Fine large engraving by Jean-Baptiste de Lorraine (1737-1795) after the painting by Pierre de Lorme, painter to the Duke of Orleans. The French actor Campville (Gabriel-Éléonor-Hervé Dubus) (1727-1772) of the Comédie-Italienne is depicted playing a musette de cour in the role of Colas in the French parodie "Les amours de Bastien et Bastienne".
Paris: de Lorraine, ca 1755.
Large folio. 520 x 352 mm. plus good margins. A very good impression on quality laid paper. Minor professional repairs to margins. An eight line poem praising the acting abilities of Champville printed in two columns below image.
BnF Notice no. FRBNF45052628; Bouchot: Catalogue de dessins relatifs à l'histoire du théâtre conservés au Département des estampes de la Bibliothèque nationale no. 556
"Mozart’s 1768 German operetta Bastien und Bastienne, K.50/46b, is related to the French parody Les amours de Bastien et Bastienne by Charles-Simon Favart, Marie-Justine Favart, and Harny de Guerville, which was first performed in 1753 at the Comédie Italienne in Paris. Madame Favart herself sang the role of Bastienne,Charles-Raymond Rochard de Bouillac sang Bastien, and Gabriel Champville took the role of Colas.
Les amours de Bastien et Bastienne was based on the well known and highly successful one-act intermède titled Le Devin du village by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau’s intermède premiered on March 1, 1753, at the Parisian Académie Royale de Musique (l’Opéra) and it was performed there at least 415 times from 1753 until 1829.
The primary difference between these works was a shift from the pure, idyllic sentiments of country characters into more realistic depictions of feelings and appearances. All of this was achieved without any vulgarity; with good taste and with some wit, the characters spoke and sang their thoughts in their own dialect to melodies that were fashionable at the time" Enrique Oliver: Costume Innovations in the Parody Les amours de Bastien et Bastienne. Newsletter of the Mozart Society of America Volume 23, Number 2, Fall 2019 pp.11-13.
The Musette is "a small bagpipe, especially one of aristocratic design which achieved popularity in France in the 17th and early 18th centuries. The air supply to the bag comes from a small bellows strapped under the arm. The earliest discussion of its use appears in Mersenne (1636–7). During the 17th century the instrument was used to play rustic dances, such as the bransles found in the first treatise on the instrument, by Borjon de Scellery (Traité de la musette, Lyons, 1672/R). The instrument described by Mersenne and Borjon had a range of ten notes (f′–a″) and drones in F and B♭.
In the early 18th century a second chanter was added, giving the instrument a range to d‴ and allowing the possibility of double stops. The drones in C and G were the most frequently used, and most music for these instruments is in those tonalities, although D and A tunings were also possible. This instrument and its technique are described methodically in Jacques Martin Hotteterre's Méthode pour la musette (Paris, 1737/R). The extension of the instrument coincided with its involvement with chamber music. Sonatas and suites for one or two musettes with or without continuo were published by Boismortier, Corrette, Lavigne, Aubert and others. By far the most prolific composers were the brothers Esprit-Philippe and Nicolas Chédeville; they also arranged works of Vivaldi, dall'Abaco and other Italians for the musette. Corrette wrote 22 concertos suitable for musette and strings. The instrument was assigned obbligato parts in cantatas by Montéclair, Corrette, Boismortier, Lemaire and Dupuits. It was used by Lully in stage works (among them Isis and Thesée), and later by Montéclair, Leclair, Rameau, Campra and others in operas and ballets. By 1760 the musette was in decline." Original article by Anthony C. Baines, revised by Robert A. Green and Meredith Ellis Little in Grove Music online.
Item #38660
Price: $850.00 other currencies