A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Rousseau, Jean Jacques

by Gustave Chouquet

ROUSSEAU, Jean Jacques, born at Geneva, June 28, 1712, died at Ermenonville, near Paris, July 3, 1778, five weeks after Voltaire. The details of his life are given in his 'Confessions'; we shall here confine ourselves to his compositions, and his writings on music. Although, like all who learn music late in life and in a desultory manner without a master, Rousseau remained to the end a poor reader and an indifferent harmonist, he exercised a great influence on French music. Immediately after his arrival in Paris he read a paper before the Académie des Sciences (Aug. 22, 1742) on a new system of musical notation, which he afterwards extended and published under the title of 'Dissertation sur la musique moderne' (Paris, 1743, 8vo.). His method of representing the notes of the scale by figures—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7—had been already proposed by Souhaitty, but Rousseau's combinations, and especially his signs of duration, are so totally different as entirely to redeem them from the charge of plagiarism. A detailed analysis and refutation of the system may be found in Raymond's 'Des principaux systèmes de notation musicale' (Turin, 1824, 8vo), to which the reader is referred; but it is evident that however convenient notation by means of figures may be for writing a simple melody, it becomes as complicated as the old system when modulation or polyphony are attempted. Its very uniformity also deprives the reader of all assistance from the eye; the sounds must be spelt out one by one, and the difficulty of decyphering orchestral combinations or complicated harmonies becomes almost insuperable.

Copying music had been Rousseau's means of livelihood, and this led him to believe that the best way to learn an art is to practise it; at any rate he composed an opera 'Les Muses galantes,' which was produced at the house of La Popelinière, when Rameau, who was present, declared that some pieces showed the hand of a master, and others the ignorance of a schoolboy. Not being able to obtain access to any of the theatres, Rousseau undertook to write the articles on music for the 'Encyclopédie,' a task which he accomplished in three months, and afterwards acknowledged to have been done hastily and unsatisfactorily. We have mentioned under the head of Rameau [vol. iii. p. 72a] the exposé by that great musician of the errors in the musical articles of the 'Encyclopédie'; 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'^[1] in France, Rousseau produced 'Le Devin du village' before the King at Fontainebleau, 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 1828, when some wag^[2] threw an immense powdered perruque on the stage and gave it its deathblow. [Devin du Village, vol. i. 441b.] 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,^[3] 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 musique Française' (1753) raised a storm of indignation, and not unnaturally, since it pronounces French music to have neither rhythm nor melody, the language not being susceptible of either; French singing to 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 Opéra replied by hanging and burning its author in effigy. His revenge for this absurdity, and for many other attacks, was the witty 'Lettre d'un symphoniste de l'Académie royale de musique à ses camarades de l'orchestre' (1753), which may still be read with pleasure. The æsthetic part of the 'Dictionnaire de musique,' which he finished in 1764 at Motiers-Travers, is admirable both for matter and style. He obtained the privilege of printing it in Paris, 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 Waring.

Rousseau's other writings on music are: 'Lettre à M. Grimm, au sujet des remarques ajoutées à sa Lettre sur Omphale,' belonging to the early stage of the 'Guerre des Bouffons'; 'Essai sur l'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 à M. l'Abbé Raynal au sujet d'un nouveau mode de musique inventé par M. Blainville,' dated May 30, 1754, and first printed in the 'Mercure de France'; 'Lettre à M. Burney sur la Musique, avec des fragments d'Observations sur l'Alceste italien de M. le chevalier Gluck,' an analysis of ' Alceste' written at the request of Gluck himself; and 'Extrait d'une réponse du Petit Faiseur à son Prête-Nom, sur un morceau de l'Orphée de M. le chevalier Gluck,' dealing principally with a particular modulation in 'Orphée.' From the two last 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 musique Française.' 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 Comédie Française; it is a lyric piece in one act, and caused some sensation owing to its novelty. Singing there was none, and the only music were orchestral pieces in the intervals of the declamation. He also left fragments of an opera 'Daphnis et Chloé' (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 Misères de ma vie' (Paris, 1781, 8vo), all now forgotten. 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 'Moliere 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 wholly re-written, by Francœur, on whose advice, as well as on that of Jelyotte the tenor singer, Rousseau was much in the habit of relying.—'Rousseau's Dream' was at one time a popular tune in this country. An air ('de trois notes') and a duettino, melodious and pretty but of the simplest style, are given in the 'Musical Library,' vol. iii.

[ G. C. ]

1. It has been generally supposed that the 'Serva padrona' was not heard In Paris before 1752: this however is a mistake; 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.
2. Supposed to have been Berlioz, but he exculpates himself in his 'Mémoires.' chap. xv.
3. See Chouquet's 'Histoire de la musique dramatique,' 134 and 434.