insinuating and agreeable manner than one would

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1 page in more insinuating and agreeable manner than one would have thought possible after the neglect of a century and his ballets are summoned from their spectral existence in newspaper hies and historical record. (Their life on these pages is more convincing, more credible, and certainly more welcome, than most of the miscarriages of artistic justice which parade themselves over today's stages as productions of Swan Lake or The Nutcracker.) Wiley has rescued them, and their creator, from the oblivion of misrepresentation and misunderstanding. How rare the achievement, and how worthwhile. And now, Professor Wiley, on to Petipa! Clement Crisp BALLETMUSIC FROM THE MANNHEIM COURT Part I: Christian Cannabich: Le rendesvous, ballet de chasse GeorgJoseph Vogler: Le rendezvous de chasse ou Les Vendantes interrompues par les chasseurs Edited by Floyd K. Grave Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era, Volume 45. AR Editions Inc., 1996 Part II: Carl Joseph Toeschi: Mars et Venus Christian Cannabich: Médée et Jason Edited by Nicole Baker Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era, Volume 47. AR Editions, Inc., 1997 of music from the Five volumes are projected in this series Mannheim court; they will provide for the hrst time full scores for ballets performed under the patronage of Carl Theodor; each edition will have an expert who has undertaken musical research of the period, and who is supported by theatre historians. Such an arrangement inevitably leads to unevenness. Part I is an edition of two hunting ballets (performed in 1769 and in 1772); it is a scholarly production with contributions from ili

2 although DANCE RESEARCH a team of researchers. As well as a fully edited score of the instrumentation, it indicates the richness of musical and theatrical sources and presents the context of each work and its performance. The background to the ballets is sketched by Sybille Dahms, who sets out clearly and succinctly the developments in dance and in the theatre during the second half of the eighteenth century. Particular stress is given to the initial lack of attention to ballet by the encyclopedists who did not include dance in their corpus of the arts (although ballet had become increasingly important and international in its scope); to the growing limitations of the BeauchampsFeuillet system of notation which seemed no longer adequate to reflect the more flexible approaches of choreographers; to the increasing significance of mime and gesture in ballet; and to the general impulsion for change and innovation all over Europe. Within this context, the role of music is shown to be crucial in the support it gave to gesture in a form which was becoming increasingly silent. It is surprising that Mannheim is only just receiving proper critical attention since conditions for opera and ballet at this court in the 1750s to the mid1770s were superb. Bibbiena's new opera house with its extraordinary stage machinery was opened in 1742; the orchestra was generously financed and renowned for its trained in flourished and an dynamic and harmonic effects; resident choreographers France and Italy (Bouqueton and Launchéry) Académie (created in 1762) promoted local talent; the court under the Elector Palatine Carl Theodor encouraged all kinds of theatrical activity and demanded frequent new works. The neglect is even more curious when one reflects that, despite fires and bombs, the texts of nearly all Bouqueton's ballets, for instance, survive much of their music is lost. The authors of this edition explain this lack of interest in a number of ways. For twenty years from 1758 to 1778 when the Elector moved his court to Munich Mannheim provided a focus inherited from France not only for the more static choreography (the work of Bouqueton) but also for the experimental work of Launchéry who, during his long career, composed more than fifty ballets and was visibly influenced by Noverre's predilection for action ballet. Tradition and experiment came to an abrupt end with the removal of the court; and ballet in the nineteenth century was to develop very differently. Thus, historians saw little justi 82

3 performed fication in considering a period whose innovations seemed to have led nowhere and whose social and political raison d'etre had disappeared. The musical sources are comprehensively studied by Paul Corneilson and Eugene K. Wolf. They explore the variety of surviving material which can be traced in manuscripts, old copies of scores, printed text books, opera librettos and in contemporary arrangements of the dance tunes; in assessing the value of this wide range of sources, both scholars are careful to point out the pitfalls involved in presenting modern editions. Cannabich ( ) was a prolific composer for the theatre; his hunting ballet and its music are presented and analysed here, and the principal characteristics of his style are identified: the tonal unity in the succession of short dance movements; intermovement of instrumental and similarity; and the remarkable variety orchestral sonority Vogler ( ) was more ambitious; his hunting ballet was longer with a richer vocabulary and harmonic quality; he attempted greater diversity in movement composition where the tonal are paths much more adventurous. Mood dominates and gesture is evident from the musical writing. Although it is unwise reflected in to draw parallels that are too exact, we can see Cannabich the tight control and tendency to closure typical of Bouqueton's choreography, and in the more wayward and flexible compositions of Vogler, we recognise the impulse towards the unexpected and innovation that were characteristic of Launchéry's ballets. This edition is to be welcomed for its serious, scrupulous and scholarly presentation; its caution in interpreting complex surviving material; its understanding of the difficulties of attribution; and, above all, for having made accessible musical texts from a period and from a court that clearly offers extensive opportunities for future research. The reader is made to feel a participant in the excitement of ongoing work and in our reshaping views of a neglected area. Part II: this volume 2 ofthe set is constructed to stand on its own, in the Mars although the text is illuminated by the information provided initial volume. It publishes the music of two grand ballets et Venus (1766, choreographed by Bouqueton) and Médée et Jason (1772, choreographed by Launchéry) between the 83

4 DANCE RESEARCH acts of Mayo's opera Alessandro nell'indie and J. C. Bach's Temistocle respectively. The spectacles were, of course, lavish affairs lasting up to five hours and the ballets played a crucial role in enlivening the occasion especially as Mayo's opera merely alternated arias and long passages of recitative. The short introduction gives a glimpse of Carl Theodor's opulent court, introduces his theatre built to seat 2,000 spectators and to accommodate as many as 100 performers on stage, and offers biographical information on the two composers. Both men were versatile and both exploited the potential of the Mannheim orchestra, including in their compositions many typical 'features' such as crescendi and sudden alternations betweenforte and piano. Cannabich's busy career is outlined: his numerous symphonies and chamber pieces, and the significance of his compositions for at least 30 ballets is underlined. In his music for Médée et Jason, he was much more ambitious than in his earlier work (perhaps a consequence of his collaboration with the more inventive Launchéry), and the introduction to this volume provides an in his melodic inventiveness sightful analysis of his style, highlighting and the textual variation which he achieved in a work that had an overture and twentyseven movements. His manipulation of the orchestra was very successful in the way he varied textures and timbres and in his use of wind instruments. Although Carl Joseph Toeschi ( ) was as prolific with more than sixty symphonies to his name and thirty ballets, his musical style was less innovative. The analysis shows his compositions for Mars et Venus (an overture and thirtytwo numbers) be to sweet, melodious and full of charm. Each movement has a distinctive tune which is developed simply in short, regular phrases with an uncomplicated harmony, and key relations ensured similarity across the movements. In addition to full musical scores for both ballets, the original French libretti are printed here with good English translations alongside. It is a pity that the transcriptions of these texts are so inaccurate: accents are haphazardly placed and many anglicisms occur in both spelling and construction betraying a fragile knowledge of French. The volume ends with a critical report which attempts to line the music up with the action and comments on the solutions adopted when there are discrepancies in the sources. These editions are undoubtedly valuable for music, theatre and 84

5 dance historians; it will be important, however, that future volumes ensure the full scholarly scrutiny evident in Part I, across all sources both textual as well as musical. Margaret M. McGowan TERPSICHORE AT LO UISLEGRAND: BAROQUE DANCE ON THEJESUIT STAGE INPARIS Judith Rock Saint Louis, 1996,212 pp. A lucidly written and readable history ofjesuit ballet in France is most welcome. Judith Rock knows the sources well and her text the motives of its defended their interest conveys the feel of a vanished time as she explores behind jesuit interest in drama and Louis XIV's recognition significance. Jesuits had always fiercely in drama (and ballet) as providing their pupils with the kinds of skills required to perform well in that important theatre of the world the court. Learning speeches, knowing how to deliver them, controlling gesture, moving elegantly and with assurance, were essential tools for the successful courtier. These intricate operations were admired at court and taught in the College. The book provides a survey of the dance in Paris from 1660 to 1762, the year when the Society ofjesus was expelled from France. The background to the nature of ballet at the time, its aesthetic aims and structures, its forms, themes and movements are given through the words and opinions of Claude Francois Menestrier, the first major historian of the dance, and ajesuit. His books Des Ballets anciens et modernes and Des Representations en musique had little to say about the technical side of dancing and the author of Terpsichore has found little evidence before Beauchamps and Feuillet to reveal how ballet was conceived and performed, and in what respects it differed from ballroom dancing. Although musical sources (principally Philidor), libretti, iconographical evidence, letters, memoirs, journals and newspapers are used to build up the picture, the accent is on the subject matter of the ballets performed 85