jan 1, 1753 - Rousseau: Letter on French Music

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The writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment, vividly show the political stakes. In his scathing "Letter on French Music", he ridiculed the high-minded tragedies lyriques performed by the royal musical establishment as stilted, devoid of naturalness, ugly in harmony, and ungainly in text-setting. Rousseau's participation in the debates was unusual because he did more than just argue. He was himself an enthusiastic amateur composer who had written a one-act "intermede" of his own, Le devin du village, composed in obvious emulation of Italian intermezzos. Although written to his own French text and in a simple style that recalled French folk sonsgs more than anything Italian, this was nevertheless "comic" music, intended as an object lesson to his musical countrymen. He had a personal interest in seeing the grand machinery of the official French style, with which he could never hope to compete, replaced with the "natural" spontaneity of the Italians.

Rousseau's appeals to natural virtue, and his attacks on the traditional musical repertoire of the royal court, were linked: both were veiled expressions of his philosophical and political hostility to the monarchical order. Among those who shared this view, the Querelle des Bouffons was a covert forum for spreading the complex of ideas now collectively referred to as "enlightened."

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