The Ranums' Panat Times

Charpentier's "identification" with Medea:
Do "most" commentators "identify" Charpentier with Medea?

As I said in the introductory page to this Musing, where I summarize Downing A. Thomas's chapter on Charpentier's opera, one of the points that caught my attention as Dowling A. Thomas's chapter on Médée  was his assertion that "most commentators" who "connect," "identify," express a "conviction" that Medea, the barbarous barbarian, somehow embodied Marc-Antoine Charpentier the "barbarous" and "savant" Italian-trained composer.

I went through my files and reread my notes about these commentators. I soon noted three problems:

•     D.A. Thomas does not distinguish between sources that are more or less contemporary with Médée, and those that were written decades later.
•     He apparently did not realize that if the sources "tend" to mention Médée when they discuss Marc-Antoine Charpentier, it is because that opera was virtually the only work available to Charpentier-lovers or -haters prior to 1752, when the composer's huge corpus of autograph manuscripts was finally bound and catalogued by the Royal Library. A determined shopper could, of course, purchase a slim volume of Motets published by the composer's nephew in 1709, ferret out some old issues of the Mercure galant that contained some songs of his, or find one of the collection of airs that included songs attributed to him. (For the sale of Charpentier's manuscripts, see my article in the forthcoming Marc-Antoine Charpentier, un musicien retrouvé, to be published in 2005 by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles and Editions Mardaga.)

    Indeed, D.A. Thomas does not take into account the fact that with the exception of the music Charpentier wrote for the theater and for the Jesuit church of Saint-Louis, his compositions were performed in very elite venues to which the public was not admitted: the private chapels of his protectresses, the the court, devotions of confraternities, and Sainte-Chapelle, which was a royal chapel, not a parish church. In other words, unless invited to attend one of these exclusive events, the cultivated public had little opportunity hear Charpentier's music, although they doubtlessly heard a lot about it.
•     Most disturbing, is the fact that D.A. Thomas's claims about what "most" commentators were saying simply are not backed up by the sources!

What do the commentators who were Charpentier's contemporaries say about Médée ­ and about Charpentier's savoir and his familiarity with Italian music?

Jean Donneau de Visé, in the Mercure galant

Donneau's full text is reproduced by Catherine Cessac, Marc-Antoine Charpentier (Paris: Fayard, new ed. of 2004), pp. 407-408, so I will quote only the passages that refer to Charpentier and his music, highlighting in bold type the passages related to D.A. Thomas's argument:

"Cet opéra a été mis en musique par M. Charpentier, dont depuis vingt ans on a vu mille endroits de sa musique qui ont ravi dans diverses pièces the théâtre. Le Mariage forcé, le Malade imaginaire, Circé et l'Inconnu en font foi. Il y a dans ce premières deux airs italiens qui charment, de même que celui de l'opéra de Médée. On ne doit pas en être surpris, M. Charpentier ayant appris la musique en Italie, sous le Charissimi. ... Les véritables connoisseurs trouvent quantité d'endroits admirables dans l'opéra de Médée. M. Charpentier, qui l'a fait graver, eut l'honneur de le présenter au Roi il y a quelques jours, et Sa Majesté lui dit qu'elle était persuadée qu'il était un habile homme, et qu'elle savait qu'il y avoit de très belles choses dans son opera. Quoique l'on n'en ait encore donné que neuf ou dix représentations, Monseigneur le Dauphin y est déjà venu deux fois, et Son Altesse Royale Monsieur l'a vu quatre fois. Il a eu la destinée des beaux ouvrages, contre lesquels l'envie se déclare d'abord; mais ils en brillent après davantage. C'est ce qui est arrivé à plusieurs opéras de M^r de Lully, qui ont été ensuite l'admiration de tout Paris. On ne voit jamais l'envie s'attacher aux ouvrages médiocres, et ils ont leur cours sans que l'on pense à dire ni bien, ni mal."

D.A. Thomas dismisses this auricular witness as follows: "Médée was not without its supporters: ... predictably, the reviewer for the enthusiastically modernist Mercure galant. However they were few and far between" (p. 136).

For over a decade Donneau de Visé had collaborated with Charpentier in the spoken theater. His co-editor, Thomas Corneille, had likewise worked with Charpentier at the theater. (This doubtlessly helps explain how Charpentier and Corneille came to collaborate on Médée.) Here Donneau not only paints Charpentier as a consummate composer in the French theatrical style, he makes it clear that the King appreciated the musical style of this composer who was deemed French enough to compose for the Dauphin during the late 1670s and who had continued to compose sporadically for court events throughout the 1680s. In addition, Donneau emphasizes Charpentier's training in Italy, as something favorable, not negative. (Was the Italian song inserted into the opera to please Monsieur's son, an enthusiast of Italian music who at the time was studying composition with Charpentier?)

Nowhere does this very reliable witness suggest that Charpentier had woven into the opera a parallel between himself and Medea.

Sébastien de Brossard, in the catalog of his musical collection (recollections and judgments about the 1680s and 1690s, put on paper in 1724)

Brossard was not only a respected musical theorist, composer, historian of music, and collector, he was also a pioneer whose Dictionnaire created a bridge between Italian and French musical terminology. He was close to Étienne Loulié, who had been one of Charpentier's colleagues at the Hôtel de Guise. During the 1690s Loulié and Brossard, joined by Masson, and Ozanam, would lay out the principles of the emerging tonal harmony. Like Donneau de Visé, Brossard mentions Charpentier's studies with Carissimi and his work for the Bourbon princes. He has nothing but praise and respect for Charpentier's music, irrespective of the genre:

"A son retour d'Italie, il travailla pendant quelque tems pour les comediens françois .... Il a fait outre cela quantité d'autres ouvrages tant sacrez que profanes qui sont d'une excellence peu commune et dont on trouverra le catalogue cy dessous parmi les manuscripts, car on a tres peu de chose imprimé de luy. C'est de ce commerce qu'il eut avec l'Italie dans sa jeunesse que quelques françois trop puristes ou pour mieux dire jaloux de la bonté de sa musique ont pris fort mal a propos l'occasion de luy reprocher son goût Italien, car on peut dire sans le flatter qu'il n'en a pris que le bon, ses ouvrages le temoignent assez. Quoy qu'il en soit il a toujours passé, au goût de tous les vrays connoisseurs pour le plus profond et le plus sçavant des musiciens modernes. ... Pour revenir à son opera de Médée..., il est sans contredit le plus sçavant et le plus recherché de tous ceux qui ont été imprimez, du moins depuis la mort de M^r de Lully et quoyque par les caballes des envieux et des ignorants, il n'ait pas esté si bien receu du public qu'il le meritoit du moins aussi bien que beaucoup d'autres, c'est celuy de tous les operas, sans exception, dans lequel on peut apprendre plus de choses essentielles a la bonne composition. C'est ce qui fait que j'ay doutté longtems si je ne devois pas le mettre plustost parmi les Theoriciens, c'est à dire parmi les maitres de l'art de la musique, que dans le rang des simples operas." (La Collection de Sébastien de Brossard (Paris, 1994), ed. Y. de Brossard, pp. 275-276)

D.A. Thomas puts Brossard beside Donneau de Visé, as one of the "few and far between supporters" of Charpentier's music (p. 136).

Nowhere does Brossard suggest that Charpentier's years in Italy had had a negative impact upon the position his music occupied in the minds of music lovers. Above all, nowhere does this wise and judicious man, who had remained in contact with Charpentier's circle, suggest that the composer was mirroring himself in the character of Medea and in the sound of her song.

The chansonniers (1693)

Cessac (pp. 410-411) and De la Gorce (p. 92) reproduce some of the lyrics ­ doubtlessly penned by members of the cabale that sabotaged Médée ­ that were peddled by chansonniers in 1693. Sometimes these poems mock the verse, sometimes the music. Two merit quoting, because they allude to Charpentier's style. Neither mentions Italy.

"Charpentier, ta musique est nouvelle,/ Et Lully ne te reproche rien,/ Mais aussi Francine [the administrator of the Academy] en a dans l'aile,/ Car on dit que 'argent ne va pas bien."

"Si l'on croit Charpentier, il a fait des merveilles,/ Mais quels tristes accords écorchent mes oreilles!/ Pour composer un chant [that is, melody] si beau/ Sans doute dans ce jour quelque maudit corbeau/ Aura mêlé sa voix à celle de Corneille."

If there truly was a "popular" or "public" view about Charpentier's "otherness" and his "identification" with Medea, it would have surfaced in these songs. The songs are manifestations of popular culture: with considerable irony, they would embroider upon parallels and allegories that had become the talk of the town, and they often made learned people the butt of their humor.

D.A. Thomas does not refer to these chansons.

None of these chansons suggest that Charpentier was somehow "identified" with Medea in the public mind.

The Jesuits at the Journal de Trévoux (1704)

Charpentier was music master for the Parisian Jesuits from late 1687 to early 1698. Shortly after the composer's death the reverend fathers praised his music:

"Charpentier, aussi sçavant que les Italiens, a possedé au suprême degré l'art de joindre aux paroles les tons les plus convenables. (Nous parlons de la Musique Latine), on en a vû des effets qui rendent vraisemblable ce qu'on dit de la Musique ancienne."

In other words, the consummate orators of the Society of Jesus admired Charpentier's ability to set Latin texts to music. Even more interesting, they saw Charpentier's expressive "effects" as constituting a bridge from the music of the Ancients to that of the reign of Louis XIV. (Incidentally, Charpentier uses the same "effects" in his Latin and his French works. For example, he modulates rapidly to the "sad and obscure" key of c minor whenever the lyrics allude to darkness or obscurity.) It is revealing that the Jesuits were not talking about Charpentier's Italianate "otherness." They were measuring Charpentier's savoir against the Italians' acknowledged acumen in musical theory: "as savant as."

In a footnote (p. 351, n. 14) D.A. Thomas quotes these phrases from the Journal de Trévoux and points out that savant is "used in a different light" than in Lecerf.

This source says nothing about an "identification" between Charpentier and Medea.

Lecerf de la Viéville's Comparison de la musique italienne et de la musique françoise (1705)

Lecerf held a parlementary office at Rouen, where he had been born and where he died in 1707. It is not clear how much time he spent in Paris between 1693 and 1704, when the first volume of his Comparaison was published; but Lecerf himself admits that he had not heard a single motet by the Charpentier, whose music he nonetheless detested.

Lecerf's remarks reflect a learned anti-intellectualism that M. Barthelémy suspects, may have had few adherents, circa 1704-1706. The better to understand Lecerf's criticisms of Charpentier, it is helpful to quote Barthelémy's summary of Lecerf's position in Marcelle Benoit's Dictionnaire (p. 168):

"La musique est un art soumis à des règles qui proviennent de la nature et de la raison. Ce postulat justifie la théorie de l'imitation de la nature solidement implantée dans la conception 'classique' des arts. Mais on y ajoute, pour la musique, des critères particuliers. Elle doit être simple, vraisemblable. ... Asservie à la parole, elle est une représentation sonore d'autant plus compréhensible qu'elle s'accroche à l'objet qu'elle décrit. La perception de l'art musical est d'ordre intellectuel. Cette poétique est mise laborieusement au point par l'auteur au cours des trois parties de sa Comparaison et elle aboutit à une vision étroite, limitée, du phénomène musical. Il n'est pas assuré qu'elle ait été approuvée par les contemporains eux-mêmes, mais elle a survécu et elle est un des pivots des discussions esthétiques au XVIII^e siècle."

Hoping that readers will keep Barthelémy's caveat in mind, I am reproducing the bulk of what Lecerf says about Charpentier and his style.

Lecerf quotes the above passage from the Journal de Trévoux about the savant Charpentier and the Italians; and he adds:

"Je vous avoue qu'aux deux premiéres lignes de ce passage, j'avois tremblé pour Mrs les Journalistes. Mais la Parenthèse me rassura, & me fit voir qu'ils sont gens prudens, qui ne se commettent point. Ils disent qu'on a vû des effets des expressions puissantes de Charpentier. Il a été leur Maître de Musique au Collége & à S. Louis, & on ne sçauroit refuser de les en croire. Or le prix d'une Musique qui agit, qui se fait sentir, n'est point douteux. Elle ne tend qu'à émouvoir les ames des Auditeurs; tous les autres mérites qu'elle peut avoir, dépendent & se forment de ce mérite où elle vise, ou ne sont que des niaiseries & des jeux d'enfant en comparison." (III, pp. 136-137)

A few sentences later, Lecerf admits to having heard little of Charpentier's music. He apparently did not attend services at Saint-Louis when he came to Paris. And dare we suppose that he had come to the capital to see Médée and join the anti-Charpentier cabale?

"Je n'ai point entendu de Motets de Charpentier. J'en ai cherché sans en trouver, & aparemment il n'y en a aucun imprimé de lui. [The little volume entitled Motets, financed by Charpentier's nephews, would not be published for four more years.] Mais je ne comprens point par quel miracle Charpentier auroit été expressif, c'est-à-dire, naturel, vif & juste, dans sa Musique Latine, luy qui étoit dur, sec & guindé à l'excès dans sa Musique Françoise: ce que le méchant Opéra de Médée, un Recueil de Chansons que je connois, & Jonathas, petit Opéra, representé au Collége de Clermont même & duquel j'ai vû depuis peu la partition [chez Philidor?], témoignent du reste. Pour la science, j'oposerai Charpentier aux Italiens, comme je leur oposerai Colasse, l'Abbé Bernier, &c. Mais je croirois qu'on feroit une injustice à ces Italiens si méprisable pour l'expression, si on leur préféroit Charpentier sur cet article, & qu'on feroit un tort criant à Colasse, qui est quelquefois froid & gêné, mais qui est excellent quand il fait bien, & à l'Abbé Bernier qui a des traits recommandables dans ses Motets imprimez, & dont le Te Deum, non imprimé, aproche de celui de Lulli, si on leur comparoit Charpentier en quoi que ce soit, horsmis la science" (III, p. 136).

For Lecerf "science" does not mean knowledge of musical theory, harmony, dissonances, and the emerging tonal system. He gives the word a special meaning: ridiculous embellishments that run counter to nature. "La Science sçait fournir mille ornemens, mille embellisssemens, elle en imagine sans cesse," and these ornaments "ne siéent point à la Nature, ils la défigureront, l'accableront" (II, p. 99). Another aspect of Lecerfian science involves changing the ton too often and too unexpectedly (I, p. 28).

Alluding to the "bad taste" that characterizes Italian opera and Italian symphonies, Lecerf asks:

"Comment ont réüssi ceux de nos Maîtres qui ont été les admirateurs zélés, & les ardens imitateurs de la maniere de composer des Italiens? Où cela les a-t-il menez? A faire des Piéces que le Public & le tems ont déclaré pitoyables. Qu'a laissé le sçavant Charpentier pour assurer sa mémoire? Médée, Saul & Jonathas [the title is incorrect: it should be David et Jonathas]. Il vaudroit mieux qu'il n'eût rien laissé." (II, p. 347).

D.A. Thomas summarizes this criticism as follows: "Le Cerf de la Viéville, with equal venom, referred disparagingly to 'the learned [sçavant] Charpentier'" (p. 135). Although Lecerf's assertions seem to form a backdrop to Thomas's tableau, this is his only citation of the book.

Elsewhere Lecerf defines what he means by "savant." A savant is a mere musician by social rank, a musician who is intoxicated with rules: "Les Sçavants sont des Maîtres de Musique, des Musiciens par état, entêtez de régles" that take them far from nature (II, p. 319.) He also says that for "les gens du monde " ­ that is, people who occupy an elevated rank in society as he does through his position as Keeper of the Seals of the Parlement of Rouen ­ it is not permitted to be savant" (I, p. 152).

In other words, Leclef is denigrating Charpentier by calling him a savant. He is suggesting that not only is Charpentier a rule-infatuated musician, but the very fact of composing music for a livelihood he occupies a relatively low position in the social hierarchy. We begin to understand Lecerf better. He has encapsulated himself in an aesthetics shaped by naturalness and a minimum of theoretical principles. As a "man of the world," he cannot discuss musical theory without derogating, without descending to the inferior social level of a practicing musician. Yet, as their social superior, he can denigrate the science of musicians who become infatuated with theory. (One wonders how Lecerf could square his quite snobbish, anti-intellectual position with the music lessons given to the Duke of Chartres, who was immersed in theory without derogating, without falling to the level of his "savant" and "érudit" teachers.)

Lecerf provides additional details that help us better to understand his detestation of Charpentier's music. Italian ­ and Italianate ­ music is too "worked over," too "tormented"; it does not sound like the "natural" music written by less learned French composers:

"Quant à la science & et à la profondeur ... communément & en general les Maîtres Italiens ont plus que les nôtres. Je ne doute point que Lulli n'ait été du moins aussi sçavant que Luigi [Rossi] & Carissimi, & je suis persuadé que Charpentier de la Sainte-Chapelle & Colasse sont encore autant que Bassani & Corelli. Les Maîtres Italiens travaillent, tourment[ent], creusent plus leurs Piéces que ne font nos Faiseurs d'Opera. Mais il faut sçavoir si les Italiens ne les travaillent & ne les creusent point trop, ... et quand nos Compositeurs travailleroient trop peu leur Musique, il resteroit à examiner si ce seroit par ignorance ou par paresse. Pour ce qui est de la gloire, ... ce n'est pas la peine qu'on a prise, c'est la réüssite qui en décide: c'est la bonté des choses qu'on fait, & non par l'art que l'on a mis à les faire. Qu'importe que nos Compositeurs soient paresseux & même ignorans, si avec leur ignorance & leur paresse ils nous donnent de meilleures choses, & de la Musique qui ait plus de beautés vrayes & solides, que ne nous en donnent les Italiens, avec toute leur application & toute leur profondeur?" (I, p. 27).

Lecerf argues that the opera composers who followed Lully could only differentiate themselves from their illustrious predecessor by abandoning "naturalness" for oddity. Having mentioned several French branles and brunettes that he considered the epitome of naturalness, Lecerf contrasts them with the chants détournés he so detests:

"A propos des chants détournés ... C'est que si cela étoit si excellent, la plûpart des Opera qui ont paru depuis Lulli, seroint bien au-dessus des siens. Comme Lulli, homme fécond & original, dans 20. ou 22 Opera qu'il nous a donnés, a épuisé une grande partie des tons naturels: Les Compositeurs qui sont venus aprés lui, & qui n'ont pas voulu qu'on leur reprochât de l'imiter & et de le piller, ont été réduits souvent à chercher des tons particuliers & bizarres, de ces chants détournés ... ausquels Lulli n'avoit gueres touché. Charpentier, Colasse, Campra, Mr. des Touches dans Hercule & Omphale, se sont jettés là-dessus, & ont employé beaucoup d'habilité & d'art pour les preparer & pour les embellir. ... Rien n'a tant gâté leurs Ouvrages, & ces Successeurs de Lulli ... ont échoüés quand ils ont eu recours à ces détours & à ces rafinemens. Leurs recherches & leur étude leur ont été desavantageuses, & ils nous ont mieux fait sentir le prix & le naturel de Opera de leur Maître, qui a, pour ainsi dire, enlevé presque toute la fleur de la Musique Françoise. Je ne conclus pourtant pas que la Musique Italienne est mauvaise, parce qu'elle est pleine de chants détournés, & qui ne resemblent en rien à ceux que composent toutes les Nations du monde" (I, p. 34).

One of Lecerf's characters acknowledges that Charpentier's is a man of "genius." (Is Lecerf being ironic?):

"M. l'Abbé est un dangereux Connoisseur si Colasse, Charpentier, Marais, Mr. des Touches, Campra, &c. ne lui paroissent pas dignes de son estime, & s'il ne les trouve pas de grands génies, quoi qu'ils n'ay pas toujours été heureux." (I, p. 94)

To summarize the evidence gathered thus far from Lecerf:

Although Lecerf had heard almost none of Charpentier's works performed, he assumed that everything Charpentier had written was as "méprisable" as the compositions of the Italians who were anathema to him. Their music did not meet his criteria for spontaneity, "naturalness." He nonetheless makes it very clear that Charpentier was not the only composer known for the detestable science that D.A. Thomas describes as leading to the "otherness" that characterizes Charpentier. (Does not Lecerf's naming of four other composers weaken D.A. Thomas's argument about Charpentier's presumably quite unique "otherness"?)
    In 1689 Pascal Colasse, Lully's former secretary and a master in the royal chapel, had demonstrated his science in his highly successful Thétis et Pélée. So had Nicolas Bernier, a member of Abbé Mathieu's foyer italianisant. (Bernier succeeded Charpentier at the Sainte-Chapelle.) All three men, admits Lecerf, demonstrate more science than their Italian counterparts and therefore stand above the composers d'outremont. Of his three compatriots, Lecerf admires Bernier most (despite his Italianisms!); he blows hot and cold about Colasse; and he categorically refuses to tolerate Charpentier's harmonies and his musical style.

Lecerf could not abide the "Italian maxims" that Charpentier inculcated into his pupils:

"Les mauvais Maîtres vous gâtent ... le goût. Je voyois une femme d'un rang distingué & d'un tres-bon esprit, qui avoit appris la composition de feu Charpentier. Charpentier l'avoit remplie de maximes Italiennes, & cette femme, d'un esprit à être consultée sur cent choses, en étoit venue là, qu'elle n'estimoit de nos Opéra nouveaux, que le quatriéme Acte d'Alcide & ne pouvoit pas souffir l'Europe Galante, ... Le bon goût n'est que le sentiment naturel aidé par les principes. ... Je m'imagine que Charpentier, qui a eu des Ecoliers du premier rang, en a gâté d'autres" (II, p. 297)

Charpentier did indeed shape his pupils' taste: during the months when the Duke of Chartres was studying composition with him, the prince developed a fascination for Italian music. There is no evidence that Charpentier was dismissed owing to the "Italian maxims" ­ that is, some sort of sententious truths that were not necessarily based on nature ­ and that he tended to instill in his students. In fact, we know that he owed his post at the Sainte-Chapelle to the grateful young prince.

It is difficult to read Lecerf's criticisms as evidence that Charpentier's Italianate expressive devices had placed him beyond the pale, in an "otherness" to which for native Italians and Italianophiles had been relegated. Lecerf did not admire Médée; but nowhere in the above statements does he suggest that Charpentier was somehow "identified" with Medea and her "otherness."

To summarize the evidence from Charpentier's contemporaries:

The above evidence left us by people who saw, or could have seen a performance of Médée, does not suggest that "most commentators" ­ or Charpentier himself ­ "identified" this savant composer with his heroine.

What do later commentators say about Charpentier and Médée?

"Perhaps," I mused, ever hopeful, "I will find statements in later commentators, even though they had yet been born when Médée was performed. Perhaps 'most' of these commentators will demonstrate a 'conviction' about an "identity" between Charpentier and Medea."

Serré des Rieux, Les Dons des enfants de Latone: "La Musique" (1734)

Rieux says highly favorable things not only about Charpentier's music but also about Abbé Mathieu, the curé of Saint-André-des-Arts, a "pious amateur" and "curieux" whose "zeal" for Italian music, and whose concerts and collection of music "serve as a model" for the new generation of composers. Mathieu's library included works by Charpentier and by native Italian composers as well:

"Et le latin offrant plus de fécondité,/ Dans un tour tout nouveau savamment fut traité./ Charpentier revêtu d'une sage richesse,/ Des chromatiques sons fit sentir la finesse:/ Dans la belle harmonie il s'ouvrit un chemin,/ Neuvièmes et tritons brillèrent sous sa main" (quoted by Cessac, pp. 48-49).

Rieux also tells how, propelled by hubris, "even Charpentier" and his Médée had crashed like Icarus:

"En vain d'autres auteurs sur la scène tragique/ Hasardèrent l'essai de leur veine harmonique,/ Leurs opéras bientôt, et leurs noms détestés/ Dans le gouffre d'oubli furent précipités./ C'est ainsi, qu'éprouvant le triste sort d'Icare,/ Tombèrent et Bouvard et La Coste, et La Barre,/ Théobalde, Rebel, et même Charpentier,/ Qui du temple sacré, profanant le sentier,/ Répandit dans Médée avec trop d'abondance/ Les charmes déplacés d'une haute science" (quoted by Cessac, p. 412).

D.A. Thomas retained only Rieux's final words: "Another writer remarked that Charpentier "imparted to Médée, with too much liberality, the misplaced charms of high theory" (p. 135).

Is Rieux being two-faced here, praising Charpentier for the "wise richness" of his chromatics, and then criticizing him for resorting to "high theory"? Scarcely. When D.A. Thomas's brief excerpt is read in context, it turns out that Rieux was not stating his personal opinion about Charpentier's music. Rather, he was recounting how Charpentier's fault lay in "profaning" the "path leading to the sacred temple" (the temple of glory?). The profanation involved disregarding popular preferences and opting instead for "haute science." Here Serré de Rieux seems to have been alluding to Charpentier's move away from traditional counterpoint toward more adventurous chords and toward the emerging tonality. Charpentier was not, however, the only composer to fall to earth. Of the five opera composers named, three ­ Theobalde de Gatti, La Barre, and Rebel ­ are known to have been attracted to the Italian style. In other words, if we suppose, with D.A. Thomas, that Charpentier was an "other" owing to his Italiante bent, then it is clear that between 1687 and early 1693, he shared that limbo with at least three other opera composers.

Evrard Titon du Tillet, Le Parnasse François (1727)

Titon du Tillet provides biographical sketches of deceased artists who "live on in their fine works." These representatives of the best of French culture were selected on the basis of the "judgments" of "critics" and "savants." The facts presented in these sketches are very reliable, because Titon either knew the individuals personally, or else he sought information about them from their friends. (In Charpentier's case, the information can only have come from the composer's book-seller nephew, Jacques Edouard. See my article on Titon in Marc-Antoine Charpentier, un musicien retrouvé, to be published in 2005 by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles and Editions Mardaga.)

Beyond describing Charpentier's music in general as "good," Titon does not comment upon the composer's style. And he restricts his comments about Médée to a few facts:

"On a gravé un livre de ses Motets en 1709, son Opera Médée qui eut un grand succès, a été representée la premiére fois en 1694 [actually, it opened in December 1693], & imprimé la même année [1694] chez Christophe Ballard."

Later in the biographical sketch, Titon lists Charpentier's unpublished vernacular divertissements and exclusive operatic works that were unknown to the general public.

D.A. Thomas does not list Titon among the commentators he consulted for his book.

Nowhere in Titon's biographical sketch of Marc-Antoine Charpentier is there a hint that his contemporaries likened the composer to Medea.

P.L. Roualle de Boisgelou's Catalogue des livres de la Bibliothèque du Roy (1734), Rés. Vm8 22-23

The entry entitled "Marc-Antoine Charpentier" is based on Titon du Tillet and the Journal de Trévoux:

"...fut élève de Carissimi à Rome. Charpentier etoit un des plus laborieux et des plus savans musiciens de son temps, surtout pour la musique latine. ... M^r Charpentier avoit montré la composition à M^r le Duc d'Orleans Regent [in his youth, Duke of Chartres], qui n'a point fait de motets, la musique (et surtout la musique sacrée) n'etait pas son genie."

D.A. Thomas does not mention this source, perhaps because it does allude to Médée.

That Médée is not mentioned, suggests that the royal librarians knew nothing of a symbolic link between the composer and the opera's heroine. (It is also clear that the librarians had not yet catalogued Charpentier's autograph manuscripts and had no idea of their content.) Rather, the focus is on the skills, or lack of skills, of Charpentier's princely pupil.

François and Claude Parfaict, "Histoire de l'Académie Royale de Musique ..." (1741), BN, mss, n.a. fr. 6532

Born in 1698 and 1705, the Parfaicts based their history of the Royal Opera on unpublished materials whose accuracy is difficult to evaluate because the sources (and the date of the sources) are not named. In their preface they state that the materials came from the "library of someone who does not want to be named". Rather than use their "own words," they decided that it was "plus à propos de nous servir des mêmes termes et des mêmes idées de ceux dont nous empruntons des faits et des jugemens." In hopes of accumulating additional information, they put out an appeal to "des parens ou des amis des auteurs qui sont morts," so that they would be able to "apprendre au public certains faits que nous ignorons ou que nous n'avons pas jugés à propos de reveler sur notre compte." (In this respect their approach resembled Titon du Tillet's.) This would, they hoped, keep them from becoming embroiled in "critiques" and "jugements" (p. 13).

In other words, the evidence compiled by the Parfaicts, in the late 1730s, was a mixture of hearsay and, perhaps, fact. If they consulted Titon's biographical sketch of Charpentier, they rejected all but the allusion to Carissimi.

The accuracy of many of the new "facts" that the Parfaicts provide is extremely dubious. For example, they give 1624 as a birthdate (Charpentier was born in 1643); they have him going to Rome at fifteen to study painting (new research shows that he spent his adolescent years in a collège, preparing a maîtrise ès arts that would permit him to register for the Paris Law Faculty); they claim that he first wrote in the vernacular and later shifted to Latin (his autograph notebooks show that it was the other way around: from start to finish of his career he worked primarily with Latin texts, and French libretti were reserved for the theater, and for a few vernacular entertainments performed at the royal court in the early 1680s).

With these caveats, I have coped out not only the "facts" about Médée but also the "facts" about Charpentier that the Parfaicts provide that do not appear in other sources:

"Charpentier égala bientôt son maître [Carissimi], & aquit le titre de Phenix de la France. De retour à Paris il entra chez Mad^e [Mlle? or Mme?] de Guise, en qualité de maître de sa musique, où il composa des pièces excellentes; mais piqué contre Lully, qui réunissoit tous les suffrages, il changea son goût de musique naturelle, afin de ne point ressembler au simple de Lully; & ne voulut plus faire que de la musique très difficile, mais en même temps d'une harmonie, & d'une science jusqu'alors inconnuë au François: [in the margin: Nous ne parlons ici de Charpentier qu'apres les discours de quelques admirateurs de ce Musicien.] ce qui luy attira le titre de compositeur barbare. Rempli de ces sçavans idées, il mit en musique l'Opéra Médée qui fut representée en 1693: Cet ouvrage que les étrangers ont regardé comme un chef d'oeuvre, n'eût aucune réussite en France. On ajoute que ce fut par la négligence des Musiciens de l'Orchestre; & que pour punir, ou leur incapacité, ou leur malice, on leur retrancha pendant dix années cinquante francs par an, de leurs appointemens."

Here, at last, we find D.A. Thomas's "barbare." But how to be sure that the expression was applied to Charpentier by a contemporary? Indeed, of the "facts" provided by the Parfaicts, Thomas retains only the sentence (underlined), upon which he constructed his argument (p. 135).

The "facts" about the bad conduct of the orchestra may harken back to a facet of the "cabale" that led to the cancellation of Médée after less than a dozen performances. Had members of the orchestra been bribed to play badly? Were they subsequently forced to make financial amends to the opera administration, who had lost a lot of money as a result of this "plot." (For the cabale ­ which seems to have been prompted by moral "correctness" rather than by aesthetics ­ and for the dire financial straits of the Academy in 1693-1694, see Jérôme de la Gorce, L'Opéra à Paris au temps de Louis XIV, Paris, 1992, pp. 92ff. D.A. Thomas does not cite this work in his bibliography.)

As for Charpentier's decision to differentiate himself from Lully in the 1670s, it is an interesting tale. But would a careful analysis of his musical style during that decade reveal a sudden shift from the "natural" and the "simple" to the "very difficult" and to a "harmony and science hitherto unknown to the French"? I, for one, doubt it, because from 1670 on, Charpentier was composing in the style or styles in which the Guises ordered him to compose, chiefly the Italianate one that Mlle de Guise had enjoyed in her youth, in Florence.

Not even here, in this mixture of "fact" and hearsay, do we find the purported "identification" of Charpentier and Medea. We find only the adjective "barbare."

Before leaving the Parfaict brothers, I should point out that pp. 78-79 of the manuscript contain doggerel verse entitled "Conte sur le Médée opera de M^r Corneille le Jeune." The libretto is portrayed as so bad that a Gascon died after being obliged to listen to the verse of that "fat qui l'a composé": "C'est un sieur d'opera contre lequel je gronde, ... Les vers estoient detestables. ... Et le nom de l'auteur? Il se nomme Corneille." In other words, the dead man is inveighing against the verse, not the music.

To the poem is appended an allusion to Donneau de Visé's "véritable connoisseurs":

"De Visé entend par ces "veritable[s] connoisseurs, les amateurs de la nouvelle musique dont Charpentier voulu nous laisser le modele. Il faut avouer cependant qu'elle [la nouvelle musique] étoit tres convenable aux paroles, qui sont un moins [sic] que Lyriques."

If, by chance, this statement should happen to be closer to fact than to hearsay, it sheds some light on the perceived shortcomings of Médée: Charpentier was forced to set a mediocre libretto to music, and the joint harmonic and poetic effort was deemed insufficiently "lyrical." In other words, if this statement can be trusted even minimally, it suggests that although Lecerf de la Viéville inveighed against Charpentier for his Italianisms and his science, others were simply frustrated at not being able to hum the tunes as they left the theater, as they had done in Lully's day.

Not even these least reliable of all the commentators on Charpentier say anything about the supposed "identity" of the composer and his heroine. That this allegory did not find its way into their manuscript suggests that no such public image existed.

La Combe, Dictionnaire portatif des beaux arts (ed. of Paris, 1753)

La Combe says nothing about Italy and Carissimi. After telling of Charpentier's career with the Jesuits and at the Sainte-Chapelle, and his teaching the Duke of Chartres, this author continues by paraphrasing Titon. It is nonetheless revealing to see which facts were retained and which rejected:

"Charpentier fut un des plus sçavans et des plus laborieux Musiciens de son temps. Il a donné des Opéra, des Motets, & beaucoup d'autres morceaux considérables de Musique: son Opera de Médée eut dans son temps beaucoup de succes. Il a aussi composé un opera intitulé Philomele qui a été representé trois fois au Palais Royal; mais M. le Duc d'Orleans [his princely pupil], qui avoit quelque part à cet Ouvrage, ne voulut point qu'on le fît imprimer" (p. 154).

D.A. Thomas does not mention La Combe.

This commentator says nothing about the purported "identify" of Charpentier and Medea.

Jean-Benjamin de Laborde, Essai sur la Musique ancienne et moderne (Paris, 1780)

Laborde did a good deal of research. He clearly consulted old issues of the Mercure galant, for he names all the guests at the "opera" performed at the house of A.-J. de Riants in 1678. He also relied on Titon du Tillet. In short, his brief biography of Charpentier was as accurate as he could make it:

"... fit dans sa jeunesse le voyage de Rome, où il apprit la composition du célèbre Carissimi. ... Charpentier a été un des plus savans musiciens de son temps. Il commença par faire .... [a long list of the composer's works follows], ensuite il fit representer en 1693 Médée, paroles de Thomas Corneille ..." (III, pp. 404-405).

D.A. Thomas does not mention Laborde.

That Laborde's very serious history of music does not allude to an "identification" of Charpentier with Medea, nor to the caballe of 1693, suggests that the opera was not seen as an allegory about a rejected composer.