Works for harpsichord

Program Note:

Saint-Saëns’ interests ranged to poetry, philosophy, and all branches of natural science, where he published numerous articles. Perhaps more to the point, he made important contributions to our appreciation of older music. In the 1890s he began editing the keyboard works of Jean-Philippe Rameau for publication; those editions are still widely available. Rameau (1683-1764), a direct contemporary of J. S. Bach’s, is probably best remembered today as the towering music theorist of the early 18th century. But during his life Rameau was esteemed as France’s premiere opera composer and second only to François Couperin at the harpsichord.
Very little is known of Rameau’s early life except that he came from a musical family in Dijon, traveled for a time in Italy, and had his first professional jobs as an organist (following his father’s example). Better documented is his career after 1722, when he settled in Paris, brought forth his profoundly influential Treatise on Harmony, and began working as a theater composer. Success in opera followed a few years later, though Rameau continued to work in smaller, private genres. He published two significant volumes of harpsichord music in 1724 and 1728. The earlier collection includes well-known character pieces such as “The Sighs,” “The Cyclops”, and “The Village Girl.” Tonight we will hear the first four works of the later collection (1728), which includes fewer but more substantial pieces. Rameau begins with the traditional core of a Baroque suite (an Allemande, Courante, and Sarabande), though performers then and today often took liberties with the order and selection of such works. The Allemande in particular dwarfs all related examples in the genre in terms of breadth and expressivity (only excepting some by J. S. Bach). The final piece, Les Trois Mains (Three Hands), uses virtuosic hand-crossing to suggest the presence of an additional limb; most performers probably wish they had one just for such occasions.

(c) Jason Stell