Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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ROUSSEAU ROUSSEAU 167
theatres, Eousaeau undertook to write the
articles on music for the Eneyelop6die, a task
which he acoomplislied in three months, and
afterwards acknowledged to have been done
hastily and unsatisfactorily. Wehavementioned
in the article Eameau (ante, p. 22) the expos^
by that great musician of the errors in the
musical articles of the EncyclopM,ie ;
Rousseau's
reply was not published till after his death, but
it is included in his complete works.
Three months after the arrival in Paris of the
Italian company who popularised the Serva
'
padrona ^ ' in France, Rousseau produced Le
'
Devin du village ' before the King at Fountainebleau,
on Oct. 18 and 24, 1752. The piece,
of which both words and music were his own,
pleased the court, and was quickly reproduced
in Paris. The first representation at the
Academie took place March 1, 1753, and the
last in 1 828, when some wag ^ threw an immense
powdered pemique on the stage and gave it its
deathblow. [Devin du Village, vol. i. p. 692a.]
It is curious that the representations of this
simple pastoral should have coincided so exactly
with the vehement discussions to which the performances
of Italian opera gave rise. We cannot
enter here upon the literary quarrel known as
the 'Guerre des Bouffons,' or enumerate the
host of pamphlets to which it gave rise,^ but
it is a strange fact, only to be accounted for
on the principle that man is a mass of contradictions,
that Rousseau, the author of the
'Devin du Village,' pronounced at once in
favour of Italian music.
His Lettre sur la musigue Franfaise (1753)
raised a stonn of indignation, and not unnaturally,
since it pronounces French music to have
neither rhythm nor melody, the language not
being susceptible of either ; French singingto be
but a prolonged barking, absolutely insupportable
to an unprejudiced ear ;
French harmony
to be crude, devoid of expression, and full of
mere padding ; French airs not airs, and French
'
recitative not recitative. From which I conclude,'
he continues, 'that the French have no
music, and never will have any ; or that if they
ever should, it will be so much the worse for
them.' To this pamphlet the actors and musicians
of the Opera replied by hanging and burning
its author in effigy. His revenge for this
absurdity, and for many other attacks, was the
witty Lettre Sv/n symphoniste de I'Acadimie
royale de musique A ses camarades de I'orchestre
(1753), \*hich may still be read with pleasure.
The aesthetic part of the Dictionnaire de musique
which he finished in 1764 at Metiers -Travers,
is admirable both for matter and style. He
obtained the privilege of printing it in Paris,
1 '
It haa been generally supposed that the Serva padrona '
was not
heard in Paris before 1752 : this, however, is a mistalce ; it had been
played so far back as Oct. 4, 1746. but the Italian company who performed
it was not satisfactory, and it passed almost unnoticed.
s Supposed to have been Berlioz, but he exculpates himself in his
Sfemoiri, chap. xv.
3 See Chouquet's SUtoire de la miulqve dramatique, pp. 134 and
434.
April 15, 1765, but did not make use of the
privilege till 1768 ; the Geneva edition, also in
one vol. 4to, came out in 1767. In spite of mistakes
in the didactic, and serious omissions in
the technical portions, the work became very
popular, and was translated into several languages;
the English edition (London, 1770,
8vo) being by William Waring.
Rousseau's other writings on music are : Lettre
a M. Grimm, au sujet des remarques ajouUes a
sa Lettre sur Omphale (1752), belonging to the
early stage of the ' Guerre des Bouifons ; '
JSssai
sur I'origine des langues, etc. (1753), containing
chapters on harmony, on the supposed analogy
between sound and colour, and on the music of
the Greeks ; Lettre a M. VAbbi Saynal au sujet
d^un nrntveau mode de musique invent^ par M.
Blainville, dated May 30, 1754, and first printed
in the Mercv/re de France ; Lettre d M. Burney
sur la Musique, avec desfragm,ents d" Observations
sur VAleeste italien de M. le chevalier Ghcck, an
analysis of ' Alceste ' written at the request of
Gluck himself; and Mctrait d'une riponise du
Petit Faiseur A son PrUe-Nom, sur un morcewa
de V0rph4e de M. le chevalier Gluck, dealing
principally with a particular modulation in
'Orphfe.' From the last two it is clear that
Rousseau heartily admired Gluck, and that he
had by this time abandoned the exaggerated
opinions advanced in the Lettre sur la m/usique
Franqaise. The first of the above was issued
in 1752, the rest not till after his death ; they
are now only to be found in his complete
works.
On Oct. 30, 1775, Rousseau produced his
'
Pygmalion ' at the Com^die Fran5aise ; it is a
lyric piece in one act, and caused some sensation
owing to its novelty. Singing there was none,
and the only music consisted of orchestral pieces
in the intervals of the declamation. He also
left fragments of an opera Daphnis '
et Chloe
(published in score, Paris, 1780, folio), and a
collection of about a hundred romances and
detached pieces, to which he gave the title
'Consolations des Miseres de ma vie' (Paris,
1781, 8vo) ; in the latter collection are the
graceful 'Rosier,' often reprinted, and a charming
setting of Rolli's ' Se tu m'anii.' Rousseau
was accused of having stolen the Devin du
'
Village' from a musician of Lyons named
Granet, and the greater part of Pygmalion
'
from another Lyonnais named Coigniet.
Among
his most persistent detractors is Castil-Blaze
(see Moliire musicien, ii. 409), but he says not
a word of the ' Consolations. ' Now any one
honestly comparing these romances with the
'
Devin du Village,' will inevitably arrive at
the conviction that airs at once so simple,
natural, and full of expression, and so incorrect
as regards harmony, not only may, but must
have proceeded from the same author. There
is no doubt, however, that the instrumentation
of the 'Devin' was touched up, or perhaps