its existence the number both of professional and non-professional members at each dinner rarely exceeded eighteen, but now from sixty to seventy dine together. The management of the Club devolves upon the professional members, each of whom in turn takes the chair, and is alone responsible for the entertainment. The musical programmes now consist mainly of glees, although an occasional catch is introduced.
The professional members at the present time are Messrs. Winn, Baxter, Fred. Walker, Coates, and Hilton. The officers are—Mr. Winn, 'Clerk of the Records'; Mr. Baxter, 'Librarian'; and Mr. Coates, 'Chancellor of the Exchequer.' Mr. William Winn, vicar-choral of St. Paul's Cathedral, in 1876 succeeded to the post of 'Clerk' on the resignation of Mr. Francis after twenty-eight years of valuable service to the Club. The chairman of the evening is addressed as 'Mr. Speaker.' The Club has from time to time offered prizes for the composition of glees: in 1869 the first prize as won by Mr. Winn, and the second by Mr. Coates; in 1870 the competition had the same result; and in 1880 the first prize was awarded to Mr. Coates, and the second to Mr. Winn. For the non-professional members, who must be nominated and seconded by two members, there is an entrance fee of three guineas, and an annual subscription, for the ten meetings and dinners, of five guineas.
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
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Supposed to have been Berlioz, but he exculpates himself in his 'Mémoires.' chap. xv.
- ↑ See Chouquet's 'Histoire de la musique dramatique,' 134 and 434.
