I’m writing a program note for a concert of French Baroque chamber music. It’s going to be a pip of a show—works by François Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Jacques-Martin Hotteterre, Michel Pignolet de Montéclair, and Michel Lambert. The vocal selections—two cantatas and one aria—delight and the two instrumental suites bubble over with charm.
But I’ll wager that most of it is terra incognita to everybody except truly dedicated Baroqueniks. Even if the name Jacques-Martin Hotteterre should ring a faint bell, how many folks outside the woodwind world have heard anything by him? Any of the multitude of Hotteterres? Montéclair? And Michel Lambert…I don’t have to ask, do I? For your edification: Lambert was an actor-singer-dancer, Lully’s father-in-law, and a morally upright gentleman whose accidentally sinister visage typecast him in bad-guy roles. He wrote tons of refined and elegant solo songs, most of which are now lost.
The tidal wave of the Baroque Revival didn’t reach French shores. The composers of the French Baroque lag far behind their counterparts in Italy, Germany, and England. I say that with confidence, having consulted my barometer of choice, ArkivMusic’s listings of available recordings by composer. The ArkivMusic numbers aren’t perfect. They reflect recordings currently in print, and make no distinction between a CD containing one track by a particular composer, or a 300-CD set devoted exclusively to the guy. Nonetheless, ArkivMusic’s listings give reasonably good estimates of popularity. There’s a lot more Mozart (7135 albums) than Bruno Montanaro (1 track on 1 album.)
A few numbers for reference. To begin with, the three top-ranking Baroque composers are (no surprise here) J.S. Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi. Together they account for 11,427 albums.
Impressive that may be, but Classicists Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven blow their Baroque counterparts out of the water with 14,901 albums. The top three Romantics (Brahms, Verdi, Tchaikovsky) make a brave show but fall short of the gold at 10,528. The twentieth century fares poorly: Debussy, Ravel, and Rachmaninoff tally up a lukewarm 5893.
Outside the Top Three, Baroque composers Purcell (817), Domenico Scarlatti (555) and Boccherini (412) do quite well for themselves. Obviously we like these guys.
Now, then. The absolute top-ranking, biggest pile-o’-CDs French Baroque composer is Jean-Philippe Rameau. His total: 294.
Two hundred and ninety-four. That puts him slightly below Alban Berg at 296. His closest French competitor is François Couperin at 284. Either is outranked by the semi-obscure Léo Delibes (436) and Mikhail Glinka (299). The third-place French Baroque composer is Marc-Antoine Charpentier at 219—more or less even with Sir Hubert Parry (218) and Arvo Pärt (215).
The sum of the top three French composers: 797. That puts them below Henry Purcell (817) but slightly above Anton Bruckner (752).
I added together all of the French Baroque composers worth considering: Rameau, both F. and L. Couperin, Charpentier, Marais, Lully, Leclair, Campra, Balbastre, Hotteterre, Chambonnieres, Montéclair, Lambert. I came up with 1,309 recordings for the lot.
That puts the entire French Baroque on equal footing with the Romantic composer Gabriel Fauré (1,325).
Consider the Italians below the top-three bracket: Domenico Scarlatti, Pachelbel, Albinoni, Boccherini, and Corelli all eat the French composers’ lunch. Even Antonio Caldara and Giovanni Gabrieli do better than all but the top French composers.
No French Baroque composer ranks as well as Renaissance master Michael Praetorius, can-can boy Jacques Offenbach, or faded flower Ambroise Thomas.
What a shame. It’s high time music lovers started paying more attention to la musique française de la baroque. I will be the first to admit that some of it grates. It has a tendency to be twee and precious. All that inégal rhythm may irritate sooner or later. I’m temperamentally well-disposed towards the French idiom but sometimes I feel my gorge rising during some glossy superficial Rameau thing that tosses endless geegaws over music that runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. (Blessed be Dorothy Parker for coming up with that glorious quip.)
But the best of the French Baroque has a great deal to offer—refinement on the order of Corelli, energy on the order of Purcell. Spirituality on the order of Bach: forget it. But not everything has to be Bach or Beethoven or Mozart. If there’s room for the elegant ravishments of Fauré and Ravel and Saint-Saëns, then surely there must be room for the spiffy pastoral cantatas of Michel Pignolet de Montéclair or the exquisitely-turned chamber works of François Couperin. So let a thousand fleurs bloom. Regardez la musique française, mes amis!