Marin Marais
Marin Marais (born May 31, 1656 in Paris ; † August 15, 1728 there ) was a French gambist and composer .
Life
Marin Marais was born into a humble family as the son of the shoemaker Vincent Marais. After his mother's death in 1666, he became a choirboy in the parish church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois , where his uncle Louis Marais was chaplain. The chapel of this church was designed by François Couperin the Elder. Ä. (1631-1708). Marais' classmates included Michel Richard de Lalande and Jean-François Lalouette . The latter was a little older than Marais and later helped him to enter the service of the court of Louis XIV as a musician . Marais probably had the viola da gamba as a choir studentlearned, because when he had to leave the choir because of his broken voice in 1672 , he was tutored by the most famous viol players of his time, Nicolas Hotman and Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe .
Evrard Titon du Tillet writes about Marais' lessons at Sainte-Colombe: “It is well known that Sainte-Colombe was a Marais teacher; but when he noticed after six months that his student could outdo him, he told him there was nothing more he could teach him. Marais, who was passionate about the viol, wanted to continue to benefit from the master's knowledge in order to perfect himself on the instrument; Since he had access to his house, he used the time in the summer when Sainte-Colombe was in his garden and locked himself in a small wooden hut that he had built in the branches of a mulberry tree in order to play a quiet and pleasant gamba there can. Marais crept under this hut; he heard his teacher there and benefited from some special passages and bow strokes that the masters of the art would have liked to keep to themselves. "
From 1676 Marais played in the petit choeur for King Louis XIV; Jean-Baptiste Lully had approved of his admission. The task of the small ensemble was to accompany singers. At the premiere of Lully's Atys , Marais appeared disguised as an allegorical dream and playing a game.
Much appreciated by Lully, Marais was later involved in the performances of all of Lully's great operas (mostly in the continuo group ) and even represented Lully as a conductor. Marais considered himself a student of Lully's composition and, full of gratitude, dedicated the first volume of his Pièces de viole (1686) to him.
This volume is not characterized by the obligatory basso continuo, but by the use of precisely explained interpretation symbols that are valuable for the interpretation not only of the Marais viol music. The most common are: ")" = tremblement (trill); "X" = Battement (Mordent); "√" = Coulé de doigt (semiton glissando); "T" = Tiré d'archet (withdrawing the bow) etc.
Economically secure, Marais married Catherine Damicourt, the daughter of a master saddler, on September 21, 1676.
On August 1, 1679, Marais received the patent as "joueur de viole de la musique de la Chambre", which Colbert and the king signed by hand; Marais had thus become the solo vocalist of the Royal Chamber Music. It was one of his duties to regularly play the viol for the king. In 1685 he became a member of the orchestra of the Académie royale de musique .
During this time, the Marais gained fame as an outstanding gambist and composer. Jean Rousseau writes in his Traîté de la Viole (1686): “ Nor can one doubt that the most skillful of our times have perfected themselves by following his (Sainte-Colombes) footsteps, especially Mr. Marais, whose skill and beauty Interpretations distinguish him from all others, so that he is rightly admired by all his listeners. "
In 1686 Marais made his debut as a court composer. The 'Idylle dramatique' was staged in Versailles and this was so successful that the Dauphin asked for it to be repeated. The music is lost.
After Lully's death, the “music war” between Italian and French gusto dominated the public. The dispute arose over the question of whether the highly developed affect representation of Italian music and its formal laws, developed among others by Alessandro Stradella , Alessandro Scarlatti or Arcangelo Corelli , could be transferred to French music. Important composers such as François Couperin , Marc-Antoine Charpentier and André Campra experimented with mixing styles. The traditionalists vehemently rejected the refined harmonics, chromatics and coloratura of the Italians. Marais was one of these traditionalists. He even went so far as to forbid his students from playing the “sonata”, which is decried as Italian. Marais' operas strictly followed the path taken by Lully, his teacher. The aim was clarity and a melody adapted to French prosody , recitatives that tended slightly towards melodic, simple and clear harmonies, varied music that underlined the dramaturgy of the scene and consisted not only of the constant alternation of recitative and da capo aria , but comprised choirs, dances, arietas, ariosi, recitatives and descriptive pieces of music. This made Marais a success: his operas, especially the Alcide and Alcione operas, were as successful as Lully's.
On the recommendation of the king, Marais was appointed director of the orchestra of the Académie royale de musique in 1705 as the successor to André Campras . This enabled him to perform his masterpiece, the opera Alcione , on February 18, 1706 . Until 1710, Marais filled the position of orchestra conductor.
In old age, the Marais withdrew more and more. As “the Ajax of music, he resisted the onslaught of private concerts that France wanted to hand over to the Romans, the Venetians, the Florentines and the Napolitans” (H. Le Blanc), and devoted himself primarily to the publication of his works. In 1725 Marais gave up his post as "Gambiste de la chambre du Roi".
Marais had 19 children, some of whom became musicians. Among the best-known are Vincent (around 1677–1737), who took over his father's post in 1725, and Roland Marais (around 1685 to around 1750), of whom two volumes, "Pièces de viole", have survived.
Works
Instrumental music
- Pieces [1. Book] for 1 and 2 viols (August 20, 1686, only viol parts; the corresponding basso continuo was not published until March 1, 1689)
- Pieces en trio pour les flutes, violon, et dessus de viole (published December 20, 1692, dedicated to Marie-Anne Roland )
- Pieces [2. Book] for 1 and 2 viols (1701)
- Pieces de violes [3. Book] (1711)
- Pieces [4. Book] for 1 and 3 viols (1717)
-
La gamme et autres morceaux de symphonie (1723, includes "La Gamma en forme d'un petit Opera", "Sonata a la Maresienne", "La Sonnerie de Ste. Genevieve du Mont de Paris")
- Pieces de violes [5. Book] (1725)
- 145 unique pieces for viol (around 1680), published around 100 pieces later in books 1–3
- Concerto for violin and orchestra (lost)
- Concerto for viol and orchestra (lost)
- 32 variations on Les Folies d'Espagne for gamba and bc.
Operas
- Idylle dramatique from 1686 (music lost)
- Alcide ou Triomphe d'Hercule (1693) in collaboration with Louis Lully
- Ariane et Bacchus (1696)
- Alcione (first performed on February 18, 1706)
- Sémélé (1709)
- Pantomime des pages (with Louis Lully , music lost)
Spiritual works
- Te Deum , 1701, on the convalescence of the Dauphin (lost)
- Domine salvum fac regem (motet), 1701, on the convalescence of the Dauphin (lost)
Literature and film
Marin Marais is the central character of the 1991 film Tous les matins du monde (Eng: The Seventh String ) by Alain Corneau, played by Gérard Depardieu and his son Guillaume based on the novel of the same name by Pascal Quignard .
His piece La Sonnière De Geneviève Du Mont de Paris was the model for parts of the soundtrack for the film Liquid Sky (1982).
Web links
- Marin Marais sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Werner Friedrich Kümmel: Marin Marais (1656-1728). Le Tableau de l'Opération de la Taille - The baroque setting of a bladder stone operation
Remarks
- ↑ As an arrangement for the classical guitar published by José de Azpiazu , e.g. in Heinrichhofen's Verlag, Wilhelmshaven 1981.
- ↑ Sémélé online score, Paris 1709
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Marais, Marin |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French gambist and composer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 31, 1656 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 15, 1728 |
| Place of death | Paris |