Divertissements de campagne · Les Menus-Plaisirs du Roy

Divertissements de Campagne, by Joseph-Bodin de Boismortier, the programme of Les Menus-Plaisirs du Roy's recording for the Musica Ficta label, released under the title "Boismortier des villes et des champs" (release date: February 2015).

Programme

Sung air: Pleurez mes yeux
Tambourins 1 and 2
Prelude, solo flute
Sung air: Si ma mort
Gracieusement / Chantez avec moi ma musette
Prelude in C (flute version)
Sung air: Bergère, aimez à votre tour
Prelude in C (musette version)
Sung air: Ah ! le charmant berger

About the recording

He came in the right season; people were thirsting for those agreeable trifles that make so pretty an effect on flutes and musettes; he took advantage of the prevailing fashion and made twofold use of his genius.

Pierre-Louis d'Aquin de Château-Lyon, Siècle littéraire de Louis XV ou Lettres sur les hommes célèbres, 1753

Is the music of Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755), offered in this fine recording by Les Menus-Plaisirs du Roy, really confined to mere "agreeable trifles"? The cliché dies hard… When Pierre-Louis d'Aquin delivered that verdict with a touch of mischief, in 1753, Boismortier had only just brought his career as a composer to a close, leaving behind a most impressive catalogue. And yet, to the eyes and ears of his contemporaries, his work already seemed to belong to nothing but a bygone past. He quickly fell into oblivion and re-emerged only two hundred years later, a providential and generous windfall for beginner flautists and oboists, lovers of a sanitised and easy baroque music, until some finally dared to let his great lyric works, his motets and his cantatas be heard, and the right way to make his works sound on the flutes, oboes and bassoons of his day was rediscovered, and, of course, on the hurdy-gurdies and musettes that some often regarded as "poor musical contraptions" (Michel Brenet, Les Concerts en France sous l'Ancien Régime, Paris, Fischbacher, 1900, p. 211) or "entirely devoid of expression and too much given over to the performance of pieces of a rudimentary art" (Pierre Constant, Histoire du Concert spirituel, 1725-1790, Paris, Société française de musicologie, 2000, p. 89).

Boismortier rediscovered! Here is a composer of sure craft and insatiable curiosity, sharpened, it must be admitted, by an admirable business sense, who has once again carved out an enviable place on the contemporary musical scene since the very last years of the 20th century! The "Divertissements de campagne" and the "Suites of pieces for a solo transverse flute" thus also arrive, under the guidance of Les Menus-Plaisirs du Roy, "in the right season". This repertoire, which some would still like to call "minor", conveys, on the contrary, a vision of the world and an art of living that cannot be reduced to superficial hedonism. To disparage this part of Boismortier's output would amount to denigrating most aspects of 18th-century instrumental music and to lending credence to the utterly fallacious idea that only certain instruments or certain genres possess an intrinsic value steeped in nobility.

Would Boismortier then be, in the end, merely the standard-bearer of this music of secondary importance? If so, the first third of the 18th century would appear as nothing but the mere reflection of a decadence saved from mediocrity by the Italianism of a Jean-Marie Leclair (1697-1764) or by the purely French genius of a Jean-Baptiste Rameau (1683-1764). So it was thought in the past; so some continue to think today.

Looking more closely at Boismortier's output as a whole, one sees that it embraces a great many styles: purely French music, precisely inherited from that of the likes of Martin Marais (1656-1728), Jacques-Martin Hotteterre (1674-1763) or Jean-Henri d'Anglebert (1629-1691), and also Italian music. Boismortier knew how to compose adagios, fugal allegros, and the brilliant arpeggiated passages characteristic of transalpine music. The concerto, another spearhead of Italian instrumental music, was equally familiar to him. And of course our composer did not fail to combine the French and Italian styles, thus uniting the tastes, like François Couperin (1668-1733), Jean-Ferry Rebel (1666-1747), Jean-François Dandrieu (1656-1728) or André Campra (1660-1744) for opera. Like many others, he also devoted himself to composing various character pieces, often with evocative titles. An examination of his voluminous catalogue, even limiting oneself to his instrumental works alone, reveals a varied range, in which compositions of pure music, dedicated to great soloists who make light of technical difficulties (Jean-Marie Leclair for the violin, Louis de Caix d'Hervelois (1677-1750) for the viol, Danguy for the hurdy-gurdy), alternate with lighter works intended for an amateur public. The chief reproach levelled at him, in the end, is that of having composed too much! Among his abundant output, should one really retain only his simplest pages, torn from their context, in order to underline a poverty that, in fact, does not exist?

Like a number of his contemporaries, Boismortier happily gave himself over to what is conventionally called arcadism, in reference to that purified and idealised image of the shepherds of antiquity, those characters of the heroic pastoral with the bucolic names of Tircis, Damon or Philène, sighing for Cloris, Philis or Amaryllis. Of this subtle dreamlike vision he essentially retains the instruments emblematic of that sublimated rustic world: the oboe, the flute, the musette and the hurdy-gurdy. There is nothing surprising, or even falsely exotic, in using the court musette, since it belongs fully to the instrumentarium of the time and underwent an evolution analogous to that of the other wind instruments. Inherited, like the oboe and the flute, from the instruments of the Renaissance, it passed from a rustic bagpipe, in the 16th century, to a marvellous object, aesthetically as well as functionally and acoustically. The oboe sounded brilliantly and seconded it admirably in enlivening open-air festivities: now, thanks to the innovations and adjustments of the king's musicians, notably the Hotteterre and Philidor families, both resound in the homogeneous tuttis of the orchestra or in the concerts of the Chamber. The hurdy-gurdy caught up with the group a little later, helped by talented luthiers who brought about, for this despised instrument hitherto reserved for beggars and the blind, a true metamorphosis that henceforth won over the finest virtuosos and the most refined amateurs.

The flute is, of sighs, the tenderest interpreter […] The heart made the first musette sound.

La Guirlande, a ballet by Rameau, libretto by Jean-François Marmontel (1723-1799)

The two instruments converse here under the guidance of an eclectic musician who delights in the calm and joyful world of this pastoral, also nicknamed "La Bergerie", without the slightest contempt. For shepherds are not necessarily sublime models of antiquity: just like the shepherds of the nativity supposedly on their way to Bethlehem, our subjects of Pan are quite capable both of dancing gavottes and minuets and of dressing themselves in thoroughly anachronistic garb. The pieces for flute or musette then alternate with tender airs and brunettes: we shall meet Céladon, Iris and Philis, but also the shepherdess Colette… and it will then be easy for the instruments to converse, supported by the harpsichord, the viol and the theorbo, "generators of all fine melody", if we are to believe Rameau… and guarantors of the refinement and distinction of all music, however sensitive it may be to a diversity that makes it play now in a light, even frankly rustic mode, now plaintive and tender, now brilliant and virtuosic, or finally with grandeur and nobility… for it is indeed this kaleidoscope of styles and situations that constitutes the language of this idealised world, brought to life by the magic of sound and hearing.

The programme presented here is based on several collections by Boismortier: the Divertissements de campagne, opus 49, for musette and continuo (although optional, the composer notes), and the Six Suites of pieces for a solo transverse flute with bass, opus 35, which can likewise be played without accompaniment. The vocal pieces come from several publications of airs and were drawn from the composer's catalogue according to how well they complement the instrumental repertoire selected. The choice made by the performers resembles that which friends preparing a fête galante might have made. While Boismortier's music is played here with the greatest respect, the flute now and then allows itself gently to encroach on the musette by borrowing one piece or another from its repertoire, or even by adding a countermelody that seems improvised and that Boismortier had by no means originally intended. But what do the harpsichord and the theorbo do when they realise a bass? Do they not also venture furtive second voices? Besides, did the composers of the time not precisely offer the possibility of entrusting the instrumental parts to one player or another, when the recommended instrument was lacking? This is why, for example, the flute plays the prelude otherwise reserved for the musette, since it involves the technique of chords, which requires the simultaneous playing of the two chanters of the little bagpipe. Then, a little further on, comes the "first version" played on the musette, embellished by that famous specific effect. When the dances are adorned with doubles or variations, the theme continues to be played in its simplest version while an instrument breaks away into brilliant arpeggios. Where the singer ought to perform alone with the continuo, flute and musette allow themselves entirely plausible incursions, doubling his song or playing the melody without the voice, in the manner of a ritornello. Not only does Boismortier's music "resound" beneath the skilful fingers of the musicians of Les Menus-Plaisirs du Roy, but it does so in the manner of a true divertissement that friends might have performed for their own simple pleasure beneath the foliage or the arbour of a garden, to charm the delicate ears of fair listeners…

Jean-Christophe Maillard

Texts of the sung airs (original French)

Pleurez mes yeux

Pleurez, pleurez mes tristes yeux,
Vous méritez la peine dont Philis a payé vos indiscrets plaisirs.
Hélas tout vous disait d'éviter l'inhumaine,
Ses charmes, sa rigueur, ma raison, mes soupirs.
Malgré moi vos regards m'ont attiré sa haine,
Ils ont parlé d'amour, et de tendres désirs.

Si ma mort

Si ma mort, belle Iris, fait tout votre désir,
Tâchez par vos faveurs d'assouvir votre envie.
Qu'importe-t-il pour vous si je meurs de plaisir,
Ou bien si vos rigueurs me font perdre la vie.

Chantez avec moi ma musette (musette en rondeau)

Chantez avec moi ma musette,
Chantez mon aimable Colette.
Amour, après tant de soupirs,
Tu me fais triompher du cœur de la cruelle,
Mais garde-toi d'éteindre une flamme si belle,
En me prodiguant tes plaisirs.
Que mes brûlants désirs
Renaissent des faveurs :
Puisse ma bergère fidèle,
Dans mes bras être encore plus belle,
Qu'au temps où mes soupirs
Excitaient ses rigueurs.

Bergère, aimez à votre tour

Bergère, aimez à votre tour,
C'est trop longtemps vous en défendre,
Puisque vous donnez de l'amour,
Pourquoi refusez-vous d'en prendre !
Votre cœur sera quelque jour
Obligé de se rendre :
Ah ! S'il doit un tendre retour,
N'oserais-je y prétendre ?

Quand je parle de mon ardeur,
Vous fuyez sans vouloir m'entendre ;
Le seul mot d'amour vous fait peur,
Vous venez de me le défendre :
Pour adoucir votre rigueur,
Je vous chante un air tendre ;
L'oreille est le chemin du cœur,
Ai-je tort de le prendre ?

Ah ! le charmant berger

Ah le charmant berger que j'aime,
Qu'il est digne de mon amour !
Je jurerais que l'Amour même
Ne saurait lui ravir mon cœur.
Sa tendre musette m'enchante,
Sa voix est encore plus touchante,
Je l'adore, il ne le sait pas,
Mais nuit et jour je chante tout bas…

In the press

In the media: review on Klassiek Centraal.