Kyle Vanderburg Music in the Classical Period September 4, 2010 Jean-Jacques Rousseaus Influence in Music History Jean-Jacques Rousseau

was an eighteenth-century philosopher, author, music theorist, and composer whose ideas on music greatly shaped early classical music. Largely self-taught, Rousseau made his first contributions as a theorist in 1724, where his reading of a paper to the Acadmie in Paris later became his Dissertation sur la musique moderne.1 Rousseau had a significant effect on the music of France in the mid-eighteenth century, a period when France was divided in a Querelle des Bouffons (quarrel of the buffoons or comic actors), which was an argument over whether French music should be state-subsidized and largely rooted in French culture, or French music should work diligently to mimic the contemporary Italian music.2Rousseau was one of the leaders of the Italian opinion, so far as to argue that the French language was inherently unsuitable for singing and concluded that the French have no music and cannot have any; or if they have, it will be so much the worse for them.3 Similar other statements and heated arguments by Rousseau prompted members of the Paris Opra to respond by burning him in effigy and excluding him from the theatre.4 The majority of Rousseaus contributions to music throughcomposition are in the form of opera, his first, Les muses galantes, being stereotypically French in nature.5His first operatic success came in the form of his Le Devin du village in 1752, a relatively short work with three characters

Nicolas Slonimsky, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Bakers Biographical Dictionary of Musicians(New York: Schirmer, 1992), 1551. 2 Donald J. Grout and Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music 6th ed. (New York: Norton, 2001), 442. 3Ibid. 4 Nicolas Slonimsky, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Bakers Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (New York: Schirmer, 1992), 1551. 5 Ibid.
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formally based on the Italian intermezzo6 but with a French libretto and in a style that is reminiscent of French folksongs.7 Rousseau also published what could be called the iteration of a music dictionary, his Dictionnaire de musique, which not only included definitions of terms but also showed relationships between terms. This work covers an expansive range of ideas, including acoustics, music theory, composition, performance, interpretation,the poetics of musical and operatic genres (partly incorporating choreography), general musicalaesthetics, the history of music and its geographical variation.8 Rousseaus ideas on French opera were linked to his philosophical ideas against the French monarchy and monarchy as a political construct. Taruskin argues that the Querelle des Bouffons was a forerunner to the French Revolution, striking a blow the absolutist monarchy itself never fully recovered.9Both Rousseaus philosophy and music celebrated rusticity and naturalness over courtly sophistication, and it was these views that helped shaped the future of French opera.10 Rousseau, through his philosophical writings, helped shape history, while his extensive writings on an abundance of musical topics helped change and define music. His act of writing in an Italian style and siding with Italian opera was an action from which French opera never fully recovered.

Kintzler. "Rousseau, Jean-Jacques." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/23968 (accessed September 6, 2010). 7 Richard Taruskin Oxford History of Western Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 2:442. 8Catherine Kintzler. "Rousseau, Jean-Jacques." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/23968 (accessed September 6, 2010). 9Richard Taruskin Oxford History of Western Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 2:442. 10 Ibid.

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Bibliography Grout, Donald J. and Claude V. Palisca. A History of Western Music. New York: Norton, 2001. Kintzler, Catherine. "Rousseau, Jean-Jacques." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/23968 (accessed September 6, 2010). Slonimsky, Nicolas. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Bakers Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. New York: Schirmer, 1992. Taruskin, Richard. Oxford History of Western Music. Vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.