Music and aural experience are two things that material culture scholars are now beginning to address in their studies. Such objects represented more than just diversion to their original owners. Given their physical size, larger musical instruments such as keyboards had to be integrated within interior spaces and worked together with surrounding furnishings. Less bulky stringed instruments and woodwinds could be stored in special cases; however, the elaborately tooled leather examples that survive point to the value of the objects that they contained and the protection that they required.
Symbolically, music was an important element of elite identity in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France. Musical skill was a privilege that denoted fortune enough to pay an instructor as well as time in which to engage in the pursuit of such leisure. As proper deportment allowed one to wear a fashionable gown or suit with ease and grace, successful musical performance indicated bodily control and order. Colonial consumers in New France replicated these metropolitan values. The upper echelons of colonial society enjoyed balls, concerts, and theatrical performances marked by a variety of musical instruments. The grandest such events took place at sites such as the château Saint-Louis and the intendant's palace. As the administrative, military, and spiritual capitals of New France, it is appropriate that Québec also played host to important cultural events, including those of a musical nature.
Symbolically, music was an important element of elite identity in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France. Musical skill was a privilege that denoted fortune enough to pay an instructor as well as time in which to engage in the pursuit of such leisure. As proper deportment allowed one to wear a fashionable gown or suit with ease and grace, successful musical performance indicated bodily control and order. Colonial consumers in New France replicated these metropolitan values. The upper echelons of colonial society enjoyed balls, concerts, and theatrical performances marked by a variety of musical instruments. The grandest such events took place at sites such as the château Saint-Louis and the intendant's palace. As the administrative, military, and spiritual capitals of New France, it is appropriate that Québec also played host to important cultural events, including those of a musical nature.
A history of music in the colony was published by Elisabeth Gallat-Morin and Jean-Pierre Pinson in 2003. This monumental work delves into religious and secular musical traditions that marked early Canada, from motets and vespers sung in religious communities to the libretti of courtly operas owned by the likes of Intendant Claude-Thomas Dupuy. Although Dupuy's musical tastes have been examined by Gallat-Morin, no comparable English study has been published. My research takes a different approach to looking at musical instruments by considering them as part of the palace's furnishings.
A connoisseur of baroque music, Dupuy owned copies of works by the very best French and Italian composers. These are listed along with the several hundred volumes of books in his library. The 1726 floorplan of the palace shows that an actual room was used as a library. Unlike Philippe de Rigaud, Dupuy also owned an impressive collection of musical instruments. The governor's probate inventories curiously list no musical instruments or sheet music. His successor and Dupuy's sworn enemy, the marquis de Beaharnois, is known to have held elaborate social gatherings at the château. No list of Beauharnois' furnishings in Canada is known to exist, and perhaps the governors hired musicians to play for these events.
Judging from his inventory, Dupuy was a fan of one of most important- and one of my favorite- French baroque composers of the seventeenth century: Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687). This Florentine-born musician came into the Louis XIV's service in the 1650s, remaining until his death from infection after piercing his foot with his director's staff during a performance (what a way to go). The first French-style operas were composed by Lully, and the intendant owned copies of every one of his operas in addition to several psalms set to music. Lully's work set the tone for contemporary French composers and others through the early eighteenth century. He was, for all intents and purposes, a rock star.
A connoisseur of baroque music, Dupuy owned copies of works by the very best French and Italian composers. These are listed along with the several hundred volumes of books in his library. The 1726 floorplan of the palace shows that an actual room was used as a library. Unlike Philippe de Rigaud, Dupuy also owned an impressive collection of musical instruments. The governor's probate inventories curiously list no musical instruments or sheet music. His successor and Dupuy's sworn enemy, the marquis de Beaharnois, is known to have held elaborate social gatherings at the château. No list of Beauharnois' furnishings in Canada is known to exist, and perhaps the governors hired musicians to play for these events.
Judging from his inventory, Dupuy was a fan of one of most important- and one of my favorite- French baroque composers of the seventeenth century: Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687). This Florentine-born musician came into the Louis XIV's service in the 1650s, remaining until his death from infection after piercing his foot with his director's staff during a performance (what a way to go). The first French-style operas were composed by Lully, and the intendant owned copies of every one of his operas in addition to several psalms set to music. Lully's work set the tone for contemporary French composers and others through the early eighteenth century. He was, for all intents and purposes, a rock star.
Lady at a harpsichord, 1688
Below are two versions of one of Lully's most popular tunes, a passacaille or dance from the tragedy Armide; Dupuy owned a copy of the libretto by Philippe Quinault and the score by Lully. The first clip is from an orchestral performance in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles; this is close to how the piece would have sounded during the opera's 1686 début. The second video is a harpsichord performance of the same passacaille reworked for keyboard by Jean-Henri d'Anglebert (1629-1691). The harpsichord replicates the sound of a spinet like the one owned by Dupuy. A "petite Epinette portative de deux pieds 1/2 de longeur un pied 1/2 de hauteur" ("a small portable Spinet two feet long and one and a half feet high") was among the items seized at the palace to pay Dupuy's debts in 1728. Although suitable for both sexes, keyboards along with guitars were a favorite instrument for ladies. Perhaps Madame Dupuy, born to a well-to-do Parisian bourgeois family, took keyboard lessons and played Lully on the spinet, accompanying her husband on the viol.
Essentially a smaller version of the larger harpsichord, the spinet is a keyboard instrument whose keys are activated by plucking the strings rather than hammering then, like in a piano. Spinets were portable instruments; the actual keyboard and case- the box containing the soundboard and strings- could be simply set upon a base, or come attached.
A variety of motets by French and Italian composers such as Paolo Lorenzani (1640-1713), André Campra (1660-1744), Nicolas Bernier (circa 1665-1734), and Louis-Nicolas Clérambault (1676-1749) could also be found in Dupuy's library. Copies of instrumental works also included sonatas by more contemporary French and Italian composers as well as the works for viol or viola da gamba by Marin Marais (1656-1728) and a treatise on bagpipes.
Marin Marais was another prolific French composer of the late baroque era who also held royal appointments at Versailles. His most famous pieces are those for the viol; Marais'
first book of viol music was published in 1686, and four more followed into the 1720s. Dupuy owned "Deux Basses de Violle Angloises avec leurs Etuys et archets" ("Two English Viols with their Cases and bows") in 1728; his probate inventory from 1738 also includes viols, indicating a possible preference for the instrument. It is likely that he played, the viol being a popular instrument for men and even some women.
Below are samples of two works by Marin Marais. The second video is from one of my fave movies, Tous les matins du monde, a biopic of the composer, and features Marin Marais' reworking of the traditional folia. It's always fun to see an instrument in action!
Marin Marais was another prolific French composer of the late baroque era who also held royal appointments at Versailles. His most famous pieces are those for the viol; Marais'
first book of viol music was published in 1686, and four more followed into the 1720s. Dupuy owned "Deux Basses de Violle Angloises avec leurs Etuys et archets" ("Two English Viols with their Cases and bows") in 1728; his probate inventory from 1738 also includes viols, indicating a possible preference for the instrument. It is likely that he played, the viol being a popular instrument for men and even some women.
Below are samples of two works by Marin Marais. The second video is from one of my fave movies, Tous les matins du monde, a biopic of the composer, and features Marin Marais' reworking of the traditional folia. It's always fun to see an instrument in action!
The viol was renowned for its expressive, emotional qualities; it was said to capture everything from sighs to sobs. The following piece for two viols was composed by Marin Marais in 1686. Led by American director Skip Sempé, Capriccio Stravagante is one of my favorite baroque ensembles. It is easy to imagine this piece being played at the palace, perhaps by Dupuy and his wife.
The most imposing of Dupuy's musical instruments was a "Grand Cabinet d'Orgues contenant douze jeux" (a Large Cabinet for a chamber organ with twelve stops). Because the intendant's property was seized for immediate sale, the various objects' location within the palace was not recorded. It is plausible, however, to conjecture that such an instrument would have been placed in a prominent public room of the building, such as the salle, especially given its location within a cabinet. The actual organ possibly resembled a 1650s example now in the collection of the Cité de la musique in Paris.
Cabinet for an organ, circa 1700 A circa 1700 red chalk illustration, from the album Décoration intérieure et jardins de Versailles, depicts such an organ contained within a Chinese-style cabinet set upon a more baroque-style stand. When closed, the instrument's case resembled a piece of case furniture, like an armoire, thus inserting itself into the wider decorative scheme of the room in which it was placed.
The composer Clérambault composed for the organ, which figured in both sacred and secular music of the period. Below is a secular tune by the composer played on an organ that might have been familiar to Dupuy.
The composer Clérambault composed for the organ, which figured in both sacred and secular music of the period. Below is a secular tune by the composer played on an organ that might have been familiar to Dupuy.
Notes and sheet music for popular pastoral airs, known as brunettes, were also present at the intendant's palace. Jean-Baptiste Drouart de Bousset (1662-1725), a composer who assembled and reworked many such traditional songs, was cited in the inventory. Below is one of my favorite brunettes, sung with attention to period pronunciation and syntax of the early eighteenth century.
The role of music at the intendant's palace cannot be downplayed (no pun intended) during the intendancy of Claude-Thomas Dupuy. If an overdoor tapestry of a concert recorded in 1728 were not enough, musical instruments, especially the organ and spinet, were important features of the palace's interior decoration and certainly influenced room usage by Dupuy, his wife, and their guests.