Claude Balbastre

Claude Balbastre (picture in the Musée de Dijon)

Claude Balbastre (sometimes written Balbâtre) (* December 8 , baptized December 9, 1724 in Dijon , † May 9, 1799 in Paris ), was a French composer , organist and harpsichordist.

Life

Claude Balbastre received his first organ lessons from his father, who was also a musician and came from a family of tool smiths. He was later taught by Claude Rameau, the brother of the famous composer Jean-Philippe Rameau , both of whom were also from Dijon. At the age of only 13, Claude followed his father as organist at the Church of St. Étienne after he died.

Through the mediation of Jean-Philippe Rameau, he got the opportunity to appear in the Parisian aristocratic society in 1750 and received the post of organist at the Church of St. Roch a year later. In 1755 he was appointed director of the then famous " Concerts Spirituels des Tuileries ". From this position he was able to hold highly respected posts: in 1760 that of organist at Notre-Dame de Paris , in 1766 that of organist for the king's brother and later King Louis XVIII. and that of the harpsichordist at the king's court, where he taught Marie Antoinette and the Duke of Chartres , in 1776 that of the organist at the Count of Provence and at the Chapelle Royale.

A curious incident occurred in 1762 when the Archbishop of Paris banned him from playing the organ at Christmas time, as there were tumultuous scenes on the part of the people, who did not want to vacate the church for the following masses because of Balbastre's playing .

Balbastre married Marie-Geneviève Hotteterre from the well-known family of musicians in 1763, who died ten months later. The English composer and biographer Charles Burney , who visited him in his apartment rue d'Argenteuil in 1770, mentioned in his travel diary that Balbastre owned a wonderful Flemish jerk harpsichord . Burney reported about Balbastre's organ playing:

“When the Magnificat was sung, he (...) played fugues, imitations and all sorts of other pieces, even hunting pieces and giques, between each verse without, as far as I could see, alienating or offending the assembly in the least. In rehearsing, I found that he played the vocals with the pedal, which he doubled with the lower finger of his left hand, and on this basis he played in a learned and inventive manner. "

At the beginning of the French Revolution, regardless of his position, he succeeded, at least apparently, in joining the emerging revolutionary ideas, although he lost the lucrative jobs in noble houses and became increasingly impoverished. The state only paid him a pension of 1008 livres, which had previously been paid by the sisters of the Pantémont monastery in favor of the "sieur Claude Balbastre organiste".

He had to part with sacred music and shifted his compositional activity to works for revolutionary festivities, but remained organist at Notre-Dame. This church was transformed into the "Temple of Truth" after the revolution. He played his fantasies about revolutionary hymns on their organ.

Works

• 14 organ concerts (all of them lost, except for one that was found in the music archive of the Versailles library)
• Quartet of sonatas
• 2 volumes with harpsichord works (1748 and 1759)
• 4 suites with "Noëls variés" (1770) (arrangements and variations on popular Christmas carols, which he performed on the piano )
• Variations on the Marseillaise (1792) Full title: Marche des Marseillois et l'Air Ça-ira Arrangés pour le Forte Piano / Par le Citoyen C. Balbastre / Aux braves defenseurs de la Republique française l'an 1792 1er de la Republique

Discography

• Claude Balbastre à Saint-Roch. ( Claude Balbastre in Saint-Roch. ) Marina Tchebourkina and Michel Chapuis at the historic Great Organ of the Saint-Roch Church, Paris. 2 CD set. Natives Éditions, 2002 (EAN 3760075340018)

Audio sample

Joseph est bien marié (Organ work for Christmas) ^{? / i}

literature

• Charles Burney : Diary of a Musical Journey. F. Noetzel, Wilhelmshaven 1980, ISBN 3-7959-0275-4 . (abridged new edition of the Bode edition, Hamburg 1772)
• Jean-Patrice Brosse: Le clavecin des Lumières - Clavecinistes français du XVIIIème siècle. Bleu nuit éditeur, Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2-913575-83-7 .

Web links

• Sheet music and audio files by Claude Balbastre in the International Music Score Library Project
• Balbastre's biography at Musica et Memoria with a facsimile of the baptismal entry