Louis Nicolas Clérambault, Caprice Sur Les Grands Jeux

Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego

HIRE LIBRARY CATALOG WEBSHOP PBM

Louis Nicolas Clérambault

Caprice sur les grands jeux

for Organ

Publisher: PWM Edition

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Cat. no. 10123
ISBN ISSN: 83-224-0770-X

Louis Nicolas Clérambault, known as le Pere, a composer and organist, was born in Paris in 1676 and died there in 1749. His musical talents manifested themselves early. He studied composition and singing with Jean-Baptiste Moreau and organ with André Raison, replacing the latter as organist at the convent of St James in Paris. Louis XIV instructed him to supervise the musical life at the court of Mme de Maintenon. He taught at St Cyr (near Versailles), a school for poor but well-born girls founded by Mme de Maintenon in 1686. For this school he also wrote theatrical music. From 1707 he acted as organist at various Paris churches, including St Sulpice. Cantatas are Clérembault's most important works. Together with André Campra and Jean-Baptiste Morin he established the French solo cantata on the basis of Italian models. The subjects of the cantatas were drawn mainly from mythology. A succession of recitatives and arias constituted the essence of the form. The French and Italian styles were fused in those works, the recitatives being composed in the French manner, while the arias were in the Italian. Clérambault's fluent, lyrical melodies indicate the formation of the galant style. In addition, Clérambault is among the first French composers who wrote trio sonatas in the style of Corelli, some of them being provided with programmatic titles (La Félicité, L'abondance, La magnifique). His organ suites reveal a linking of contrapuntal techniques with ornamentation typical of the harpsichordists. [PWM Encyclopedia of Music]