Jupiter
The Music of Jean-Baptiste Forqueray

Susanne Heinrich - Pardessus de Viole
Oliver Webber - Violon
Rachel Stott - Alto
Susanna Pell - Basse de Viole
Gareth Deats - Violoncelle
Lynda Sayce - Théorbe
Kah-Ming Ng - Clavecin

Programmes Notes

Why should Jean-Baptiste Forqueray, the greatest violist of his generation, publish his progressive, mid-eighteenth-century pieces in 1747 under his deceased father's name? Jean-Baptiste was a musicien du Roy and professor to Louis XV's daughter. He performed with the leading players of his day: in 1737 he played Telemann's Paris Quartets with the composer, who recalled in his autobiography with awe: 'if only words could describe the wonderful way the Quartets were played by Messrs Blavet (flautist), Guignon (violinist), Forcroy the Son (bass violist) and Edouard ('cellist)'. Of Jean-Baptiste's virtuosity d'Acquin records: 'The most difficult pieces cause him no anxiety; he plays them with that assurance which characterises a great player: under his fingers everything becomes un chef-d'oeuvre de délicatesse & d'élégance. 

The enigma only increases when one learns that Jean-Baptiste's father Antoine (1672-1745), likewise a phenomenal violist, became so jealous of his son's talents that, after first beating him, he had him incarcerated in Bicêtre prison (an option available to French fathers until just before World War II) and in 1725 banished from the country for ten years on pain of death. Fortunately Jean-Baptiste already had pupils of influence who rallied to his support with letters pointing out the injustice of Antoine's actions: 

I can only, Monsieur, salute you for your excellent Conduct that I have always experienced during the time that you have taught me. In return I most willingly offer all the evidence that you merit... my Mother echoes the same sentiments.
(Le Marquis de Villars)

The cruelty of the father is visible, he's a son who was abandoned at 15, and since the age of 10 never received a sou from him. His correction and paternal justice knows nothing but banishment from the kingdom on pain of death.
(Monsieur de Monflambert)

In the light of such testimonies the authorities revoked the sentence and Jean-Baptiste returned to France after two months in February 1726. Intriguingly, four years later Antoine retired outside Paris to Mantes. However, Antoine's final will provides evidence that the schism was latterly healed to some extent: Jean-Baptiste inherited his father's excellent viols (one belonging to the Regent, and another-celebrated for its large sound and considered the best in the kingdom-to the Elector of Bavaria) as well as sharing a considerable fortune with his sister. 

In the dedication to his royal pupil Madame Henriette de France, Jean-Baptiste writes of his desire 'to assure him [Antoine] immortality'. Perhaps we should take him at face value? Is the publication an act of filial homage? Yet by 1747 the viol's fortunes were waning (it lacked the volume to compete in the larger concert halls and was fast losing ground to the violin and the `cello) and Jean-Baptiste had a mission to restore it to its former glory. Did he imagine that to link his publication with Antoine-perhaps the brightest star in the viol's firmament in its era of glory-would aid his goal? Or was the attribution to Antoine simply for financial gain? It was certainly a shrewd move simultaneously to publish the works arranged for harpsichord which, unlike the viol, flourished in mid-eighteenth-century France. (The idiomatic transcription was probably made by his wife Marie-Rose du Bois, a talented harpsichordist, whom Marpurg rated at the head of the league of amateurs.) 

Whatever the reasons for the attribution to the father, the thirty-two pieces in the collection still bear the names of the son's contemporaries. Pierre Buisson was married to Jean-Baptiste's elder sister, Charlotte. Martin Bouron and his son François were the Forqueray family lawyers. Dr Théodore Tronchin, a subscriber to Telemann's Nouveaux Quatuors (1738), was a member of the circle of the celebrated entrepreneur, La Riche de la Pouplinière. Cottin the younger likewise subscribed to the Nouveaux Quatuors, as did Bellemont and de la Tour (the dedicatees of two further pieces by the composer-not included on this CD) and indeed Jean-Baptiste himself. Regard d'Aubonne and Louis-Philippe Du Vaucel were both financiers, who probably employed Jean-Baptiste and his wife to entertain them. (Du Vaucel was guillotined in 1794.) In his Mémoires the Duc de Luynes recollects a dinner party 'dans la petite maison de Mme de Lauraguais, dans l'avenue de Paris' given for M. le Dauphin and Mme la Dauphine at which the Forquerays both performed:

The music lasted about two hours; it was played by five musicians: Forcroy and his wife, him on the bass viol and her on the harpsichord, Blavet on the German flute, and Jéliotte and Mme Le Maure [singers]... The three instrumentalists executed a trio... then the bass viol and harpsichord played together many pièces with admirable taste and precision.

Two years after the Forquerays' marriage, Charles-François Clément (1720-c1782), 'Professeur de Clavecin & bon compositeur', acknowledged their combined talents by dedicating to them his Sonates en trio pour un clavecin et un violon (Paris 1743):

A MONSIEUR ET MADAME FORQUERAY STUDENTS OF APOLLO, Oracles of his laws, Forqueray, in whom taste is married with genius, Creates, to enchant us, in the bosom of harmony, These ravishing concerts which spring from beneath your fingers... 

The outstanding violinist of the era, Jean-Marie Leclair (1697-1764) was a close friend of the Forquerays: Jean-Baptiste was a witness at Leclair's marriage and Mme Leclair engraved Forqueray's publications; interestingly, there are many common technical and harmonic features in their compositions-such as a fascination with virtuosity, experimentation with unusual chords and a love of diminished sevenths, augmented triads and dominant ninths. Ferrand considered 'Forqueray [to be] as outstanding on his bass viol as Leclair with his violin'.

A few of Forqueray's works are pièces caracterisées. Jupiter, which lends its title to this CD, is perhaps the most notable example of this category. Created on a fittingly grand scale for the Roman king of the gods, Jupiter is representative of Jean-Baptiste at his most harmonically daring. The fourth and final couplet commences as expected in the tonic, C minor, but rapidly sinks to the flattened submediant; from there the composer modulates in a strangely individual way to E flat. The next phrase begins abruptly but forthrightly in B flat minor as Jupiter angrily hurls more thunderbolts down from Olympus. 

Lucy Robinson 1999

In this tercentenary of Jean-Baptiste Forqueray's birth, an interpretation of the Pièces de viole in a new light seems judicious. Many aspects of the work fall within charivari agréable's remit of devising innovative programmes based on historical performance practice. Apart from restoring the authorship of the Pièces to Jean-Baptiste, as outlined above by Dr L. Robinson, author of the article on the Forqueray dynasty in the authoritative New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, we have incorporated several innovations in this recording. The pardessus de viole, in vogue in mid-eighteenth-century Paris as an instrument suitable for ladies aspiring to virtuosity, is specified in the title page as an alternative to the bass viol. (For this recording, we are using the later version of the pardessus, known as the quinton.) The short-score appearance of many of the theatrical Pièces prompted their orchestration for the typically French configuration of five parts, achieved by composing parties de remplissages and assimilating elements from the Pièces de clavecin version by du Bois. The ensemble incorporates instruments from both the viol and violin families, with the pardessus at the helm. Finally, we have symbolically re-ordered our selection of pieces, albeit still according to key, starting the programme with Jupiter (it was the final piece in Forqueray's publication) and ending with the Chaconne La Morangis, the work with which charivari agréable made its BBC and Wigmore Hall debut and became prize-winners of the International Early Music Network Competition in 1993. 

Kah-Ming Ng 1999