PURCHASE CD

Michel Corrette (1709-1795)

"You who wish to wield the sceptre of harmony will thus one day feel the magical effects of a refined yet simple craft; herein lie the first secrets."

Inscription on the frontispiece of Michel Corrette’s method for violin, L’École d’Orphée, 1738

A younger contemporary of Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, Michel Corrette was the first of five children born to Marguerite Vérard and the organist and composer, Gaspard Corrette. Michel received his early musical training from his father, but by the time he was 13 years old, Gaspard decided that his gifted son needed a broader influence. According to scholar Yves Jaffrés, Gaspard moved the whole family from Rouen to Paris in 1720 in order to give Michel an education to match his talent. There he studied with Jean FranÁois Dandrieu and Louis Marchand. In these early years, Corrette competed for the organ position at Sainte−Madeleine−en−la−Cité, but did not win. Only nineteen years old at the time, he earned his income through giving lessons on the harpsichord, flute, violin and bagpipes.

Young Michel quickly came to the fore as a performer, teacher, conductor, composer and publisher. He began publishing his own music in 1727 at the age of twenty, and went on to write many instrumental and vocal works, both sacred and popular. These included cantatas, cantatilles, ballets, motets, concertos and noÎls for organ, sonatas for harpsichord and symphonies for diverse instruments. He also wrote and published fifteen beautifully illustrated and engraved educational manuals for diverse instruments, including organ (Premiers Livres d’Orgue (1737), violin (École d’Orphée, 1738,) cello (1741), flute (1740), harpsichord (Les Amusements de Parnasse, 1749), guitar (Les Dons d’Apollon, 1762), mandolin (1772), double bass (1773), harp (1775), and hurdy−gurdy (1785) among others. There was even one written for both bassoon and oboe (1776), containing fingering charts and "les plus belles marches militaires" (the prettiest millitary marches); sadly this book has been lost to history. His works clearly describe contemporary performance practice; in his violin method, École d’Orphée, there are 23 pages that offer examples of French and Italian styles.

Michel married Marie−Catherine Morize on 8 January 1733. The bride was 22 years old and the daughter of a locksmith. The couple had two children, neither of whom married, and who both assisted their father in his diverse duties. The daughter, Marie Anne, lived to the same ripe age as her father (88); the son Pierre Michel became an organist, though not a composer. Michel Corrette lived a comfortable life from the profits of his compositions, teaching, performing and from wise real estate and foreign business investments. His two children were able to live on the income of their father’s fortune.

In 1737, Michel Corrette became the organist at Sainte−Marie within the temple of the "Grand Prieur", remaining there for a unprecedented 54 years before being forced to retire by the closure of the church in 1791. This Roman Rite church dated back to the Crusades and maintained a long standing interest in a high level of musical performance. An orchestra of virtuoso players was employed, and there were receptions and concerts were held by the royals in charge. A portrait exists of the young Mozart performing in the drawing room of the Temple Palace and Corrette performed the music for the funeral service of Christoph Willibald Gluck in 1787.

About a year after taking the position at the temple, Corrette also won the position of organist for the "Grands Jesuites" at the Church of St Louis, and which he held simultaneously with his position at Ste Marie until Louis XV signed the warrant for the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1762.

Corrette published and sold his own music, along with that of composers who were less well known in France at the time, including Domenico Zipoli, Domenico Scarlatti and Johann Joachim Quantz. In 1765, Corrette (in company with the merchant de la Chevardière and the violinist, Pierre Gaviniès) launched a lawsuit for copyright infringement against the firm of Messers Peters and Miroglio, who had launched a service for amateur musicians to rent musical scores. Parliament voted against Corrette, but he nonetheless remained an outspoken advocate for the rights of working composers.

As a mark of his growing reputation, in 1734 he was given the honorific title of distinction, Grand maître des Chevaliers du Pivois, and again in 1750, Knight of the Ordre du Christ. He worked as a conductor at the open air theatres of Saint Laurent and Saint Germain (1732−1739) and composed many arrangements, light comedies and divertimenti for these spectacles. Much of Corrette’s music is based on all manner of popular tunes and is thus a good resource for the study of such music. His arrangements run the gamut from simple harmonisations to transmutation into the 25 concerto comiques. The gentle humour that Corrette is famous for lies in the contrast between common tunes that form his raw material, with "the learned treatment".

Thus, we can imagine a sophisticated yet convivial musician who moved with equal freedom in the worlds of high clergy, nobility, and the fairgrounds of the common man. Corrette’s music is refined yet approachable, and has a vivid range of expression. This varies from seemingly improvisatory declamation (first movement of Sonata VI), to gypsy dances and prestos (second movement of Sonata IV, third movement of Sonata II and the prelude of Sonata V), bucolic dances and hunting songs (fourth movement of Sonata V and fourth movement of Sonata IV). Each of the sonatas from Les Délices de la Solitude explores a definite spirit of expression with many forays into the highest reaches of the baroque bassoon. The evocative title of Opus 20, Les Délices de la Solitude, has not been explained, though an earlier work by Couperin exists by the same name and perhaps was the poetic inspiration. Opus 20 was first published in 1738/39; the title page listed the possible solo instruments as ’cello, viol or bassoon’. A later edition, published in 1766, lists only the stringed instruments.

Likewise, the title of Le Phénix is not explained, though the soaring lines in the Adagio movement, surrounded by the fiery dances of the outer movements, could suggest the ascent and flight of the mythical bird. Le Phénix is the second and last French Baroque concerto in the Italian style that was written for the bassoon, the first being the Concerto in D Major, Opus 26 (1729) by Joseph Bodin de Boismortier.

Corrette is known to have held weekly house concerts at his large residence on Rue Beaurepaire with more than forty people would be in attendance. He sold his music to the audience members, and also promoted the work of other French masters such as Lully and Campra. He also owned a house organ of six stops; his Six Concertos for Keyboard, Opus 26, were performed at these gatherings before they were published in their definitive version in 1756. Corrette had taken a trip to England, probably in 1738, and had greatly admired Handel’s organ concertos. He even obtained publishing rights in 1739 for the purpose of editing Handel’s organ concertos, though it did not come to pass.

Concerto no. 1 is featured on this recording, a tribute to our faithful keyboardist, with the string parts taken by bassoons, contrabassoon and baroque guitar. This concerto, completely devoid of melancholy or introspection, is a set of dances in the style of the three movement concerto form inherited from Vivaldi and moreover, the ripieno and occasional dialogue with solo voices, quite closely resembles the concerto grosso form. Nonetheless unable to resist a tiny touch of nationalism, Corrette has transformed this concerto into a little suite of French dances by replacing the traditional Italian largo with a gavotta.

Michel Corrette is one of many remarkable musicians in history whose art temporarily faded into obscurity. Renewed scholarship, the publication of facsimile editions and the advent of recording technology has slowly changed this situation, allowing curious musicians to rediscover this inventive composer. Michel Corrette’s music shares qualities with other famous composers closer to our time such as Lizst, Bartok and Stravinsky in that he took inspiration from the folkloric tunes of his native land. His music is a refuge of timeless verve and cheerful pleasure.

− Nadina Mackie Jackson