catherine gordon-seifert rhetoric in 17th c french air

7/24/2019 Catherine Gordon-Seifert Rhetoric in 17th C French Air

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10/8/2015 9. Catherine Gordon-Seifert - Music, The University of York

https://www.york.ac.uk/music/conferences/nema/gordon-seifert/ 1/22

Department of Music

Rhetoric and expression in the mid-seventeenth-century French Air: a

rationale for compositional style and performance1

Catherine Gordon-Seifert

1. Introduction

2. Despair or Hopelessness (le désespoir )

3. Power, Courage, or Boldness (le pouvoir )

4. The Burning Fires of Love

5. Sorrow, Grief, or Pain (la douleur )

6. Languor (la langueur )

7. Tenderness, Sweetness

8. Happiness (le contentement )

1. Introduction

Bénigne de Bacilly’s treatise, Remarques curieuses de l’art de bien chanter , first published in

1668, is typical of mid-to-late seventeenth-century French treatises on music in its application of

rhetorical principles to performance. Here, he states that singing airs is analogous to declaiming a

discourse – ‘one must know how to sing well and declaim well at the same time’ 2 – alluding only

to the fifth part of rhetoric, actio.3 The emphasis in Bacilly’s treatise upon pronunciation

underscores the dominance of performance over composition in the seventeenth-century musical

experience in France; thus, as Bacilly insists, the rules that govern singing French-language airs

must also apply to their composition.4 Strategies related to actio provided composers with a

means of fulfilling vocal music’s primary aesthetic function, a function it shared with oration:

moving the passions associated with a text and its recitation. Just how this was accomplished is

articulated in treatises on rhetoric, not music.

Rhetoricians identify two ways in which passions are represented in recitation: through nombre or

the rates of speech and accens or tones of voice. Nombre is specifically addressed by Bernard

Lamy who was concerned with the physiological and psychological effects of various qualities of

sound in his De l'art de parler , first published in 1675.5

Although Lamy considers only language inhis treatise, his advice was easily applicable to another sound source: music. And indeed, in his

L’Art de la poësie françoise et latine avec une idée de la musique from 1694, Pherotée de la Croix

applied Lamy’s theories to musical sounds.6 Those sections of La Croix’s treatise that concern

music were copied directly from Lamy’s treatise, differing only by adding the word music to Lamy’s

statements. Both Lamy and La Croix stress the effects on the soul of the numerical proportions of

speech called nombre. La Croix, copying directly from Lamy, writes: ‘one calls number, in the art

of speaking and of singing, what the ears perceive as proportionate in the recitation of a

discourse, either following the proportion of the measure of time, or according to the just

distribution of the intervals of breath.’ 7 Both Lamy and La Croix assert that proportion in the

pronunciation of discourse and music is linked to the passions. As La Coix points out: ‘It is a

question of making the numbers conform to the things one expresses, in order to excite with

success the movements (passions) that one wants.’ 8

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Several rhetoricians also describe the tones of voice, called accens, associated with passionate

recitation, defined by Marin Mersenne as ‘an inflection or modification of the voice or of the word

by which one expresses the passions or affections naturally or by artifice.’ 9 Mersenne notes that

la musique accentuelle incorporates the accents used for raising or lowering syllables (l’aigu and

le grave or high and low accents) and must be accompanied by a quickness or slowness of

movement (nombre).10 Rhetoricians indicate, for example, that boldness or courage is

characterized by a voice that is lofty, forceful, and full of energy, while happiness is portrayed by

a voice that is easy, brisk, and flowing. Both rates of speech and tones of voice combine toexpress passion, and both could be easily imitated through a variety of musical devices: rates of

speech primarily through the interplay of rhythm and metre and tones of voice through melody

and harmony.

In setting a poem to music as a type of persuasive discourse, composers had to take into account

the text, and, in the words of Lamy, its accessory meaning or passionate associations. 11 Poems

used by mid-seventeenth-century composers are rich in words that invite affective representation,

the passions themselves being frequently indicated by name. There is a consistent correlation

throughout the repertory between a passion named in a text and its musical setting. Additionally,

if the passion is not named but implied in the meaning of a phrase, similar expressions receive

similar musical treatment.12

In airs written during the 1650s and 1660s, particularly by composers Michel Lambert, Bénigne de

Bacilly, Sébastien Le Camus, and Joseph Chabanceau de la Barre, seven passions dominate and

are given special musical treatment.13 The agitated passions, so identified by seventeenth-

century rhetoricians, are despair or hopelessness; boldness, particularly in commands or emphatic

statements; and the burning fires of love. The moderate passions are sorrow, languor, and tender

love; and the neutral passion, happiness. When considering affective representation in music, it is

important to realize that seventeenth-century theorists, among them René Descartes andMersenne, considered certain musical devices to be strong and others, weak. Melodic and bass

line ascents were considered strong,14 while descents, weak;15 a high tessitura, strong; a low

tessitura, weak; large verbal units, strong, and small verbal units, weak. Chords in root position

built on the first and fifth notes of the mode were considered strong, 16 while first inversion

chords, weak17 ; large and expanded intervals (fifths, fourths, and tritones) were considered

strong,18 and narrow intervals, particularly minor seconds, weak. Major thirds and sixths were

considered strong, though not as strong as fourths and fifths,19 while minor thirds and sixths,

weak.20 And finally, most dissonances were considered strong.

All of the passions named in song texts are defined and examined in seventeenth-century French

treatises on rhetoric by Abbé de Bretteville, René Bary, Jean-Léonor Le Gallois, sieur de

Grimarest, and Michel Le Faucheur, and by Descartes in his treatise on the passions from 1649.21

Brief descriptions of these passions are given below. The descriptions are accompanied by a list

of musical devices generally used to represent each passion as well as musical examples from

airs by Lambert and Bacilly.22 There is a remarkably close correlation between the descriptions of

emotional states given in the treatises on rhetoric, Descartes’ physiological account of the

passions, and the musical devices used by composers to imitate affects represented in the texts:

2. Despair or Hopelessness (le désespoir )

Descartes:

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Despair is a violent kind of agitation. The spirits are sent rapidly from the brain to all

parts of the body, particularly the heart, which sends more spirits back to the brain to

maintain and strengthen the passion. Because more spirits rush to the brain than for

any other passion, all the senses are more acute and all parts of the body more

mobile. Despair results when the desired object is hopelessly unattainable.

Bretteville:

Despair is a violent and impetuous movement by which the soul distances itself from

something good that it cannot possess, after having searched for it with ardour.

Grimarest: Its Manifestation in Recitation

Despair is an exclamation and a tone of voice that is high, abrupt, exaggerated or

outraged, and violent (un ton aigu, précipité, outré, violent ).

The Musical Representation of Despair:

1. The melody is in the highest register of the piece.

2. The melody ascends primarily by step and always ends with an ascent, usually by a

semitone.

3. The rhythmic movement is primarily by large values in large verbal units, which gives

emphasis to important strong syllables; often dotted rhythms or a semibreve followed by

two crotchets are used.

4. The bass line often moves in contrary motion with the melody; on stronger expressions,

disjunct bass movement is likely.

5. Tonic/dominant harmonic relationships are emphasized, especially at the end of the phrase.

6. Chords are most likely to be in root position, rather than first or second inversion.

Figure 1: Lambert, ‘Inutiles pensers’: Les Airs, bb. 7–10, p. 8.

‘... and of my despair’

Figure 2: Lambert, ‘Que me sert-il’, Les Airs, bb. 17–20, p. 44.

‘... of a vain hope’

Figure 3: Lambert, ‘Inutiles pensers’, Les Airs, bb. 13–17, p. 8.

‘To take away my desire to see her’





3. Power, Courage, or Boldness (le pouvoir )

(strongly stated opinions, commands, demands, emphatic statements, or anger)

Descartes:

Courage is a ‘certain heat or agitation which disposes the soul to apply itself

energetically to accomplish the tasks it wants to perform.’ Because it is a species of

desire, the two passions share many of the same traits. The difference is that outrage

disposes the soul to accomplish the task required to obtain the object of desire and

depends upon hope for success in attaining the goal. Despair, on the other hand,

results when the attainment of the desired object is impossible, leading to

hopelessness and the eventual extinction of the desire altogether.

Bretteville:

Courage is ‘a passion of the soul, which strengthens it in the face of danger, and

makes it attack the evil, in order to fight it and conquer it.’

Grimarest and Bary (l’audace): Its Manifestation in Recitation

L’Audace and despair are two of the most agitated passions; audacity should berepresented by an impetuous or forceful and lofty voice (une voix impétueuse et

hautaine).

Le Faucheur: Its Manifestation in Recitation

‘Confidence... will be easily discover’d by a Loud and a Strong Voyce, always keeping

up to a Decent Boldness and a daring Constancy.’

The Musical Representation of Power, Courage, or Boldness:

1. The melody is in the highest register of the piece.

2. The melody often stresses chord tones of the tonic and dominant harmonies.

3. The melody moves primarily in disjunct motion by fourths and fifths, though often there is a

mixture of disjunct and conjunct motion.

4. Single pitches are repeated for emphasis.

5. Dotted rhythms are prevalent particularly at the end of phrases.

6. Often two crotchets ascend to a note of a larger value.

7. The bass line moves primarily by large note values in disjunct motion.

8. Tonic/dominant harmonic relationships are emphasized whether in the key of the piece or

not.

9. The contour of the melody varies, though ascending motion dominates.

Figure 4: Bacilly, ‘Puisque Philis est infidelle’, Les Trois, bb. 4–9, p. 4.

‘Let us avoid death my heart / Let us revolt against her’





4. The Burning Fires of Love

In song-texts, the burning fires of love are referred to in a variety of ways. Je brûle nuit et jour (I

burn night and day), la flame (the fires of love), une maladie (a disease or illness associated with

being in love, called erotic melancholia by doctors) are all used in reference to intense feelings of

love and sexual desire.

Descartes:

Burning love is ‘the desire which arises from attraction.... Attraction ... is specifically

ordained by nature to represent the enjoyment of that which attracts us as the

greatest of all the goods belonging to mankind, and so to make us have a burning

desire for this enjoyment.’

No description given by Bretteville, Grimarest, Bary, or Le Faucheur

The Musical Representation of Burning Love:

1. The melody ascends chromatically, especially at the beginning of the phrase.

2. The melody resolves with a descending motion, often by a semitone, at the end of thephrase.

3. The melody usually appears in a low to middle register of the piece.

4. Dotted rhythms dominate the phrase.

5. The bass line remains relatively inactive at first and then descends by step at the end of

the phrase.

6. The harmonies move primarily by fifths.

7. The contour of the melody primarily ascends; it then descends suddenly at the end of the

phrase.

Figure 5: Lambert, ‘D'un feu secret’, Les Airs, bb. 1–5, p. 60.

‘I feel myself consumed by a secret fire’

5. Sorrow, Grief, or Pain (la douleur )

Descartes:

Sorrow is associated with listlessness caused by a severe restriction of the openings

of heart. The blood in the veins is not agitated at all, so that very little blood goes to

the heart, which causes the limbs to relax and remain motionless. Tears result from a

moderate feeling of sadness when accompanied by some feeling of love or joy.

Descartes claimed that sadness must be combined with these other emotions so that

the ‘quantity of vapours’ is sufficient enough to form tears; extreme sadness causes

too great a constriction of blood throughout the body and not enough vapors for

weeping.

Bretteville:

Although Bretteville did not describe the physiological aspects of sadness, he

associated this passion with a languishing and fearful voice (une voix languissante,





craintive) which is interrupted by sighs and groans.


This passion is accompanied by a weak, lingering, and plaintive voice (une voix

foible, trainante, plaintive).


‘He’ll discover his Grief... with a dull, languishing and Sad Moan; not without breaking

off abruptly sometimes, with a sob; and fetching-up a sigh or a groan from the heart.’

Musical Representation of Sorrow

1. The melody is characterized by descending conjunct motion and emphasizes the minor

second.

2. The melody or melodic phrase often encompasses an interval of a minor third.

3. The melody is almost always in the middle, sometimes low, register.

4. Phrases end typically with an interval of a descending minor second.

5. The bass line moves by leap or by semitone, depending on the force of the expression.

6. Minor harmonies dominate the phrase.

7. The cadence at the end of the phrase is often subdominant to tonic (or at least forms a

relationship of a fourth between the harmonies).

8. The melody always descends.

Figure 6: Lambert, ‘Inutiles pensers’, Les Airs, bb. 6–7, p. 8.

‘Children of my sorrow’

6. Languor (la langueur )

Languor is a species of sadness and is closely related to la douleur , as the representation of

fatigue and inertia is common to both passions. But there is a difference in the way composers set

one or the other affect. On languorous expressions, indecision that often accompanies this

passion is represented with a wavering melody that vacillates up and down, ending up where it

began, and phrases that begin and end with the same harmony. Weakness associated with fatigue

is projected through melody, bass line, and harmonies that stress the interval of a third (usually

the minor third) and, in particular, by rhythms that simulate ‘gasps for breath’ within small verbal

units. The melody often descends by minor seconds and remains in the middle register of the

piece.

The Musical Representation of Languor:

1. The melody line often ascends a bit and then immediately descends and ends up just about

where it began.

2. The interval of a third (usually minor) is stressed either by a leap of a third or by a conjunctmelody that outlines the third.

3. The melody often descends by minor seconds.

4. The melody is almost always placed in the middle register of the piece.

5. The rhythms are either two crotchets followed by a semibreve, in a descending passage, or





steady crotchets leading to a semibreve.

6. The bass line either moves in conjunct motion by thirds, or it leaps by thirds.

7. The harmonies often relate by thirds (from D minor to F major, for example).

8. Often the phrase begins and ends with the same harmony.

9. The contour of the melody resembles a wave.

Figure 7: Lambert, ‘Que me sert-il’, Les Airs, bb. 5–8, p. 44.

‘To languish night and day for her’

7. Tenderness, Sweetness

Tenderness often regards facial expressions or pleasantness, in particular sweet or tender eyes.

This sentiment often appears in the adjective form doux and is associated with expressions of

tender or sweet love. Tenderness is a mild form of sexual desire in contrast to burning love and is

often accompanied by the musical representation of sighs.

Descartes:

‘Tender love presupposes sadness, so we are moved to sigh when ‘some imagined

hope or joy opens the orifice of the venous artery which sadness had constricted.’

Bretteville: Its Manifestation in Recitation

Tender love is expressed by a sweet and agreeable voice ( une voix douce, agréable).


Tender love is associated with a flattering and tender voice (une voix flateuse,

tendre).


‘He will shew his Love best by a soft, a Gay, and charming Voyce.’

Musical Representation of Tenderness:

1. The melody moves in conjunct motion by minor and major thirds, or it outlines triads.2. The melody appears in the middle register of the piece.

3. Major and minor harmonies alternate and are closely related to the tonic.

4. The bass moves by seconds and thirds.

5. First inversion chords dominate.

6. Rhythmic patterns are repeated throughout the phrase.

7. The melodic contour resembles an arch.

Figure 8: Lambert, ‘O Dieux comment se peut il faire’, Les Airs, bb. 5–7, p. 12.





‘That under a face so sweet’

8. Happiness (le contentement )

Descartes:

Joy is a pleasant emotion associated with a regular pulse which is faster than usual.

Bary: Its Manifestation in RecitationLe contentement is associated with a full and flowing voice (une voix pleine,

coulante).


Happiness is associated with a sweet (tender), full and easy tone (un ton doux, plein,

facile).


‘He’ll discover his Joy well with a Full, flowing and Brisk Voyce’

Musical Representation of Happiness:

1. Expressions of happiness are always in major mode.

2. The melody either moves i n disjunct motion by fourths and fifths combined with conjunct

diatonic motion, or it moves in simple conjunct motion in melody and bass.

3. Often melodic patterns are repeated throughout the phrase.

4. A homophonic texture is suggested by the same rhythmic movement in melody and bass.

5. The harmonies are closely related to the tonic, major, and emphasize the tonic/dominant.

6. Regular rhythms fall into repeated patterns.

7. Duple metre is used in light songs, while triple metre is used for expressions of happiness in

bitter-sweet airs.

8. Phrases are of an equal number of syllables set to an equal number of bars.

9. The contour of the melody resembles an arch.

Figure 9: Bacilly, ‘On est heureux’, Les Trois, bb. 1–3, p. 66.

‘On is happy to love nothing’

A comparison of despair and sorrow shows the degree to which musical representations of

different passions can differ. Despair is described as a violent kind of agitation which results when

the desired object is hopelessly unattainable. In recitation, despair is expressed by a tone of

voice that is high, abrupt, exaggerated or outraged, and violent. In Lambert’s Inutiles pensers on

‘and of my despair’, given above, Lambert used what would have been considered the strongest of

musical devices. These same devices were also used in setting ‘a vain hope’ from Que me sert-il

and ‘to take away my desire to see her’ from Inutiles pensers, both texts referring to the

hopelessness associated with despair. The settings show a melody that ascends to the highest

register of the piece, decisive and accented rhythmic movements organized into large verbal

units, an emphasis on strong tonic/dominant harmonic relationships, and root position harmonies.

By contrast, sorrow is represented in a very different manner than despair. Lambert set ‘children





of my sorrow’ from Inutiles pensers with weak musical devices: a melody that descends, is broken

up into three small verbal units ‘Enfans – de ma – douleur’, concludes with a descending

semitone, and is accompanied primarily by minor harmonies.

Passionate representation is not prescriptive but flexible, governed by a number of factors which

correspond to several of René Descartes’ assertions about the passions from his Les passions de

l’âme. Noteworthy is the correlation with his three-step emotive process. According to Descartes,

a stimulus or object causes some kind of passionate response, which in turn causes the body to

react.23 And indeed, in all song texts there is reference to an object, usually the beloved,

affective responses, such as despair, sorrow, and boldness, and an action, such as a declaration

of love. Song texts always reveal the types of passionate responses and subsequent action(s) in

response to the object and these determine whether an air was considered serious, light, or

hybrid.24 Serious airs are characterized by rhythmic patterns and melodic contours mimetic of

natural speech, which often warranted metre changes and irregular phrasing.25 The more agitated

passions and sorrow are most often represented in serious airs. Light airs are typically chansons à

danser, vaudevilles, and airs de mouvement and are characterized by measured rhythms,

symmetrical phrases, and tuneful melodies.26 Light airs are dominated by expressions of tender

love and the neutral passion, happiness. Hybrid airs were referred to as chansonnettes, petits

airs, or petits airs sérieux later in the century. Many of these are the more stately dance types,

particularly the sarabande and gavotte, and are usually less measured and tuneful than dance airs

and popular songs.27 Hybrid airs include primarily representations of sorrow, languor, and tender

love.

The composers’ settings of song texts reflect three other assertions made by Descartes:

1. more than one passion is often aroused by the object

2. passions are felt with greater or lesser intensity

3. passions often mix together to form new passions.28

All of these assertions regarding the passions are exemplified in Lambert’s setting of the serious

air ‘Mon ame faisons un effort.’ 29 Here, the speaker declares his love for Silvie, knowing that he

will be rejected and thus ‘die.’ In this example, Lambert varied the accens and nombre from

phrase to phrase, and within phrases as well, to invoke the variety of passions suggested by the

text.30 By so doing, Lambert underscored the man’s loss of emotional control by representing

different emotional states in succession in order to imitate an impassioned speaker whose

discourse, according to rhetoricians, was to be interrupted by the diverse movement of the

passions, unequal, and devoid of a regular cadence.

Two passions dominate Lambert’s setting: boldness, associated with the speaker’s declaration of

love, and sorrow, associated with the loss of the beloved and his impending death.

Line of Poetry Affect

1. My soul let us make an effort: Sorrow and Boldness

2. Since I burn I must complain: Burning Love and Boldness

3. Let us speak there is no longer

time to pretend:

Boldness (Sorrow)

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4. We are too close to death Despair

5. Do not be offended Silvie Boldness and Tenderness (sorrow)

6. If I lose respect I also lose my

life

Sorrow and Boldness (with suggestions of despair,

burning love, and tenderness)

Both boldness and sorrow are represented in lines one, three, five and six. Lambert also

represented the burning fires of love in line two and despair in line four; not only are the passions

in these two lines suggested by the text, but their musical representations contrast with the

surrounding phrases to better imitate the diverse movement of the passions.

Lambert’s means of combining musical features associated with different passions constitute the

most significant feature of his setting. The musical representation of line one, Figure 10, seems

an expression of sorrow, with its melodic descent of a fifth to the final of the mode. Yet a closer

examination reveals that Lambert mixed strong musical devices, associated with boldness and the

speaker’s effort to declare his love, and weak devices, associated with the sorrow at the loss of

the beloved and prospect of his death.

Figure 10: ‘Mon ame faisons un effort’, bb. 1–4.

Lambert divided this line into two verbal units, three syllables in the first and five in the second,

clearly delineating the two units in b. 2 by the return to an F major harmony, the large note value

on ‘-me’ of ‘ame’, and by the placement of the rest before ‘faisons’. Lambert set the first unit,

‘mon ame’ with one of the most common devices associated with sorrow: a melodic descent of a

minor third, a sort of extended sighing figure. Here, Lambert accompanied the sigh with the

harmonic progression I-V-I in F, associated with strong passions, but he appropriately softened

the utterance by the placement of the dominant chord (C major) in first inversion and by the

semitone movement in the bass (F to E). The small verbal unit and the use of the two equal

semibreve note values in the melody on ‘a-’ and ‘-me’ would warrant a slow and equal recitation.

Lambert changed the affect in the second verbal unit of five syllables. ‘Faisons’ is a command and

is treated as such, yet it is slightly weakened by its placement in a low register and by the use of

the second inversion F chord under ‘-sons’, but the weakening of the command is only secondary,

as strong musical devices dominate the phrase. Though boldness dominates this large verbal unit,

Lambert altered the affect again, weakening the expression suddenly with the deceptive motion at

the end of the phrase. We expect a strong cadence leading to an F major harmony, but the

harmony moves instead to D minor.

The D minor harmony prepares the listener for the important allusion to the lament affect in b. 4,

the descending minor tetrachord in the bass just before ‘Puisque’, Figure 11, used here to

foreshadow the textual references to death. Minor mode, triple metre (in this bar, three

semibreves), and ambiguity of phrase length were all common features of the lament. 31

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This second phrase begins with a declaration of burning love and ends with a statement of

necessity. The misplaced bar line in b. 4 not only suggests lament, but also serves as an

important guide to proper declamation. Here, by placing the bar line before ‘brusle’, Lambert

saved the greatest stress for this most important word of the phrase. Typical of impassioned

statements of lust, the intensity of recitation builds to the climax of the phrase on ‘faut’ and then

suddenly falls off on ‘plaindre’.

Lambert interpreted the third line, Figure 12, with bold tones (‘Let us speak it is no longer time to

pretend’). Even though line three is a strong utterance, it resembles the first line of the piece in

its descending melodic shape, thereby suggesting sorrow as well as boldness. But Lambert raised

the pitch by a major second, so the melody extends from D to G, instead of C to F (a rhetorical

figure known as gradation). He also used strong musical devices; the dissonant seventh chord

accompanies the strong syllable ‘lons’ of ‘parlons’, the command; the bass ascends chromatically

(F, F#, G) at the end of b. 7; and most chords are major sonorities in root position. But Lambert

fooled us again on the cadence at the end of the phrase, appropriately to represent the word

‘feindre’ (‘pretend’). We expect a movement from D major to G minor, but, instead, Lambert

moved to C minor in first inversion. Perhaps the two unexpected cadences in b. 4 and then again

in b. 8, represent the speaker’s hesitation to act boldly, as a strong V-I cadence would presume a

more decisive action.


Metre change from duple to triple, as in b. 6, commonly occurs throughout this repertory, but in

this example the change causes an ambiguity in the unit of beat. Should the performers move

from a semibreve unit of beat to a minim, or should the semibreve beat equal a dotted semibreve,

thereby fitting three minims into the unit of beat instead of two. Maintaining the established pulse

of the semibreve in b. 6 but subdividing by three instead of two would certainly add to the feeling

of urgency or agitation required by the text. But there is another ambiguity associated with this

passage. Beginning in b. 7, on ‘-lons’ of ‘parlons’, there are six minims or two dotted semibreves

in the bar, even though 3/2 is indicated in the previous bar. The best interpretation might be to

treat this phrase as a free representation of speech declamation using the dotted semibreve as

the unit of beat,32 which conforms to Bacilly’s definition of an air as ‘a song in free metre’ as

distinct from dance airs.33

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In any case, Lambert’s placement of the bar line guides the performer to stress ‘-lons’ of ‘parlons’,

which should receive greater emphasis than the ‘plus’. Despite the semibreve value on ‘plus’, this

word should, in fact, receive less stress than the word ‘temps’ which follows, even though ‘temps’

is set with a smaller note value.34 This large bar demonstrates a larger grouping of syllables

within the verbal unit than is usually associated with this series of rhythms. The singer would

need to maintain a forceful recitation throughout the bar by stressing to some degree all four long

syllables: ‘-lons, ‘ ‘plus’, ‘temps’, and ‘fein-’ of ‘feindre’, strength of recitation being associated

with boldness by rhetoricians.

Lambert interpreted line four, Figure 13, as an expression of despair (‘We are too close to death’).

This agitated affect is invoked particularly by an ascending melody, dissonance, and a

rhythmically active bass within one large verbal unit.35


A command (‘Do not be offended Silvie’) begins the second half of the air, Figure 14:


The repeated A’s in the melody and F’s in the bass and the ascent of a fourth in the melody are

typically bold. But because the speaker is addressing his beloved, Lambert appropriately turned

the command into an utterance of tender love, associated with the melodic descent by major andminor thirds outlined by steps, the alternation of major and minor harmonies (F major to D minor,

Bb major to G minor, and Eb major to C minor to D major), and by the return to a measured

recitation in triple metre (3/2).

Lambert mixed the greatest number of passions on line six, Figure 15. The phrase begins

sorrowfully on the words ‘Si je pers’, but the sequential treatment given the repetition of the text

at a higher pitch level intensifies the affect (a rhetorical figure, in this case, known as

synonymia).36


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‘Le respect’, at the end of the phrase, continues the strong affect, resembling the desperate

statement regarding death. Lambert not only invoked despair on the word ‘respect’, he alsosymbolizes death by the return of the descending tetrachord in the bass (D to A to accompany ‘le

respect’, bb. 17 to 18). Losing respect in this repertory refers to a declaration of love, yet by

doing so, the speaker ‘dies’.

Lambert continued to represent death in the last phrase (‘I also lose my life’), Figure 16, in

association with his declaration of love, inflected with both bold and sorrowful tones:


It is at this point in the air that Lambert’s simulation of dying by the melodic descent of a fifth,

from the C, beginning the repetition of ‘Si je pers’, to the final note, F, and its connection to the

declaration of love are made explicit, serving to unite almost every phrase of the first strophe

with this idea:

Line one: He asks his soul to make an effort [to speak out].

Line two: Since he burns, he must complain [speak out]

Line three: He must speak out, there is no longer time to pretend [because he is too close to

death].

Line five: He asks his beloved not to be offended because he must speak out.

Line six: He is going to speak out (lose respect); thus, he will die.

‘Mon ame faisons un effort’ is a serious air and so consists of two strophes or verses of text.Because lyric poetry was considered a type of rhetorical discourse, song texts were subject to the

emphasis that rhetoricians placed upon the organization of materials in an oration. Of the seven

parts of the discourse most commonly identified by rhetoricians, most poems set by composers

include up to six types of statements. As indicated below, the first strophe of the piece

corresponds to the introduction, narration and proposition, while the second strophe or double

makes up the confirmation, refutation, and conclusion.

First Strophe

1.Introduction

My soul, let us make an effortSince I burn I must complain

(Introduces what is to be 'proven')

2. Narration Let us speak there is no (Sets forth 'facts')





longer

time to pretend

We are too close to death

3.

Proposition

Do not be offended Silvie

If I lose respect, I also lose

my life

(States the issues related to what is to be

'proven')

Second Strophe

1. Confirmation During my last day permit me

To show you my martyrdom

(Elaborates upon the primary topic)

2. Refutation And at least I dare to say

That in dying I die of love

(Refutes opposing arguments)

3. Conclusion Do not be offended SilvieIf I lose respect, I also lose my life

(Summarizes what was proven)

According to rhetoricians, the final three parts of a discourse persuade through passion, so it

seems fitting that the second strophe be the most impassioned portion of the air. A forceful

expression is accomplished in the music by the highly ornamented setting of the second verse.

And indeed, the association of ornamentation with greater expressive intensity is stressed by

Mersenne,37 Bacilly,38 and others. Even though the affects of the first strophe correspond to the

second, the highly ornamented presentation of the second strophe either creates a more agitated

or intense version of these passions or alters the passions altogether. The ornaments also serve

to adjust syllabic stress for proper pronunciation of the new text.

A comparison of the first line, first strophe, of Lambert’s ‘Mon ame’ with that of the second,

Examples 8 A and B, shows that Lambert reversed the order of expression on ‘During my last day

permit me’, second strophe.

Figure 17a: ‘Mon ame faisons un effort’, First Strophe, bb. 1–4.

Figure 17b: ‘Mon ame faisons un effort’, Second Strophe, b. 1.

Instead of the inflection of sorrow on ‘My soul’, first strophe, Lambert set ‘Permit me’, the

command, with bold tones through the repetition of the C’s, the insertion of a short bar, b. 3 (two

halves per bar instead of two semibreves as in the first strophe), and the agitated flourish on ‘-

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tez’ of ‘permettez’. The line then concludes with sorrow, rather than boldness, in reference to his

‘last days’, achieved primarily by the addition of ornaments that imitate an extended sigh.

Line two of the confirmation, Figure 18b, ‘To show you my martyrdom’, is not an utterance of

burning love as in the first strophe, Figure 18a, so Lambert altered the affect to project the

forceful request for a declaration of love.


Figure 18b: ‘Mon ame faisons un effort’, Second Strophe, bb. 6–10.

Note also that he changed the placement of the bar line to coincide with the stress on the

strongest syllable of the most important word, ‘-cou-’ of ‘decouvre’. In this way, he maintained a

duple metre throughout (alternating between 2/2 and 4/2), rather than inserting a bar of 6/2 at

this point as he did in the first strophe.

The refutation, which rebuts any possible objections made by the beloved, Figure 19a, breaks up

the bar to include three minims, rather than six, to accommodate syllable stress. As in the

corresponding section of the first strophe, this portion of the air expresses primarily boldness

followed by despair but does so with greater force through melodic flourishes, strong repetitions,

and dissonance.







The last two lines of the second strophe comprise the conclusion which should not only

recapitulate the topic of the song but also, in the words of Lamy, ‘awaken the motions [or

passions] that we have excited.’ In ‘Mon ame faisons un effort’, even though the conclusion is a

textual repetition of the proposition, Lambert intensified the expression through the types of

ornamentation he added to the original melody, Figure 20b.







Here, the sorrowful and tender affects of the first strophe are made more pitiful, particularly

through a multitude of sighing figures on words like ‘pas’, b. 17, on the last syllable of ‘Silvie’, bb.

17–18, on the three presentations of ‘pers’, bb. 19, 20, and 22, and even in the bass line in b. 18.

By emphasizing a more pathetic version of the passions expressed in the first strophe, the

conclusion successfully recapitulates with greater force and appeals to the listeners to have

sympathy for one who, by declaring his feelings, becomes a martyr to love.

***

As this analysis of Lambert’s ‘Mon ame faisons un effort’ shows, despite the aesthetic imperative

that music be mistress to its text, musical settings composed by the most skilful composers

surpass the quality and meaning of the song texts. Lyric poetry from this period was highly





conventional and, on the surface, not very interesting. In his novel Le Roman bourgeois, Antoine

Furetière observed with disgust that lyrical poetry is ‘rubbish’. But when set to music by master

composers, and sung by ‘the most beautiful mouths’, these texts become highly esteemed. 39

Thus, music enhanced the worth and emotional appeal of even the crudest of poems. Furetière’s

contention demonstrates music’s capacity to signify meaning beyond the text and underscores the

importance of music as a sensual language with its own set of conventional symbols: its own

rhetoric. But unless the airs are sung by someone who understands how to interpret textual and

musical conventions and thus properly communicate passion through appropriate tones of voiceand rates of speech, the music, too, becomes rubbish. The claim that a well-composed air must

also be sung by a master performer, so ardently argued by Furetière, Bacilly, Mersenne, and

others, is just as applicable today as it was in mid-seventeenth-century France.

Catherine Gordon-Seifert

Catherine Gordon-Seifert is a professor of music, Chairperson of the Music Department at

Providence College , a musicologist, and a professional harpsichordist. She studied

harpsichord with Edward Parmentier at the University of Michigan, Gustav Leonhardt inthe Netherlands , and Peter Sykes in Boston and continues to perform as a soloist and

with ensembles The Elective Affinities and a.m.p. baroque. She earned an undergraduate

degree in music education and harpsichord performance from Bowling State University, a

Masters degree in harpsichord performance from Indiana University, and a Masters and

Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Michigan. Professor Gordon-Seifert is an

active scholar and has participated in several musicological organizations in leadership

positions on the international, national, and regional levels. Most recently, she has

served as national secretary for the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music (SSCM) and

as AMS-New England Chapter Representative. She also served as past president of the

AMS-NE. She has presented papers on many occasions at the national conference of theAmerican Musicological Society, the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music, the

Historical Keyboard Society, the International Conference on Baroque Music, the

International Musicological Society Conference, a special conference devoted to the

music of Sébastien de Brossard sponsored by the Centre de Musique Baroque de

Versailles in France, and Eros and Euterpe, a conference on music and eroticism

sponsored by Indiana University. She has received a variety of research grants, including

a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, a French government research

fellowship from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and a grant from the

Providence College Aid to Faculty Research. In 2006, she was awarded the American

Musicological Society’s Noah Greenberg Award, along with Elisabeth Belgrano and

Stephen Stubbs, to make a CD of airs by Bénigne de Bacilly.

Her primary field of scholarship focuses on late seventeenth-century French airs or

"courtly" love songs. Her book, Music and the Language of Love: Seventeenth-Century

French Airs, recently published by Indiana University Press, explores rhetoric as the

basis of conventional expressions of emotional states in French airs, published during

the 1660s, and is an interdisciplinary work that incorporates the fields of rhetoric,

poetics, aesthetics, social and cultural history, the science and physiology of ‘the

passions of the soul’, music theory, and performance practices.

1. The following essay is based on several chapters from my book on rhetoric and French airs:

Catherine Gordon-Seifert, Music and the Language of Love: Seventeenth-Century French

Airs (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010).

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2. ‘Sçavoir bien Chanter & bien Declamer tout à la fois’ (Bénigne de Bacilly, Remarques

curieuses sur l’art de bien chanter et particulierement pour ce qui regarde le chant français

par le sieur B.D.B. [Paris: Robert Ballard, 1668], 62–63; Bénigne de Bacilly, A Commentary

upon the Art of Proper Singing (1668), trans. Austin Caswell [New York: Institute of

Mediaeval Music, Ltd., 1968, 30]).

3. All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. The one consistent exception is

passages from Bacilly’s treatise on singing translated by Austin Caswell. For the original

French texts, I have maintained all original French spellings.4. Bacilly, Remarques curieuses, 331; Bacilly, A Commentary , 176.

5. Bernard Lamy, L’Art de parler, avec un Discours dans lequel on donne une idée de l'art de

persuader. Troisième edition. Reveuë & amp; augmentée (Paris: André Pralard, 1678). See

also Lamy, The Art of Speaking... Rendered into English (London: W. Godbid, 1676), V.3.2;

John Harwood, The Rhetorics of Thomas Hobbs and Bernard Lamy (Carbondale, Ill: Southern

Illinois University Press, 1986).

6. Phérotée de la Croix, L’Art de la poësie françoise et latine avec une idée de la musique sous

une nouvelle méthode (Lyon: Thomas Amaulry, 1694. Reprint. Geneva: Slatkine, 1973).

7. ‘On apelle nombre, dans l’Art de parler et de chanter, tout ce que les oreil les aperçoient de

proportionné dans la prononciation du discourse, soit suivant la proportion des mesures dutems, soit selon une juste distribution des intervalles de la respiration’ (La Croix, L’Art de la

poësie françoise, 652).

8. ‘Qu’il s’agit de rendre les nombres conformes aux choses qu’on exprime, pour exciter avec

succés les mouvement que l’on veut, & c’est le moiens de reüssir dans toutes les parties de

la Musique, & dans L’Art de plaire & persuader’ (La Croix, L’Art de poësie, 658).

9. ‘L’Accent... est une inflexion ou modification de la voix, ou de la parole, par laquelle l’on

exprime les passions & les affections naturellement, ou par artifice’ (Mersenne, ‘L’Art de

Bien Chanter’, Harmonie universelle, Contenant la Théorie et la Pratique de la Musique, 3

vols. [Paris: Sebastian Cramoisy, 1635–36; reprint, Paris: Editions du Centre national de la

recherche scientifique, 1963], 366).10. Mersenne, ‘L’Art de Bien Chanter’, 366–76.

11. Lamy, The Art of Speaking, 364.

12. In French music from this period, the musical expression of an entire phrase was more

important than that of an individual word. Bacilly writes: ‘there are others who maintain that

an air is not well related to its text if it doesn’t express the sense of each particular word

and who also contend that there are certain notes in music which are precisely effective for

the expression of certain ideas such as sharpened notes and the use of flats for tender and

passionate expressions. Naturally, these persons never hesitate to accuse a composer of

dreadful ignorance if he should fail to use one of these particular devices on such words as

‘languor, torment, sadness, pity, suffering, dying, sighing , weeping, moaning, cruel....’’ (‘Il

en est d’autres qui croyent qu’un Chant est mal appliqué aux Paroles, s’il n’exprime le sens

de chaque mot en particulier, & mesme qui pretendent qu’il y a des marques de Musique qui

sont précisement affectée pour la signification, & pour l’expression, comme sont le Dioese,

& qu’ils ne hesitent point à traiter d’ignorant un Compositeur qui aura manqué à mettre une

de ces marques sur les mots de ‘langueur, martyre, tristesse, tourment, pitié, souffrir,

mourir, soupirer, pleurer, gemir....’’ [Bacilly, Remarques curieuses, 121–2; Bacilly, A

Commentary , 54]).

13. Lambert, Bacilly, Le Camus, and La Barre were not only considered the best composers of

French airs during this period, they were also the only composers to publish collections of

their own airs composed between 1650 or so and 1670. For a more detailed analysis of

expressive representation in mid-century serious airs written by these four composers, see

Gordon-Seifert, Music and the Language of Love, Chapters 3–5.

14. The designation of strong and weak to various musical devices and the French approach to





music composition is discussed at length in D. P. Walker, ‘Joan Albert Ban and Mersenne’s

Musical Competition of 1640’, Music and Letters, 57 (1976), 233–55. As Walker points out in

his article, melody ascension was generally considered to be appropriate to energy and

protest (Walker, ‘Joan Albert Ban’, 248).

15. In their assessment of Boesset’s ‘Me veux-tu voir mourir’, the judges agreed that fall ing

intervals are appropriate for weakness and expressions of sorrow (Walker, ‘The Musical

Competition’, 248).

16. Seventeenth-century music theorists acknowledged the strength of chords built on the firstand fifth notes of the mode (the tonic and dominant), especially those chords in root

position (Benito Rivera, ‘The Seventeenth-Century Theory of Triadic Generation and

Invertibility and its Application in Contemporaneous Rules of Composition’, Music Theory

Spectrum, 6 (1984), 63–78).

17. Seventeenth-century theorists stated that first inversion chords are weaker than root

position chords. Henrius Baryphonus, in his Pleiades musicae (1630), noted that ‘when the

third or fifth of the triad usurps the place of the basis, the sonority turns languid’ (quoted

and translated in Rivera, ‘The Seventeenth-Century Theory of Triadic Generation’, 63–78).

18. The interval of a fourth was considered to be harsh. Descartes observed that the fourth ‘is

the unhappiest of all consonances’ (René Descartes, Compendium of Music , trans. WalterRobert [Neuhausen-Stuttgart: American Institute of Musicology, 1961], 24).

19. Mersenne noted that ‘the force and effects of the modes. . .depends particularly upon their

major and minor thirds and sixths’ (‘la force et les effets des modes. . .dépendent

particulièrement de leurs tierces et sextes majeures et mineures’ [quoted in André Pirro,

Descartes et la musique (Paris: Librairie Fischbacher, 1907; reprint Geneva : Minkoff,

1973]). According to Descartes, minor modes were considered less forceful and appropriate

for sad affects, while the major modes were considered more forceful and appropriate for

either joyful and vehement or agitated affects (Pirro, Descartes et la musique, 95 and 115

and Walker, ‘The Musical Competition’, 240–49). Mersenne also observed that minor thirds

can be used to ‘soften’ harsh affects’ (Pirro, Descartes et la musique, 119). Other theoristsperceived a difference between the major and minor third, major being strong and minor

being weak. Keppler, for example, described minor thirds as ‘feminine and mournful’ and

major thirds as ‘viril and vehement’ (quoted in Pirro, Descartes et la musique, 95).

20. Descartes noted that major thirds and sixths are more agreeable and ‘gay’ than minor thirds

or sixths (Descartes, Compendium of Music , 27).

21. The following descriptions of the passions are taken from René Bary, Methode pour bien

prononcer un Discours (Paris: Denys Thierry, 1679); René Bary, La Rhetorique françoise ou

pour principale augmentation l’on trouve les secrets de nostre langue, rev. edn (Paris: P. Le

Petit, 1673); Dominique Bretteville, L’Eloquence de la Chaire (Paris: Denys Thierry, 1689);

René Descartes, The Passions of the Soul (1649), vol. 1 of The Philosophical Writings of

Descartes, trans. and ed. Robert Soothoff (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985);

and Jean-Léonor sieur de Grimarest Le Gallois, Traité du récitatif (Paris: Jacques Le Fevre et

Pierre Ribou, 1707).

22. All musical examples are either from Bénigne de Bacilly, Les Trois livres d’airs regravez de

nouveau en deux volumes (Paris: [Richer], 1668) or Michel Lambert, Les Airs de Monsieur

Lambert. . .corrigez de nouveau de plusieurs fautes de gravure, 3rd edn (Paris: Richer,

1666; facs. edn, Geneva: Minkoff Reprints, 1983).

23. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul , 343–47. Charles Le Brun, who was influenced by

Descartes’ theories of the passions, also incorporated the three-step emotive process

(object-passion-action) into his explanation of ‘expression’ (Charles Le Brun, A Method to

Learn to Design the Passions, trans. John Williams [London: F. Huggonson, 1734; reprint,

Los Angeles: University of California, 1980], preface). Pierre Perrin also alluded to the

appearance of the three in his consideration of modes, passions, objects, and actions (Louis





Auld, The Lyric Art of Pierre Perrin. Founder of French Opera, 3 vols. [Ottawa: Institute of

Mediaeval Music, LTD., 1986] 2:25).

24. Pierre Perrin, in Recueil de paroles de musique (1667), used the terms grave and léger to

distinguish between types of chansons (Théodore Gérold, L’Art du chant en France au XVII

siècle [Strasbourg: Librairie Istra, 1921], 154). Perrin explained in his Recueil that he

wanted to advance the art of composing airs by introducing some pieces of music which are

more lofty and more serious since the light pieces are sufficiently well represented’ (Louis

Auld, The Lyric Art of Pierre Perrin, Founder of French Opera, 3 vols. [Ottawa: Institute of Mediaeval Music, Ltd., 1986], 2:24). In his consideration of salon poetry written 1640 and

1660 (he refers to this poetry as les genres lyriques mondains), Alain Génetiot distinguishes

between serious and light poetry ( poésies sérieuses and legères) without citing its use in

seventeenth-century theoretical sources (Alain Génetiot, Les genres lyriques mondains:

1630–1660: etude des poesies de Voiture, Vion d’Alibray, Sarasin et Scarron (Geneva:

Libraire Droz, 1990], 16, 85–110).

25. According to Pierre Perrin: ‘The Air proceeds in a free and grave measure and movement,

and thus it is suited to express sincere, honest love, and the tender emotions which it

evokes in the heart, emotions of sorrow or joy’ (quoted and translated in Auld, The Lyric Art ,

2:29).26. In his Recueil , Perrin claimed that ‘the chanson differs from the Air in that the Air uses... a

free measure and the Chanson a fixed measure—dance or other—either entirely or in some

of its parts’ and explained that ‘the serious ones [chansons] are Sarabandes, serious

Gavottes, and Courantes, and call for tender and grave texts, similar to those for Airs: and

the Chansonettes, based on light-hearted dances, such as light Gavottes, Minuets, Gigues,

Passepieds, Bourées, Canaris, Gaillardes, light ballet airs, etc, are better suited to playful or

rustic words’ (quoted and translated in Auld, The Lyric Art , 2:30).

27. Auld, The Lyric Art , 2:30.

28. Descartes implied these three assertions in the following statements: 1) a husband who

mourns the loss of his wife may feel sadness, but also may feel ‘remnants of love or of pity... [and] at the same time a secret joy’ (this is what Descartes called an internal passion

as distinct from those passions ‘which always depend on some movement of the spirits’), 2)

only extreme joy may cause fainting, or only a mild feeling of sadness when mixed with

love can produce tears, and 3) regret is a kind of sadness ‘joined... to the memory of a

pleasure that gave us joy’ (Descartes, The Passions, 381, 371, 374, and 402). See also Le

Brun, A Method , preface.

29. Lambert, Les airs, 4.

30. Descartes, Grimarest, and Bretteville described objects that evoke more than one passion at

a time. Descartes points out that sexual desire, for example, is pleasurable, yet it can be

painful as well (Descartes, The Passions, 360). The sight of the beloved and feelings of

desire are agreeable, yet the anticipation of future events produces an anxiousness (will the

‘love’ be returned?). If one is rejected, thoughts, visions, or memories of the beloved may

still be pleasurable, yet the rejection causes great pain.

31. This device was commonly used in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century music for laments

and to symbolize death (Rosand, ‘The Descending Tetrachord: An Emblem of Lament’,

Musical Quarterly , 65 (1979), 346–59.

32. This passage resembles recitative with the anapest rhythm commonly used by Lully in his

operatic recitatives. See Lois Rosow, ‘French Baroque Recitative as an Expression of Tragic

Declamation’, Early Music , 11 (1983), 468–79.

33. Bacilly, Remarques curieuses, 108; Bacilly, A Commentary , 49.

34. Bacilly addresses issues of syllabic stress in his treatise on singing, explaining that both

‘plus’ and ‘temps’ are long syllables because they end in ‘s’, but ‘temps’ is the longer of the

two according to Rule II, Part II, Chapter 3, ‘Method for Recognition of Long Monosyllables’

catherine gordon-seifert rhetoric in 17th c french air

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