premières of new works has characterized a number of concert programmes since then, including Boulez’s Domaine Musical (1954–73).

Paris has also been the site of many specialized music societies. Some, including the Association des Chanteurs de St Gervais (1892) and Les Arts Florissants (1979), have focussed on early music, others on individual composers or single genres. Some have arisen out of political divisions, such as those created by the Boulanger and Dreyfus affairs, or attempts to bridge such divisions. In an effort to solidify the ralliement ideology of the 1890s, for example, Comtesse Greffuhle’s Société des Grandes Auditions Musicales (1890–1913) used music to bring republicans together with ancien régime sympathizers. Antagonisms between composers have generated numerous new initiatives advocating various approaches to musical progress: the Société Nationale de Musique (1871–1939), the Société Musicale Indépendante (1909–35), Triton (1932–9), Ars Nova (founded 1963), Itinéraire (founded 1973) and the Ensemble InterContemporain (founded 1976). The proliferation of petites chapelles in Paris, each with its own aesthetic beliefs, has made the city an ideological battlefield among those seeking to shape the future.

Certain private musical venues have served to define and promote the interests of such groups. In the late 19th century, for example, the Friday evening concerts of Mme de Saint-Marceaux, attended by painters, sculptors and writers as well as musicians, served as testing grounds for members of the Société Nationale, including Fauré, Saint-Saëns and d’Indy. The salons of Chausson and Chabrier performed a similar function. From the turn of the century until the 1930s the Princesse de Polignac sponsored in her home premières of new works by such composers as Poulenc and Stravinsky. In 1945 it was at René Leibowitz’s home that Boulez first heard Schoenberg’s Wind Quintet, initiating his lifelong interest in serialism, and in private classes at Messiaen’s home that he, Barraqué, Berio, Maderna, Stockhausen and others found support for a new way of writing. Similarly, in the late 1940s and early 1950s Boulez was supported by Suzanne Tézenas and her friends, who funded the concerts at Théâtre Marigny which evolved into the Domaine Musical concerts and publications. In addition to aristocrats and members of the haute bourgeoisie, Tézenas’s circle included painters, art gallery directors and writers, who, it has been suggested, supported serial music because they saw a link between it and the abstract painting they were collecting.

Amateur musical groups, many of them choruses, have also thrived in Paris, though perhaps less so than in the provinces. Guillot de Sainbris’ Société chorale d'Amateurs performed regularly in the late 19th century and was reviewed frequently in the press because it often gave the premières of works by contemporary composers. Other amateur groups were formed by workers at factories and department stores. The Bon Marché, for example, which had a choral society and wind band from 1872 to the turn of the century, offered its musicians regular solfège classes and hired retired directors of the National Guard band to conduct. Their ensembles performed each summer in the park outside the store. The attempt to bring music education to the lower classes, sponsored by groups such as the Association Galiniste, eventually led to the creation of a number of schools. The most famous, Gustave Charpentier’s Conservatoire Populaire Mimi Pinson, was founded for working-class girls in 1902. Subsidies from both the Minister of Public Instruction and the City of Paris allowed them to perform concerts at the Palais du Trocadéro. The Jeunesses Musicales created in Paris in 1941 for girls left behind during the war continued this spirit. As they expanded to 40,000 members, they were given the major halls of Paris for their conference concerts, including the Opéra (beginning in 1942) and the Salle Pleyel. By 1944 they had played for 300,000 listeners and their activities spread throughout the country.

At less formal venues such as skating rinks, the Jardin Zoologique d’Acclimatation and the kiosks of the Tuileries, Palais Royal and Luxembourg Gardens, part-time orchestras, amateur wind groups (orphéons) and the military bands of the various French regiments have animated public spaces with cheap or free concerts. By performing transcriptions of popular operas, such groups helped to spread the taste for classical music among the masses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. When the socialists came to power in 1981, the minister of culture Jack Lang revived this activity. His annual Fête de la Musique on the summer solstice has come to involve the entire city in a wide range of popular as well as classical music-making, all free to the public.

As music became an increasingly important part of culture, music criticism and musicology blossomed in Paris. In 1902, for example, it was not uncommon for new works at the Opéra to receive four dozen reviews in as many different print media in the first two weeks of performances. Critics based in Paris but writing as foreign correspondents also have helped promote French musicians abroad. They have educated audiences by writing programme notes for concerts, lecturing at concerts and developing radio programmes. The Sorbonne offered its first musicology course in 1895 and created the Institut de Musicologie in 1951. The Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, the CNRS and the ethnomusicology division of the Museum of Man have also been important centres of research, but none more so than the music department of the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Opéra library and the Archives Nationales.

Paris, §VII: After 1870

2. 1870–1918.

Between 1861 and 1896, the population of Paris rose by nearly 50%, with most of this growth coming after 1870. Between 1876 and 1881 more than a quarter of a million of these newcomers were poor people seeking jobs in Paris’s growing industries. Wanting the state to be seen as representing popular sovereignty, the republicans who came to power in the late 1870s aimed to make music accessible to the largest number of listeners. Paris was their proving ground. They forced the Opéra and other state-funded institutions to provide free or reduced-price concerts to a broader public. The Opéra, for example, began performances for a wider public on Sundays, and in 1892 started a Saturday subscription series for families. The government also sponsored huge festivals at the Hippodrome, many of them devoted to contemporary French music; and it built the colossal Palais du Trocadéro for the 1878 Exhibition and installed in it one of Cavaillé-Coll’s great organs (fig.34).

Because republicans also understood musical progress as a way of demonstrating the country’s regeneration after the Franco-Prussian war, they maintained support for the country’s élite institutions. In spite of constant debates over the Opéra’s utility, from 1876 to 1914 they subsidized the Opéra with over 800,000 francs a year, while after 1880 the Opéra-Comique received a subsidy of 300,000 francs a year. More than 800,000 listeners attended the Palais Garnier in an average year. Expenses and receipts stayed almost constant during this period and the repertory changed only gradually. Preference at the Opéra for Meyerbeer and Gounod (1000 performances of Les Huguenots by 1903 and of Faust by 1905) only gradually ceded to Wagner (nine works produced between Lohengrin in 1891 and Parsifal in 1914) and Saint-Saëns (100 performances of Samson et Dalila between 1892 and 1898). The Opéra also performed 77 new works between 1875 and 1914, two or three per year in the 1890s. At the Opéra-Comique, Bizet's Carmen, Thomas’s Mignon, Massenet’s Manon and Gounod’s Mireille remained popular despite more performances of new works. After a fire in 1887, the Opéra-Comique moved to the Théâtre Lyrique and the Château-d’Eau before finally, in 1898, at huge public expense, occupying the Salle Favart. The Eden-Théâtre also performed opera and operetta (1883–94), as did other theatres like the Théâtre Italien, Théâtre Lyrique, Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, Théâtre de la Gaîté, Théâtre de la Renaissance, Théâtre de la République and Théâtre des Variétés.

Musical life exploded at the end of the century in part because in the 1880s the government, which had previously focussed on individual arts initiatives, turned to economic liberalism and the encouragement of large business interests. Not only did the theatres on the right bank boulevards thrive, so did three circuses. Montmartre became a centre of night life with the opening of Rudolphe Salis’ ‘Le Chat Noir’ (1881; see Cabaret), Aristide Bruant’s ‘Le Mirliton’ (1885), ‘Le Divan Japonais’ (1886; fig.35), frequented by the famous singer Yvette Guilbert (fig.36), and ‘La Cigale’ (1887). Their appeal spread to all social classes. The cabaret ‘Chat Noir’, for example, attracted well-off snobs and foreign aristocrats on the ‘chic day’, Friday evening, as well as bourgeois and working class on other days. It offered theatrical sketches, songs, and, after 1886, nightly shadow puppet shows. Satie played the piano there from 1888 to 1891, after which he moved to the Auberge du Clou and the Café de la Nouvelle Athènes. According to guides of the time, there were around 200 such café-concerts in Paris in 1890, earning over 100,000 francs a month. While some attacked such venues for their politically satirical songs and ‘vulgar’ entertainment, others praised them for liberating both composers and the public from narrow views about music.

Other cabarets and music halls, such as the Folies-Bergère (see Café-concert), the Casino de Paris and Olympia, made their reputations in the 1890s with revues à grand spectacle. The Folies-Bergère and Olympia were the first to incorporate film (Lumière Cinématographe in 1898) and others soon followed. Unlike the café-concerts, music halls were international in nature. Along with operettas, musical plays, ballets and circus acts, they included foreign groups – exotic dancers like Loie Fuller or soloists from Java, women’s orchestras from Austria and eastern Europe, ragtime and American popular dance. Although café-concerts tended to disappear by 1918, music halls thrived until the mid-1930s when cinema claimed much of their public.

Classical music groups were also formed in increasing numbers. In 1900 there were 162 music societies in Paris, although the increasing popularity of sports clubs and other activities led to a decline thereafter. Orchestras tended to present the same formula of about five works, each in a different genre, and many during this period gave premières of new works as well as featuring distinguished singers from the Opéra. In addition to the major orchestras, orchestral music was presented by, among others, the Société des Grands Concerts de Broustet (founded 1881), the Concerts Modernes de Godard (founded 1884), the Concerts Chaigneau (founded 1887), Eugène d’Harcourt’s Concerts Eclectiques Populaires (founded 1893), Le Rey’s Société Philharmonique (founded 1900) and the Concerts Séchiari (founded 1906). With an orchestra of 14, many of them Prix de Rome winners, the Concerts Rouge (founded 1889) gave nightly concerts of symphonies and operas in a brasserie on the rue de Tournon. Their competitor, the Concerts Touche, did the same in another brasserie after 1906.

Chamber music also thrived. Besides groups dedicated to new music, audiences heard the Nouvelle Société de Musique de Chambre (1873), the Quatuor Ste-Cécile, a women’s ensemble directed by Marie Tayau (1875), the Société des Quatuors Populaires (1877), the Société des Instruments à Vent (1879), the Société de Musique Française d’Edouard Nadaud (1880), the Société des Quatuors Modernes (1881), the Quatuor Parent (1890), the Quatuor Capet (1893), the Société de Musique d’Ensemble de Réné Lenormand (1894), the Société Moderne des Instruments à Vent (1895), the Double Quintette de Paris (1897) and many others.

The success of these concerts linked music to family life, led many to taking piano or singing lessons, contributed to the growth of the musical instrument industry and created demand for easily available and inexpensive musical scores. This resulted in the production of a great number of regular music publications, all based in Paris. Especially before World War I this included weekly musical scores in newspapers such as Le Figaro and L’Echo de Paris, innumerable monthly journals of music transcribed for piano, monthly music supplements to family magazines such as Illustration and cheap sheet music.

The war interrupted musical life. The Opéra closed after Les Huguenots on 29 July 1914, moved for a brief period to the Trocadéro and returned to the Palais Garnier in December 1915. Performances continued under the new leadership of Jacques Rouché. In spring 1915 the Opéra-Comique gave the premières of works by Bruneau, Leroux, Messager and Casadesus and gave 32 performances of Paul Vidal’s Soldats de France. Just as the Union-Sacrée, the coalition controlling the Chambre des Députés, embraced a politics of national unity, so the previously competitive Concerts Lamoureux and Concerts Colonne merged during the war. Some hoped, in vain, that the two most important groups promoting new music, the Société Nationale and the Société Musicale Indépendante, would bury their differences and do the same.

Paris, §VII: After 1870

3. 1918–44.

After the war Paris was lively again, but also full of fascist leagues. Like the conservative coalition that came to power in the Chambre des Députés, musical producers sought works that represented a French identity on which many could agree. On 17 January 1919 the Opéra reopened with Rameau’s Castor et Pollux. Three days later the Société Musicale Indépendante gave the première of Lili Boulanger’s Clairières dans le ciel. Performing French music became a priority for many organizations. Between 1919 and 1939 the Opéra, under Jacques Rouché, gave the premières of 71 operas and 73 ballets, many of them by French composers such as Schmitt, d’Indy, Ravel, Bruneau, Hahn and Roussel. The Opéra-Comique, criticized for becoming a place to try out new works, mounted even more premières of French works as well as making 60 recordings. From 1937 the state itself began to commission French composers as part of the politics of the Popular Front.

New institutions and musical organizations were also created. In 1919 Alfred Cortot and Alfred Mangeot founded the Ecole Normale de Musique with the explicit purpose of preparing students for careers, including teaching music. The American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, south-east of Paris, opened in 1921, attracting numerous Americans to the classes of Nadia Boulanger. Many orchestras and new music groups also began, the most important being the revived Concerts Pasdeloup (1918), the Concerts Koussevitzky (1921–9), the Concerts Wiéner (1921–4), the Concerts Siohan (1924–32), the Concerts Straram (1926), the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris (1928) and, in the 1930s, the Société Philharmonique de Paris, the Concerts Poulet and the Orchestre Féminin Jane Evrard. A new Salle Pleyel opened in October 1927 with Stravinsky conducting his Firebird and Ravel his Valse; and the Montparnasse boulevard on the left bank became a favourite night spot.

Despite this productivity and attempts to expose audiences to new music, tastes were becoming more conservative. In 1929 an Opéra subscriber interviewed by Rouché said he would rather hear Faust 100 times than the same modern work twice. A few years later, Jacques Ibert told an interviewer that students, who previously filled the top floor at premières, were no longer going to the Opéra-Comique. Renewed spirituality and interest in Catholicism played a role. In 1923 another school for sacred music opened, the Institut Grégorien of the Institut Catholique. In the 1930s composers began to write works based on religious figures, especially Joan of Arc (Paray, Rosenthal, Rivier and Honegger). Some also turned to ancient Greece or wrote new works for the harpsichord. Wanda Landowska presented Sunday Concerts champêtres of early music, while Nadia Boulanger put on concerts of Monteverdi, Purcell and Bach (1933–8). Forced by their cahiers de charge to give so many minutes of new French works, orchestras drew audiences with endless festivals of Beethoven or Wagner. The two societies devoted to new music, Sérénade and Triton, were formed in the early 1930s but came to an end in 1939, as did the Société Nationale and, in 1935, the Société Musicale Indépendante.

Audiences, too, began to shrink, as did the number of music publishers, piano makers, amateur singing societies and music teachers. According to the Guide musical the number of concerts in Paris declined from 1810 in 1924–5 to 1025 in 1938–9, although the popularity of orchestral concerts increased to 1930. Some blame the advent of radio, sound films and the rising popularity of the phonograph and pianola. The first radio transmission in France came from the Radio Tour-Eiffel, a state-owned station, in 1921; Radio Paris, the first private station, was created in 1922. Daily broadcasts began in 1925 and by 1935 music on the radio ran from early morning until after midnight. Radio became an important part of the musical world of Paris, stimulating the government in 1935 to create a Conseil Supérieur de la Radiodiffusion to involve the participation of authorities from the arts, sciences and literature. Radio broadcast both recordings and live performances, the first one coming from the Opéra after the victory of the Left in the legislative elections of 1932. Its popularity also generated a new orchestra, the Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion, formed in 1934, the first orchestra with musicians paid monthly as state employees. It began to pay musicians broadcast rights; and its programmes, some of them explicit in their pedagogical role, reached five million by 1939. That year, from Radio Paris and Paris-PTT alone, audiences each week could have heard 52 variety programmes, including two operettas, as well as 75 classical concerts, including three by the radio orchestra. New publications like Mon programme published by the newspaper Le petit parisien, became integral parts of the listening experience.

Meanwhile the popularity of jazz transformed the city, going beyond what Oriental exoticism had represented for composers and audiences before the war. At cinemas and music halls, blues, ragtime and dixieland were played by black orchestras such as the Charleston Jazzband. At first this attracted intellectuals and aficionados. Sartre dreamed of becoming a jazz musician after the Hot Club opened in 1932. Django Reinhardt, among others, performed there. Later, big bands such as those of Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman attracted the mass public. Some black Americans gained more recognition in Paris than in the USA. The sound of American ballroom and swing on records, as well as popular singers like Edith Piaf, helped drive the craze for recordings in the 1930s. New journals sprang up to feed this interest, among them Bulletin du Hot Club, Jazz Hot and, later, Jazz Magazine.

The new forces contributed to crisis at the Opéra. It adapted to the public’s increasing taste for spectacle by presenting mixed genres often involving dance (Roussel’s Padmâvatî, Schmitt’s music for the film Salammbô and the productions featuring Ida Rubenstein). However, Rouché was forced to spend his private fortune to keep it afloat in part because the state subsidy never rose and in 1928 taxes were over one million francs. Between 1931 and 1937 the Opéra’s receipts fell by 38%. On 14 January 1939 the state made it a public institution, assuming total responsibility and creating the Réunion des Théâtres Lyriques Nationaux. Subscribers were then divested of their quasi-permanent seats and only a few evenings were reserved for them. The Opéra closed with the war on 1 September 1939, reopened and then closed again when German troops entered Paris on 14 June 1940.

During the occupation military bands performed German music before the Opéra and Notre Dame, in the Tuileries Gardens, and at the Place de la République. Meanwhile, musical life returned to a kind of normal. The Conservatoire reopened on 24 June, as did cinemas, theatres, cabarets, music halls, circuses, followed in August by the Opéra, Opéra-Comique and Comédie Française. Without necessarily collaborating with the Vichy regime, many composers and playwrights were content to have their works performed during this period, including Poulenc (Les animaux modèles), Honegger (Antigone) and Schmitt (La tragédie de Salomé), Claudel (L’annonce faite à Marie), Giono (Le bout de la route) and Sartre (Huis clos). In addition to some Wagner, the opera houses continued presenting their repertory of late 19th-century French masterpieces. Major orchestras also continued to perform. Radio stations were perhaps the only aspect of the musical world directly reflecting Paris’s political condition. A ‘war of the waves’ took place between the communist Radio Liberté, the German-influenced Radio Paris, and Radio Vichy. This propagandistic use of the medium contributed to a dramatic increase in the number of radios in the city.

Paris, §VII: After 1870

4. After 1945.

After the liberation of Paris, musical leaders changed their orientation. Responding to the increased popularity of radio, Manuel Rosenthal reorganized the Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion, increased its size, and added a lyric orchestra, a chamber orchestra and six provincial orchestras. Henry Barraud programmed more non-French composers, including Stravinsky, Bartók, Hindemith and Prokofiev. In 1947, the Conservatoire initiated new classes in analysis (Messiaen), aesthetics (Beaufils) and musicology (Dufourcq). In 1951 the Prix de Rome competition changed to accommodate post-tonality and allowed composers to include earlier works and a wider variety of genres; and in 1952 Bernard Gavoty introduced analysis lectures to accompany the contemporary music concerts of the Jeunesses Musicales.

Under the Fourth Republic mass culture became a major phenomenon, with the number of radios growing to over ten million in the 1950s. After 1945 radio also became a state monopoly, with Radiodiffusion Française (RDF) the most important national station; this later became Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF) with the creation of the second television channel in 1964. Along with cinema and television, the popularity of radio contributed to a standardization of taste and repertory. This, however, was accompanied by a widespread crisis. The Jeunesses Musicales became one of the most important cultural movements in the world, spreading to almost 200 provincial towns. But from 1949 to 1963 there was a further decline in the musical public. While the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire maintained high attendance at its concerts, the Concerts Pasdeloup often played to a hall two-thirds full, Colonne to somewhat less, and Lamoureux to even fewer listeners. At the same time, although 60% of the country’s musicians resided in Paris, the number of orchestral musicians in the city declined from 7000 in 1930 to 2000 in 1964. By 1963 only 23 associations were receiving state subsidies, and subsidies of the most important orchestras had decreased substantially. Instrumental production also declined, especially in pianos. Whereas in 1929 20,000 instruments were built in Paris, by 1962 only 2000 were made there. The French lute industry almost disappeared. Only the production of wind instruments maintained previous levels; and while the record industry grew substantially, the music publishing business stalled.

Some saw the problems of the 1950s and 60s as a product of French protectionism and sought to address this by looking beyond French frontiers. In 1952 Nicolas Nabokov founded the Oeuvre du XXe Siècle to present the works of Schoenberg and Webern; the society gave the Parisian première of Berg's Wozzeck. Boulez’s Domaine Musical also revealed new works coming from abroad, as did the Opéra-Comique, whose 1954 Festival de Paris became known as the Théâtre des Nations from 1957 to 1963.

In 1959, with the erosion of private patronage of music, the government decided to take charge of the situation and attributed to culture a ministry of its own under the leadership of André Malraux. He believed that culture is not inherited but ‘conquered’. It is an existential struggle to ‘protect the imaginary’ and ‘resurrect nobility’ in a world of imagery provided by machines. Acknowledging the need for new visions of musical life, in 1966 he appointed Marcel Landowski as director of music. Their politics consisted of rethinking the role and nature of orchestras and music pedagogy, funding festivals (96 of them by 1974) and commissioning composers. In 1967 this resulted in the creation of a new orchestra of 110 salaried musicians, the Orchestre de Paris, replacing the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. Funding was provided by the state (50%) the City of Paris (33%) and the Conseil Général de la Seine (17%). At its inaugural concert on 14 November 1967, Charles Münch conducted the première of Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles together with Debussy's La mer and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. In 1973 the orchestra moved to the Palais des Congrès and later the Salle Pleyel. The state and City of Paris also shared funding for various new music initiatives, including the Journées de Musique Contemporaine (1968), which formed part of the Semaines Musicales Internationales de Paris (founded 1968), the Festival d’Automne (1972) and the research centre IRCAM (1975); see Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique, created to encourage collective work and reputedly as a condition of Boulez’s return to France from New York. All this was part of a conscious effort to recognize and support the city as a European, not merely a French, centre of musical and artistic life.

Malraux’s concept of culture took hold, and whereas in 1960 people’s spending on cultural events constituted one sixth of their spending on food, this increased to one third by 1979. Moreover culture became a focal point in the debates about national identity and national heritage. When the socialists came to power in 1981, it became even more important. Because they doubled the Ministry of Culture’s budget, spending was increased on musical production, musical centres and new music associations. The musical landscape changed radically. In 1980 the Théâtre Musical de Paris at the Théâtre du Châtelet, supported by the city as a public service to ‘inform, instruct, and elevate’ its citizens, added an important venue for operas and new music as well as foreign orchestras, singers and dance groups. This strengthened the importance of Paris as an international creative centre. So did the Maison de la Culture in Bobigny, which began to offer major premières such as that of Boulez’s Répons and later operas directed by foreigners like Robert Wilson and Peter Sellars. Meanwhile IRCAM, which expanded its research programmes in the 1980s and its pedagogical programmes in the 1990s, continued to function as a place of international exchange funded entirely by the state, although for some its excessive cost and Boulez’s tight control limited other kinds of growth in the musical world. By the mid-1980s, however, there were six orchestras performing in Paris and the state supported 11 centres of music research in the suburban area. The radio orchestra gave 350 concerts per season and performed 150 new works each year, over 40 of them commissions. The public stations France-Musique, France-Culture and France-Inter broadcast over 10,000 hours of music per year, while the extremely successful Festival d’Automne brought music from all over the world.

Besides favouring innovation, research and new projects over established institutions, the socialists also sought to make music available to a diverse public including the young and working class and to support popular along with élite genres. In the spirit of integrating the traditional sections of Paris in the midst of sociological transformation, plans began for a Cité de la Musique in the working-class neighbourhood of La Villette – eventually to contain a new building for the Conservatoire, a concert hall, a musical instrument museum, a pedagogical institute and a research centre. Expansion into the Bercy area led to the construction of the Palais des Sports, completed in 1983. Its 13,000 seats made operas such as Aïda, Turandot, Carmen and Faust available to the masses. In 1982 President Mitterrand announced his plan to build a new opera house, the Opéra Bastille, in the Marais district. Opera performances at the old house, the Palais Garnier, ceased in 1987 and it is now used mainly for ballet. The Opéra Bastille (fig.37) was virtually completed for its inaugural operatic concert on 13 July 1990; a short operatic season had already opened on 17 March 1990 with P.L. Pizzi’s production of Les Troyens. From the beginning the house has been treated as a political football. Daniel Barenboim, appointed artistic director in 1987, was dismissed in 1989 by the newly appointed president of the board, Pierre Bergé, who took overall artistic control and appointed Myung-Whun Chung as his musical director. But controversy, both financial and practical, has continued to dog the Opéra Bastille, as exemplified by the resignation of Chung in 1994 after disagreements with Bergé and his successor, Hugues Gall.

The state has taken explicit steps to help popular musicians in Paris, and for huge rock concerts it helped build ‘Zénith’. Paris also developed as a centre for African musicians including Manu Dibango, Salif Keïta, Ray Lema, Mory Kanté, Alpha Blondy and the group Xalam, especially after the annual African festival at the Porte de la Villette (founded 1978). Jack Lang subsidized some of these concerts, and at La Villette each July he also supported a festival of jazz. In the mid-1980s the state lowered the tax on recordings, funded the creation of an Orchestre National de Jazz, and founded centres for the study of jazz (1984), rock (1986) and traditional music (1992), and a studio to record popular music. State support for jazz and popular music grew 350% from 1980 to 1990.

In 1987 and 1990 laws passed to attract private foundations to the support of music further transformed the musical world. It became possible for any corporate foundation ‘recognized of public utility’ to deduct its contributions to non-profit organizations from its taxes, and so private enterprise became a major factor. This represented a substantial change from the long tradition of state control. Corporate foundations who close to support music in Paris include: France Télécom (vocal music); the Société Générale (young performers, musical practice, musicological conferences and contemporary music); the Caisse des Dépôts (the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, jazz, and Baroque music); the BNP (comic opera); Le Crédit Local de France (opera); Hewlett Packard France (the Festival d’Art Sacré de la Ville de Paris); and Moët Hennessy and Louis Vuitton (IRCAM). Of all foundation money supporting the arts, a majority has gone to music, and a third of this to music in Paris.

In the early twenty-first century Paris remains musically vibrant. On any day, on average 20 classical concerts are presented in over 80 venues, together with performances in over 70 venues for jazz, folk and popular music, as well as ballet, and traditional music and dance from around the world. France-Musique broadcasts around 400 concerts per year, the majority by its four ensembles, although at low frequency for a limited public. France-Culture and France-Classique also programme classical music. Popular music, however, is the norm on the radio as well as in restaurants and stores. Although the city shares in the worldwide crisis concerning both the role of serious music and the notion of a distinct national music, the centralization of government in Paris and its commitment to arts organizations as public services assure a continuation of support for musical developments that reflect evolving concepts of progress.

Paris

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A General. B To 1600: (i) Sacred (ii) Secular. C 1600–1789: (i) Stage (ii) Sacred (iii) Other. D 1789–1870. E After 1870.

a: general

BrenetM; ES (L. Chancerel and others) [incl. comprehensive list of theatres]; HopkinsonD; LabordeMP; MGG2 (B. Schilling-Wang and others)

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Paris: Bibliography

b: to 1600

(i) Sacred

G. Dubois: Historia ecclesiae parisiensis (Paris, 1690–1710)

B.E.C. Guérard: Cartulaire de l’Eglise Notre-Dame de Paris (Paris, 1850)

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A. Gastoué: Histoire du chant liturgique à Paris (Paris, 1904) [orig. pubd in Revue du chant grégorien, xi–xii (1902–4)]

J. Handschin: ‘Zur Geschichte von Notre Dame’, AcM, iv (1932), 5–17, 49–55, 104–5

Y. Rokseth, ed.: Polyphonies du XIIIe siècle: le manuscrit H 196 de la Faculté de médecine de Montpeller, iv: Etudes et commentaires (Paris, 1948)

F.A. Yates: ‘Dramatic Religious Processions in Paris in the Late Sixteenth Century’, AnnM, ii (1954), 215–70

E.F. Flindell: The Achievements of the Notre Dame School (diss., U. of Pennsylvania, 1959)

G. Birkner: ‘Notre Dame-Cantoren und -Succentoren vom Ende des 10. bis zum Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts’, In memoriam Jacques Handschin, ed. H. Anglès and others (Strasbourg, 1962), 107–26

H. Husmann: ‘St. Germain und Notre-Dame’, Natalicia musicologica Knud Jeppesen septuagenario collegis oblata, ed. B. Hjelmborg and S. Sørenson (Copenhagen, 1962), 31–6

H. Husmann: ‘The Enlargement of the Magnus Liber Organi and the Paris Churches St. Germain l’Auxerrois and Ste. Geneviève-du-Mont’, JAMS, xvi (1963), 176–203

H. Husmann: ‘The Origin and Destination of the Magnus Liber Organi’, MQ, xlix (1963), 311–30

H. Husmann: ‘Notre Dame und Saint Victor: Repertoire-Studien zur Geschichte der gereimten Prosen’, AcM, xxxvi (1964), 98–123, 191–221

M. Huglo: ‘Les Debuts de la polyphonie à Paris: les premiers organa Parisiens’, Forum Musicologicum, iii (1982), 93–117

M. Haas: ‘Die Musiklehre im 13. Jahrhundert von Johannes de Garlandia bis Franco’, Die Mittelalterliche Lehre von der Mehrstimmkeit, Geschichte der Musiktheorie, ed. F. Zaminer, v (Darmstadt, 1984), 89–159

A.W. Robertson: ‘The Reconstruction of the Abbey Church at St. Denis (1231–81): the Interplay of Music and Ceremony with Architecture and Politics’, EMH, v (1985), 187–238

C. Wright: ‘Education in the Maîtrise of Notre-Dame of Paris at the End of the Middle Ages’, L’enseignement de la musique au Moyen Age et à la Renaissance: Royaumont 1985, 130–33

M.E. Fassler: ‘The Role of the Parisian Sequence in the Evolution of Notre-Dame Polyphony’, Speculum, lxii (1987), 345–74

N.E. Smith: ‘The Parisian Sanctorale ca. 1225’, Capella Antiqua München: Festschrift zum 25jährigen Bestehen, ed. T. Drescher (Tutzing, 1988), 247–61

C.M. Wright: Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris, 500–1500 (Cambridge, 1989)

R.A. Baltzer: ‘How Long was Notre Dame Organum Performed?’, Beyond the Moon: Festschrift Luther Dittmer, ed. B. Gillingham and P. Merkley (Ottawa, 1990), 118–43

J.T. Brobeck: The Motet at the Court of Francis I (diss., U. of Pennsylvania, 1991)

A.W. Robertson: The Service-Books of the Royal Abbey of Saint Denis: Images of Ritual and Music in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1991)

R.A. Baltzer: ‘The Geography of the Liturgy at Notre-Dame of Paris’, Plainsong in the Age of Polyphony, ed. T.F. Kelly, Cambridge Studies in Performance Practice, ii (Cambridge, 1992), 32–44 [incl. list of Parisian plainchant sources]

M.E. Fassler: Gothic Song: Victorine Sequences and Augustinian Reform in Twelfth-Century Paris (Cambridge, 1993)

J.T. Brobeck: ‘Musical Patronage in the Royal Chapel of France under Francis I (r. 1515–1547)’, JAMS, xlviii (1995), 187–239

(ii) Secular

H. Prunières: ‘La musique de la chambre et de l’écurie sous le règne de François Ier (1516–1547)’, Année musicale, i (1911), 215–51

A. Pirro: La musique à Paris sous le règne de Charles VI, 1380–1422 (Strasbourg, 1930, 2/1958)

F.A. Yates: The French Academies in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1947)

F.A. Yates: ‘Poésie et musique pour les “Magnificences” du mariage du duc de Joyeuse, Paris, 1581’, Musique et poésie au XVIe siècle: Paris 1953, 241–64

F. Lesure: ‘La facture instrumentale à Paris au seizième siècle’, GSJ, vii (1954), 11–52

F. Lesure: ‘Les orchestres populaires à Paris vers la fin du XVIe siècle’ RdM, xxxvi (1954), 39–54

N.C. Carpenter: Music in the Medieval and Renaissance Universities (Norman, OK, 1958)

D. Heartz: ‘Parisian Music Publishing under Henri II: a propos of Four Recently Discovered Guitar Books’, MQ, xlvi (1960), 448–67

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S.W. Deierkauf-Holsboer: Le Théâtre de l’Hôtel de Bourgogne, i (Paris, 1968–70)

S. Bonime: ‘The Musicians of the Royal Stable under Charles VIII and Louis XII (1485–1514)’, CMc, no.25 (1978), 7–21

L.L. Perkins: ‘Musical Patronage at the Royal Court of France under Charles VII and Louis XI (1422–83)’, JAMS, xxxvii (1984), 507–66

M.E. Everist: ‘The Rondeau Motet: Paris and Artois in the Thirteenth Century’, ML, lxix (1988), 1–22

R. Sherr: ‘The Membership of the Chapels of Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne in the Years Preceeding Their Deaths’, JM, vi (1988), 60–82

M.E. Everist: Polyphonic Music in Thirteenth-Century France: Aspects of Sources and Distribution (New York and London, 1989)

R. Freedman: ‘Paris and the French Court under François I’, The Renaissance: from the 1470s to the end of the 16th Century, ed. I. Fenlon (London, 1989), 174–96

M. Huglo: ‘The Study of Ancient Sources of Music Theory in the Medieval University’, Music Theory and its Sources: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. A. Barbera (Notre Dame, 1990), 150–72

E.H. Roesner, F. Avril and N. Regalado: The Roman de Fauvel in the Edition of Mesire Chaillou de Pesstain: a Reproduction in Facsimile of the Complete Manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français, 146 (New York, 1990)

Paris: Bibliography

c: 1600–1789

(i) Stage

E. Gherardi: Preface to Recueil général de toutes les comédies et scènes françoises jouées par les comédiens italiens du Roy (Paris, 1700)

C.-C. Genest: Les divertissements de Sceaux (Paris, 1712)

L. Riccoboni: Réflexions historiques et critiques sur les diférens théâtres de l'Europe (Paris, 1738; Eng. trans., 1741)

C. and F. Parfaict: Histoire de l’Académie royale de musique (MS, c1741, F-Pn n. a. fr. [6532])

J.B. Durey de Noinville and L. Travenol: Histoire du théâtre de l'Académie royale de Musique (Paris, 1753, 2/1757/R)

[C. and F. Parfaict]: Dictionnaire des théâtres de Paris (Paris, 1756/R, rev. 2/1767 with G. d’Abguerbe)

L.-F. Beffara: Dictionnaire de l’Académie royale de musique (autograph MS, 1783–4, F-Po Rés. 602)

J. Vatout: Le Palais de Fontainebleau (Paris, 1840)

A. Jullien: Les grandes nuits de Sceaux (Paris, 1876)

A. d’Auriac: Le théâtre de la foire (Paris, 1878)

E. Campardon: L’Académie royale de musique au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1884/R)

E. Bourges: Quelques notes sur le théâtre de la cour à Fontainebleau (Paris, 1892)

M. Brenet: Les concerts en France Sour l'ancien régime (Paris, 1900)

N.M. Bernardin: La comédie Italienne en France et les Théâtres de la Foire et du Boulevard (1570–1791) (Paris, 1902)

L. de La Laurencie: ‘La grande saison italienne de 1752: les Bouffons’, BSIM, viii/6 (1912), 18–33; viii/7–8, 13–22

G. Cucuel: ‘Notes sur la comédie Italienne de 1717 à 1789’, SIMG, xv (1913–14), 154–66

P. Mélèse: Le théâtre et le public à Paris sous Louis XIV, 1659–1715 (Paris, 1934)

P. Mélèse: Répertoire analytique des documents contemporains … concernant le théâtre à Paris sous Louis XIV, 1659–1715 (Paris, 1934)

R. Viollier: ‘La musique à la cour de la duchesse du Maine, de Châtenay aux grandes nuits de Sceaux, 1700–1715’, ReM, nos.192–4 (1939), 96–105, 133–8

M. Barthélemy: ‘La musique dramatique à Versailles de 1660 à 1715’, XVIIe siècle, no.34 (1957), 7–18

J. Lough: Paris Theatre Archives in the 17th and 18th Centuries (London, 1957)

M.M. McGowan: L’art du ballet de cour en France: 1581–1643 (Paris, 1963)

C.R. Barnes: ‘Instruments and Instrumental Music at the “Théâtres de la Foire” (1697–1762)’, RMFC, v (1965), 142–68

R. Lowe: Marc-Antoine Charpentier et l’opéra de collège (Paris, 1966)

C.R. Barnes: ‘Vocal Music at the “Théâtres de la Foire” 1697–1762, I: Vaudeville’, RMFC, viii (1968), 141–60

H. Turrentine: ‘The Prince de Conti: a Royal Patron of Music’, MQ, liv (1968), 309–15

A. Ducrot: ‘Les représentations de l’Académie royale de musique à Paris au temps de Louis XIV (1671–1715)’, RMFC, x (1970), 19–55

W.H. Kaehler: The Operatic Repertoire of Madame de Pompadour’s Théâtre des Petits Cabinets (1747–1753) (diss., U. of Michigan, 1971)

B. Lossky: The National Museum of the Château de Fontainebleau (Paris, 1971)

H. Lagrave: Le théâtre et le public à Paris de 1715 à 1750 (Paris, 1972)

G. Sadler: ‘Rameau, Piron and the Parisian Fair Theatres’, Soundings, iv (1974), 13–29

C. Massip: ‘Musique et musiciens à Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1651–1683)’, RMFC, xvi (1976), 261–31

E. Giuliani: ‘Le public de l’Opéra de Paris de 1750 à 1760: mesure et définition’, IRASM, viii (1977), 159–81

J. de La Gorce: L’opéra sous le règne de Louis XIV: le merveilleux ou les puissances surnaturelles, 1671–1715 (diss., U. of Paris-Sorbonne, 1978)

J. de La Gorce: ‘L’Académie royale de musique en 1704’, RdM, lxv (1979), 160–91

J. de La Gorce: ‘L’opéra et son public au temps de Louis XIV’, Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Ile de France (1981), 27–46

J. de La Gorce: ‘L’opéra français à la cour de Louis XIV’, Revue d’histoire du théâtre, xxxv (1983), 387–401

G. Sadler: ‘Rameau’s Singers and Players at the Paris Opéra: a Little-Known Inventory of 1738’, EMc, xi (1983), 453–67

R. Fajon: L’opéra à Paris du Roi-soleil à Louis le Bien-aimé (Geneva, 1984)

P.F. Rice: ‘The Court Theatre at Fontainebleau’, Theatre Research International, ix/2 (1984), 127–39

L. Rosow: ‘From Destouches to Berton: Editorial Responsibility at the Paris Opéra’, JAMS, xl (1987), 285–309

P.F. Rice: The Performing Arts at Fontainebleau from Louis XIV to Louis XVI (Ann Arbor, 1989)

B. Coeyman: ‘Theatres for Opera and Ballet During the Reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV’, EMc, xviii (1990), 22–37

J. de La Gorce: L’opéra à Paris au temps de Louis XIV: histoire d’un théâtre (Paris, 1992)

P.F. Rice: ‘The Performing Arts at the Court of Louis XIV’, Man and Nature/L’homme et la nature, xi (1992), 59–75

E.T. Corp: ‘The Exiled Court of James II and James III: a Century of Italian Music in France, 1689–1712’, JRMA, cxx (1995), 216–31

J. Gribenski, ed.: D’un opéra l’autre: hommage à Jean Mongrédien (Paris, 1996)

D. Charlton: French Opera: 1730–1830: Meaning and media (Aldershot, 1999)

(ii) Sacred

BrenetM

M. Sonnet: Ceremoniale parisiense (Paris, 1662)

F.L. Chartier: L’ancien chapitre de Notre-Dame de Paris et sa maîtrise (Paris, 1897/R)

M. Brenet: La musique sacrée sous Louis XIV (Paris, 1899)

M. Brenet: ‘La musique dans les églises de Paris, de 1716 à 1738 d’après les almanachs du temps’, Tribune de Saint-Gervais, viii (1902), 274–81; ix (1903), 71–5

N. Dufourcq: Le grand orgue et les organistes de Saint-Merry de Paris (Paris, 1947)

N. Dufourcq: ‘De l’emploi du temps des organistes parisiens sous les règnes de Louis XIII et Louis XIV, et de leur participation à l’office’, ReM, no.226 (1955), 35–47

M. Benoit and N. Dufourcq: Dix années à la Chapelle royale de musique, d’après une correspondance inédite, 1718–1728 (Paris, 1957)

F. Raugel: ‘La musique à la chapelle du Château de Versailles sous Louis XIV’, XVIIe siècle, no.34 (1957), 19–25

M. Bert: ‘La musique à la maison royale Saint-Louis de Saint-Cyr’, RMFC, iii (1963), 55–71; iv (1964), 127–31; v (1965), 91–127

M. Le Moël: ‘La chapelle de musique sous Henri IV et Louis XIII’, RMFC, vi (1966), 5–26

A.-M. Yvon-Briand: ‘La maîtrise de Notre-Dame aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles’, Huitième centenaire de Notre-Dame de Paris: Paris 1964 (Paris, 1967), 359–99

J.E. Morby: Musicians at the Royal Chapel of Versailles, 1683–1792 (diss., U. of California, Berkeley, 1971)

D.H. Foster: ‘The Oratorio in Paris in the 18th Century’, AcM, xlvii (1975), 67–133

B. Gérard: ‘La musique dans les églises de la Cité aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles’, RMFC, xvi (1976), 153–86

H. Himelfarb: ‘Lieux eminents du grand motet: décor symbolique et occupation de l’espace dans les deux dernières chapelles royales de Versailles (1682 et 1710)’, Le grand motet français: Paris 1984, 17–27

J. Eby: ‘Music at the Church of the SS Innocents, Paris, in the Late Eighteenth Century’, JRMA, cxvii (1992), 247–69

J. Lionnet: ‘Innocenzo Fede et la musique à la cour des Jacobites à Saint-Germain-en-Laye’, Revue de la Bibliothèque nationale, xlvi (1992), 14–18

(iii) Other

AnthonyFB; BenoitMC; BrenetC; BurneyFI; PierreH

J.C. Nemeitz: Le séjour de Paris (Leiden, 1727)

W. Jones: Observations in a Journey to Paris by way of Flanders (London, 1777)

Le Chevalier de Jaucourt: ‘Paris’, Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, xxiv (Berne and Lausanne, 1780), 116–37

L.S. Mercier: Tableau de Paris (Amsterdam, 1782–3; partial Eng. trans., 1929, as The Picture of Paris, Before and After the Revolution)

A. Elwart: Histoire des concerts populaires de musique classique (Paris, 1864)

J. Ecorcheville: ‘Quelques documents sur la musique de la Grande Ecurie du roi’, SIMG, ii (1900–01), 608–42

G. Capon and R. Yve-Plessis: Paris galant au dix-huitième siècle: vie privée du prince de Conty (Paris, 1907)

G. Cucuel: La Pouplinière et la musique de chambre au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1913/R)

P. Loubet de Sceaury: Musiciens et facteurs d’instruments de musique sous l’ancien régime: statutes corporatifs (Paris, 1949)

N. Dufourcq: ‘Concerts parisiens et associations de “Symphonistes”’, RBM, viii (1954), 46–55

H. Burton: ‘Les académies de musique en France au XVIIIe siècle’, RdM, xxxvii (1955), 122–47

B. Bardet: Les violons de la musique de chambre sous Louis XIV, 1634–1715 (diss., Ecole des Chartes, 1956)

E. Borrel: ‘Notes sur la musique de la Grande écurie de 1650 à 1789’, XVIIe siècle, no.34 (1957), 33–41

P. Citron: ‘Notes sur la musique de chambre à Versailles’, ibid., 26–32

M. Benoit and N. Dufourcq: ‘Les musiciens de Versailles à travers les minutes notariales de LAMY versées aux Archives départementales de Seine-et-Oise’, RMFC, iii (1963), 189–206

N. Dufourcq and M. Benoit: ‘Documents des musiciens de Versailles des minutes du Bailliage de Versailles conservées aux Archives départementales de Seine-et-Oise’, RMFC, vi (1966), 197–226

M. Jurgens: Documents du minutier central concernant l’histoire de la musique (1600–1650) (Paris, 1967–74)

N. Dufourcq, ed.: La musique à la cour de Louis XIV et de Louis XV, d’après les ‘Mémoires’ de Sourches et Luynes, 1681–1758 (Paris, 1970)

M. Benoit: Versailles et les musiciens du roi, 1661–1733 (Paris, 1971)

N. Dufourcq: ‘Les fêtes de Versailles: la musique’, XVIIe siècle, nos.98–9 (1973), 67–75

M. Benoit and N. Dufourcq: ‘Les musiciens de Versailles à travers les minutes notariales de Maître Gayot, versées aux Archives départementales des Yvelines (1661–1733)’, RMFC, xv (1975), 155–90

A. Chastel: ‘Etude sur la vie musicale à Paris, à travers la presse, pendant le règne de Louis XVI’, RMFC, xvi (1976), 37–70

A. Devriès: Edition et commerce de la musique gravée à Paris dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle: les Boivin, les Leclerc (Geneva, 1976)

C. Massip: La vie des musiciens de Paris au temps de Mazarin (1643–1661) (Paris, 1976)

L. Lindgren: ‘Parisian Patronage of Performers from the Royal Academy of Musick (1719–28)’, ML, lviii (1977), 4–28

B. Brévan: Les changements de la vie musicale parisienne de 1774 à 1799 (Paris, 1980)

R.M. Isherwood: Farce and Fantasy: Popular Entertainment in Eighteenth-Century Paris (New York, 1986)

B.R. Hanning: ‘The Iconography of a Salon Concert: a Reappraisal’, French Musical Thought, 1600–1800, ed. G. Cowart (Ann Arbor, 1989), 129–48

J. Mongrédien: ‘Paris: the End of the Ancien Régime’, Man & Music: the Classical Era, ed. N. Zaslaw (London, 1989), 61–98

M. Benoit: ‘Paris, 1661–87: the Age of Lully’, Man & Music: the Early Baroque Era, ed. C. Price (London, 1993), 239–69

D. Heartz: ‘The Concert Spirituel in the Tuileries Palace’, EMc, xxi (1993), 241–8

C. Massip: ‘Paris, 1600–61’, Man & Music: the Early Baroque Era, ed. C. Price (London, 1993), 218–37

Paris: Bibliography

d: 1789–1870

BerliozM

J.F. Reichardt: Vertraute Briefe aus Paris geschrieben in den Jahren 1802 und 1803 (Hamburg, 1804, 2/1805; ed. R. Weber, 1981)

J. Pinkerton: Recollections of Paris in the Years 1802–3–4–5 (London, 1806)

F.-J. Fétis: Curiosités historiques de la musique (Paris, 1830)

Castil-Blaze: Chapelle-musique des rois de France (Paris, 1832)

N. Brazier: Chroniques des petits théâtres de Paris (Paris, 1837, 2/1838 as Histoire des petits théâtres de Paris, depuis leur origine)

A. Elwart: Histoire de la Société des concerts du Conservatoire impérial de musique (Paris, 1860, enlarged 2/1864)

A. Elwart: Histoire des Concerts populaires de musique classique (Paris, 1864)

T. de Lajarte: Bibliothèque musicale du Théâtre de l’Opéra (Paris, 1878/R)

E. Deldevez: La Société des concerts, 1860 à 1885 (Paris, 1887)

A. Dandelot: La Société des concerts du Conservatoire de 1823 à 1897 (Paris, 1898)

C. Pierre, ed.: Le Conservatoire national de musique et de déclamation (Paris, 1900)

M. Albert: Les théâtres des boulevards (1789–1848) (Paris, 1902)

H.R. Beaulien: Les théâtres du boulevard du Crime (Paris, 1905)

G. Cain: Anciens théâtres de Paris: le boulevard du Temple, les théâtres du boulevard (Paris, 1906, 3/1920)

J. Tiersot: Les fêtes et les chants de la Révolution française (Paris, 1908)

H. de Curzon: ‘History and Glory of the Concert-Hall of the Paris Conservatory’, MQ, iii (1917), 304–18

A.W. Locke: Music and the Romantic Movement in France (London, 1920)

A. Dandelot: La Société des concerts du Conservatoire (Paris, 1923)

J.-G. Prod’homme and E. de Crauzat: Les menus plaisirs du roi: l’Ecole royale et le Conservatoire de musique (Paris, 1929)

M.H. Winter: Le théâtre du merveilleux (Paris, 1962; Eng. trans., 1964)

W. Kolneder: ‘Die Gründung des Pariser Konservatoriums’, Mf, xx (1967), 56–7

A.B. Perris: Music in France during the Reign of Louis-Philippe: Art as ‘a Substitute for the Heroic Experience’ (diss., Northwestern U., 1967)

E. Bernard: ‘Jules Pasdeloup et les Concerts populaires’, RdM, lvii (1971), 150–78

D.P. Charlton: Orchestration and Orchestral Practice in Paris, 1789 to 1810 (diss., U. of Cambridge, 1974)

B. François-Sappey: ‘La vie musicale à Paris à travers les Mémoires d’Eugène Sauzay (1809–1901)’, RdM, lx (1974), 159–210

M.H. Winter: The Pre-Romantic Ballet (London, 1974)

H.R. Cohen, ed.: Les gravures musicales dans L’Illustration, 1843–1899 (Quebec and New York, 1983)

M. Haine: Les facteurs d’instruments de musique à Paris au 19e siècle (Brussels, 1985)

J.-M. Fauquet: Les sociétés de musique de chambre à Paris de la Restauration à 1870 (Paris, 1986)

J. Mongrédien: La musique en France des Lumières au Romantisme (1789–1830) (Paris, 1986)

J. Fulcher: The Nation’s Image: French Grand Opera as Politics and Politicized Art (Cambridge, 1987)

S. Huebner: ‘Opera Audiences in Paris, 1830–1870’, ML, lxx (1989), 206–25

N. Wild: Dictionnaire des théâtres parisiens au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1989)

R.P. Locke: ‘Paris: Centre of Intellectual Ferment (1789–1852)’, Man & Music: the Early Romantic Era, Between Revolutions: 1789 and 1848, ed. A. Ringer (London, 1990), 32–83

J. Johnson: Listening in Paris: a Cultural History (Berkeley, 1995)

H. Berlioz: Critique musicale, ed. H.R. Cohen and Y. Gérard, i: 1823–1834 (Paris, 1996), ii: 1835–1836 (Paris, 1998)

Paris: Bibliography

e: after 1870

J. Tiersot: Musique pittoresques et promenades à l’Exposition universelle de 1889 (Paris, 1889)

O. Comettant: Histoire de cent mille pianos et d’une salle de concert (Paris, 1890)

V. d’Indy and others: La Schola cantorum, son histoire depuis sa fondation jusqu’en 1925 (Paris, 1927)

P. Coppola: Dix-sept ans de musique à Paris (Geneva and Paris, 1944)

R. Dumensil: La musique en France entre les deux guerres (Paris, 1946)

H. Panassié: Douze années de jazz (1927–1938): souvenirs (Paris, 1946)

S. Wolff: Un demi-siècle d’opéra comique 1900–1950 (Paris, 1953)

C. Hopkinson: A Dictionary of Parisian Music Publishers, 1700–1950 (London, 1954)

M. d’Ollone: Le théâtre lyrique et son public (Paris, 1955)

R. Shattuck: The Banquet Years: the Origins of the Avant Garde in France 1885 to World War I (New York, 1955)

G. de Lioncourt: Un témoignage sur la musique et sur la vie au XXme siècle (Reims, 1956)

S. Wolff: L’Opéra au Palais Garnier (1875–1962) (Paris, 1962)

Situation de la musique en France, ed. Chambre syndicale des éditeurs de musique en France (Paris, 1963–1966)

Situation artistique et sociale du musicien en 1964, ed. Institut de France Académie des Beaux-Arts (Paris, 1965)

J. Feschotte: Histoire du music-hall (Paris, 1967)

M. Herbert: La chanson à Montmartre (Paris, 1967) [history of cabaret from 1878]

E. Bernard: ‘Jules Pasdeloup et les Concerts populaires’, RdM, lvii (1971), 150–78

P. Miquel: Histoire de la radio et de la télévision, (Paris, 1972)

E. Bernard: La vie symphonique à Paris entre 1861 et 1914 (thesis, U. of Paris I, 1976)

A. Halimi: Chantons sous l'occupation (Paris, 1976)

N. Wild, ed.: Affiches illustrés (1850–1950), Les arts du spectacle on France, ii (Paris, 1976)

Y. Rivière and C. Pouillon, eds.: Passage du XXe siècle, IRCAM, Jan–July 1977 (Paris, 1977)

P.-M. Menger: La condition du compositeur et le marché de la musique contemporain (Paris, 1978)

D. Pistone: La musqiue en France de la Révolution à 1900 (Paris, 1979)

A. Devriès and F. Lesure: Dictionnaire des éditeurs de musique française (Geneva, 1979–88)

F. Caradec and A. Weill: Le café-concert (Paris, 1980)

X. Dupuis: Analyse économique de la production lyrique (Paris, 1980)

J. Gourret: Le miracle Liebermann: sept saisons à l’Opera de Paris (1973–1980) (Paris, 1980)

M. Landowski: Balailles pour la musique (Paris, 1980)

P. Albert and A.J. Tudesq: Histoire de la radio-télévision (Paris, 1981)

M. Delahaye and D. Pistone: Musique et musicologie dans les universités françaises: histoire, méthodes, programmes (Paris, 1982)

A. Larquie, ed.: Gestion et politique des grands théâtres lyriques européans (Paris, 1982)

J.-P. Leonardi, M. Collin and J. Markovitz: Festival d’automne à Paris 1972–1982 (Paris, 1982)

‘La musique à Paris en 1900’, Revue internationale de musique française, no.12 (Geneva, 1983)

A. Hennion: Les conservatoires et leurs élèves (Paris, 1983)

P.-M. Menger: Le paradox du musicien; Le compositeur, le mélomane, et l'Etat dans la société contemporaine (Paris, 1983)

P. Gumplowicz and M. Rostain: Histoire des institutions de diffusion musicale en France (Paris, 1976–84)

C. Dupechez: Histoire de l’Opéra de Paris: un siècle au Palais Garnier, 1875–1980 (Paris, 1984)

S. Gut: Le groupe Jeune France (Paris, 1984)

M. Oberthür: Cafés and Cabarets of Montmartre (Salt Lake City, 1984)

H. Eck, ed.: La guerre des ondes (Paris, 1985)

M. Haine: Les facteurs d'instruments de musique à Paris au 19e siècle (Bruxelles, 1985)

P. Olivier: La musique au quotidien (Paris, 1985)

C. Rearick: Pleasures of the Belle Epoque: Entertainment and Festivity in Turn-of-the-Century France (New Haven, CT, 1985)

C. Mead: Charles Garnier’s Paris Opera: Architectural Empathy and the Renaissance of French Classicism (Cambridge, MA, 1986)

V. Montjardet-Robin: Le ministère Malraux (1959–1969): Les musiciens et les débuts de la politique musicale en France (thesis, U. of Paris VII, 1986)

E. Brody: Paris. The Musical Kaleidoscope 1870–1925 (New York, 1987)

J.-M. Nectoux: 1913 Le Théâtre des Champs-Elysées: les dossiers du Musée d’Orsay (Paris, 1987)

J. Pasler: ‘Pelléas and Power: Forces Behind the Reception of Debussy's Opera’, 19th Century Music (1987), 243–64

D. Pistone, ed.: Le théâtre lyrique français 1945–1985 (Paris, 1987)

M. Haine: ‘Concerts historiques dans la seconde moitié du 19e siècle’, Musique et société: hommages à Robert Wangermée, ed. H. Vanhulst and M. Haine (Brussels, 1988), 121–42

‘Les années vingt’, Revue internationale de musique française, no.29 (Geneva, 1989)

L. Garafola: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (New York, 1989)

P.-M. Menger: Les laboratoires de la création musicale: auteurs, organisations et politique de la recherche musicale (Paris, 1989)

D. Pistone, ed.: ‘Paris et la musique 1890–1900’, Revue internationale de musique française, no.28 (1989), 7–55

N. Wild: Dictionnaire des théâtres parisiennes au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1989)

M. Chimènes: ‘Les institutions musicales en France: repères chronologiques’ InHarmoniques, no.6 (1990) 161–83

P. Urfalino: Quatre voix pour un Opéra (Paris, 1990)

‘L'Itinéraire’, ReM, nos.421–5 (1991)

La musique et la danse, la politique culturelle 1981–1991, ed. Ministère de la culture, de la communication et des grand travaux (Paris, 1991)

J. Gribenski: ‘La recherche musicologique en France depuis 1958’, AcM, lxiii (1991) 211–37

J. Pasler: ‘Paris: Conflicting Notions of Progress’, Man & Music: the Late Romantic Era, ed. J. Samson (London, 1991), 389–416

F. Patureau: Le Palais Garnier dans la société parisienne (Liège, 1991)

N. Perloff: Art and the Everyday: Popular Entertainment and the Circle of Erik Satie, (Oxford, 1991)

Musique, Etat et culture Ministère de la culture et de la communication, ed. (Paris, 1992)

J. Aguila: Le Domaine musical, Pierre Boulez et vingt ans de création contemporaine (Paris, 1992)

G. Scarpetta: Le festival d’automne de Michel Guy (Paris, 1992)

M. Oberthür: Le chat noir 1881–1897: les dossiers du Musée d’Orsay (Paris, 1992)

J. Brooks: ‘Nadia Boulanger and the Salon of the Princesse de Polignac’, JAMS, xlvi (1993), 415–68

J. Pasler: ‘Concert Programs and their Narratives as Emblems of Ideology’, International Journal of Musicology, ii (1993), 249–308

M. Dibango: Three Kilos of Coffee: An Autobiography (Chicago, 1994)

Répertoire du Mécénat d'entreprise, 10th ed. (Paris, 1995)

J. Boivin: La classe de Messiaen (Paris, 1995)

Lire l'IRCAM (Paris, 1996)

M. Chimènes: ‘L'Information musicale: une parenthèse de La revue musicale’, Des revues sous l'occupation: La Revue des revues, no.24 (1997) 91–110

M. Duchesneau: L’avant-garde musicale et ses sociétés à Paris de 1871 à 1939 (Liège, 1997)

M.E. Poole: ‘Gustave Charpentier and the Conservatoire Populaire de Mimi Pinson’, 19th Century Music, xx/3 (1997) 231–52

A. Veitl: Politique de la musique contemporaine: Le compositeur, la ‘recherche musicale’, et l'Etat en France de 1958 à 1991, (Paris, 1997)

M.C. Strasser: Ars Gallica: the Société Nationale and its role in French musical life, 1871–1891 (diss. U. of Illinois 1998)

J. Pasler: ‘Building a public for orchestral music: Les Concerts Colonne’ Concert et public: mutation de la vie musicale en Europe de 1780 à 1914, ed. H.E. Bödeker, P. Veit and M. Werner (Paris, 2000)

Paris.

I. To 1450

1. Urban development.

2. The university.

3. Music theory.

4. Practical music.

II. 1450–1600

1. Ile de la Cité.

2. The Ville.

3. The university.

4. Music publishing.

III. 1600–1723

1. General.

2. Religious institutions.

3. Theatres.

4. Orchestras.

5. Private concerts.

IV. 1723–89

1. Religious institutions.

2. Concert life.

3. Theatres.

V. Music at court outside Paris

1. Versailles.

(i) 1664–1715.

(a) Musique de la Chambre.

(b) Musique de la Grande Ecurie.

(c) Musique de la Chapelle Royale.

(ii) 1715–89.

2. Fontainebleau.

3. Saint-Cyr.

4. Sceaux.

5. Saint Germain-en-Laye.

VI. 1789–1870

1. Religious institutions.

2. Patronage.

3. Opera companies, theatres.

(i) The Opéra.

(ii) Théâtre Italien.

(iii) Théâtre de Monsieur.

(iv) Théâtre (National) de l’Opéra-Comique.

(v) Théâtre Italien.

(vi) Théâtre Lyrique.

(vii) Other theatres.

4. Concert life.

5. Education.

6. Criticism, publishing and instrument making.

VII. After 1870

1. Introduction.

2. 1870–1918.

3. 1918–44.

4. After 1945.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

a: general

b: to 1600

(i) Sacred

(ii) Secular

c: 1600–1789

(i) Stage

(ii) Sacred

(iii) Other

d: 1789–1870

e: after 1870