Les Pieces De Clavessin: Flint(Cemb)

Elizabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665-1729) Pices de clavecin A child prodigy, a young girl determined to achieve recognition as a musician, the wife of an organist, a widow gradually withdrawing from the world after reaping success in it: this was, in a nutshell, the destiny of Elizabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, harpsichordist and composer during the reign of Louis XIV. Her father, Claude Jacquet, organist at the church of Saint-Louis en l'Ile in Paris, taught her both the harpsichord and the organ as well as the art of singing, as he did his other three children (Nicolas, Anne, and Pierre), all of whom became musicians. From an early age, she attracted the attention of the king, who recognized her outstanding gifts. Encouraged by this patronage at the highest level, Elizabeth Jacquet enjoyed quite an exceptional career. She spent a few years at the court of Versailles, where she was in the entourage of Madame de Montespan, Louis XIV's mistress and may have benefited from lessons with Jean Henry d'Anglebert, then spinet player in the King's Chamber. She then went back to Paris, where she married the organist Marin de La Guerre in 1684, adding his name to her maiden name. In 1687, at the age of 22, she published her first book of Pices de Clavessin. In the text of the long, most touching dedication, Elizabeth Jacquet de La Guerre reveals her veneration for and gratitude towards the monarch, yet makes it clear that, while pleased with the immeasurable honor given her, she intends to satisfy her own wishes above all: Sir, This is the first work I dare to publish, and I take the liberty to dedicate it to Your Majesty, being indebted to You for everything my genius has produced so far. Indeed, Sir, I recall that, when you found in me, at the age of five, a disposition to play the harpsichord, you commanded that I duly be given lessons. No one could possibly conceive how responsive I was, though a mere child, to the joy such a pressing command aroused in my soul, and with what ardor for the task. My tenderest years I have seen go by in continuous study and, on my occasional appearances before Your Majesty, I had the pleasure of seeing You pay favorable attention to my feeble songs. The felicity I felt on pleasing You have inspired me to go further. I willingly lived in a long seclusion at my father's, where I was always used, Sir, to devote all my studious evenings to You. Yet, twenty years elapsed before, in 1707, she finally published a second volume of music for the harpsichord, Pieces de Clavecin, with a new dedication to Louis XIV: Sir, My willingness to offer my published work to Your Majesty can no longer be counted a merit. A long habit has by now made it a happy necessity. What felicity would I feel, Sir, if my latest work was to receive once again the glorious reception I have enjoyed from Your Majesty, as it were, since the cradle; indeed, Sir, allow me to remind you that you did bestow attention on my youngest years; you took pleasure in witnessing the birth of a talent I devoted to you; even then you honored me with your praise, whose value I was only partially aware of at the time. My feeble talents have subsequently grown. I have attempted, Sir, to be more and more deserving of your approval, which has always meant everything to me. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Jacquet de La Guerre had turned to other genres. For the court, she composed several pastorales and ballets, all sadly lost except for the libretto of the Jeux l'honneur de la victoire, one of the earliest significant examples of an opra-ballet, written five years before Campra's L'Europe galante. In 1694, her tragic opera, Cphale et Procris, based on a libretto by Joseph-Franois Duch de Vancy, was performed at the Acadmie royale de musique. It required some audacity, at the time, to become the first woman in France to write an opera and have it produced on such a prestigious stage. Elizabeth Jacquet also wrote sonatas and cantatas, two Italian-influenced genres which began to spread in France at the turn of the eighteenth century. Around 1695 she wrote h