Musical theatre at the court of Louis XIV : Le mariage de la Grosse Cathos
Dance played a fundamental role in French Baroque theatrical entertainments. Le Mariage de la Grosse Cathos, a comic mascarade composed by Andre Danican Philidor in 1688, is of major importance, because it is the only theatrical work from the court of Louis XIV to have survived complete in all its components - choreography, music, and text, both spoken and sung. It provides a concrete model not only of how dance was integrated into the musical theatre, but of how ballets - or even operaswere staged. Moreover, it uses a previously unknown dance notation system developed around the same time as Feuillet notation by choreographer Jean Favier l'aine. This book reproduces the entire manuscript of the mascarade and provides a comprehensive study of the work itself and of the circumstances in which it was created and performed. Chapters devoted to the music, the dance, and the performers provide a framework for understanding the performance context not only of this work, but of other court entertainments of the period. A study and evaluation of the notation system in which the dances are recorded, together with detailed analyses of the dances and of the movement indications for the musicians, complete the monograph
Print Book, English, 1994
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [England], 1994
History
xvii, 340 pages : illustrations ; 33 cm.
9780521380126, 052138012X
28708152
1. The performance context. The genres. The king's musical establishment. The musicians of the ecurie. The musicians of the chambre. Instrumentalists on stage. The dancers. The actors
2. The creators and the performers. Andre Danican Philidor. Stage works by Andre Danican Philidor. Jean Favier. Works by Jean Favier. The singers. The dancers. The Italian comedians
3. Le Mariage de la Grosse Cathos in performance. The performance circumstances. The work. The work on stage. The performance practices
4. The music. Vocal scoring. Instrumental scoring. Vocal forms. Instrumental forms
5. The dance notation. The invention of dance notation. The key to Favier's notational system: the Encyclopedie. The issue of terminology. Feuillet notation in brief. Favier notation: an overview. Favier notation: a detailed study. An assessment of the two systems
6. The dances. I. Marche pour neuf hautbois, huit danseurs, et neuf musiciens. II. Choeur "Allons, accourons tous."