Jean-Henri d'Anglebert was a French composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, harpsichord

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

ist and organist

Organist

An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...

. He was one of the foremost keyboard composers of his day.

Life

D'Anglebert's father Claude Henry dit Anglebert was an affluent shoemaker in Bar-le-Duc

Bar-le-Duc

Bar-le-Duc, formerly known as Bar, is a commune in the Meuse département, of which it is the préfecture . The department is in Lorraine in north-eastern France-Geography:...

. Nothing is known about the composer's early years and musical education. Since he at one time composed a tombeau

Tombeau

A tombeau is a musical composition commemorating the death of a notable individual. The term derives from the French word for "tomb" or "tombstone". The vast majority of tombeaux date from the 17th century and were composed for lute or other plucked string instruments...

 for Jacques Champion de Chambonnières

Jacques Champion de Chambonnières

Jacques Champion de Chambonnières was a French harpsichordist, dancer and composer. Born into a musical family, Chambonnières made an illustrious career as court harpsichordist in Paris and was considered by many of his contemporaries to be one of the greatest musicians in Europe...

, it is possible that Chambonnières was his teacher—or at any rate a friend for whom D'Anglebert had much respect. The earliest surviving manuscript with D'Anglebert's music dates from 1650–59. It also contains music by Louis Couperin

Louis Couperin

Louis Couperin was a French Baroque composer and performer. He was born in Chaumes-en-Brie and moved to Paris in 1650–51 with the help of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières. Couperin worked as organist of the Church of St. Gervais in Paris and as musician at the court...

 and Chambonnières, and possibly originated in their immediate circle; thus already by mid-1650s D'Anglebert must have been closely associated with the most prominent French harpsichordists of the time. The earliest reference to D'Anglebert survives in his marriage contract from 11 October 1659. D'Anglebert married Magdelaine Champagne, sister-in-law of organist François Roberday

François Roberday

François Roberday was a French Baroque organist and composer. One of the last exponents of the French polyphonic music tradition established by Jean Titelouze and Louis Couperin, Roberday is best remembered today for his Fugues et caprices, a collection of four-part contrapuntal organ...

. In the contract, he is described as bourgeois de Paris, suggesting that by 1659 he was already well established in Paris. How he left Bar-le-Duc and settled in Paris remains unknown.

D'Anglebert's career in Paris must have begun at the Jacobins church in Rue St. Honoré, where he was still organist in January 1660. In August 1660 he succeeded Henri Dumont

Henri Dumont

Henri Dumont was a Franco-Belgian composer.- Life :Dumont was born to Henry de Thier and Elisabeth Orban in Looz . The family moved in 1613 to Maastricht, where Henri and his brother Lambert were choirboys at the church of Notre-Dame...

 as harpsichordist to Philippe I, Duke of Orléans

Philippe I, Duke of Orléans

Philippe of France was the youngest son of Louis XIII of France and his queen consort Anne of Austria. His older brother was the famous Louis XIV, le roi soleil. Styled Duke of Anjou from birth, Philippe became Duke of Orléans upon the death of his uncle Gaston, Duke of Orléans...

, the King's younger brother. He kept the position until at least 1668, but in the meantime, in 1662, he bought the reversion of the post of harpsichordist from Chambonnières, who had been recently disgraced at the court; Chambonnières kept the salary, but D'Anglebert assumed the duties. He served as royal harpsichordist until his son Jean-Baptiste-Henry became his reversioner in 1674. After 1679 D'Anglebert served Dauphine Duchess Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria, who died in 1690. D'Anglebert died the following year, on 23 April. His only published work, Pièces de clavecin, appeared just two years before, in 1689. The rest of his music—mostly harpsichord works, but also five fugue

Fugue

In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....

s and a quatuor for organ—survives in manuscripts.

Works

D'Anglebert's principal work is a collection of four harpsichord suites published in 1689 in Paris under the title Pièces de clavecin. The volume is dedicated to Marie Anne de Bourbon

Marie Anne de Bourbon

Marie Anne de Bourbon, Légitimée de France was the eldest legitimised daughter of King Louis XIV of France and Louise de La Vallière. At the age of thirteen, she was married to Louis Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti and as such was the Princess of Conti by marriage...

, a talented amateur harpsichordist who later studied under François Couperin

François Couperin

François Couperin was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.-Life:Couperin was born in Paris...

. Apart from its contents, which represents some of the finest achievements of the French harpsichord school (and shows, among other things, D'Anglebert's thorough mastery of counterpoint

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

 and his substantial contribution to the genre of unmeasured prelude

Unmeasured prelude

Unmeasured or non-measured prelude is a prelude in which the duration of each note is left to the performer. Typically the term is used for 17th century harpsichord compositions that are written without rhythm or metre indications, although various composers of the Classical music era were...

), Pièces de clavecin is historically important on several other counts. The collection was beautifully engraved with utmost care, which set a new standard for music engraving. Furthermore, D'Anglebert's table of ornaments

Ornament (music)

In music, ornaments or embellishments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody , but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central note...

 is the most sophisticated before François Couperin's (which only appeared a quarter of a century later, in 1713). It formed the basis of J.S. Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

's own table of ornaments (Bach copied D'Anglebert's table in c.1710), and provided a model for other composers, including Rameau. Finally, D'Anglebert's original pieces are presented together with his arrangements of Lully

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...

's orchestral works. D'Anglebert's arrangements are, once again, some of the finest pieces in that genre, and show him experimenting with texture to achieve an orchestral sonority.

Most of D'Anglebert's other pieces survive in two manuscripts, one of which contains, apart from the usual dances, harpsichord arrangements of lute

Lute

Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....

 pieces by composers such as Ennemond Gaultier

Ennemond Gaultier

Ennemond Gaultier was a French lutenist and composer. He was one of the masters of the 17th century French lute school....

, Denis Gaultier

Denis Gaultier

Denis Gaultier was a French lutenist and composer. He was a cousin of Ennemond Gaultier.-Life:...

, and René Mesangeau

René Mesangeau

René Mésangeau was a French composer and lutenist. He is considered to be one of the finest lutenists of the 17th century.In 1619, he settled in France and married the daughter of the spinet maker Jean Jacquet...

. They are unique pieces, for no such arrangements by other major French harpsichord composers are known. The second manuscript contains even more experimental pieces by D'Anglebert, in which he tried to invent a tablature

Tablature

Tablature is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches....

-like notation for keyboard music to simplify the notation of style brisé

Style brisé

Style brisé is a term for broken, arpeggiated texture in instrumental music. It usually refers to French Baroque music for lute, keyboard instruments or the viol. French Baroque musicians referred to this type of texture as style luthé , since it originated in lute music...

 textures.

D'Anglebert's only surviving organ works are five fugues and a quatuor (old French term for a four-voice contrapuntal organ piece). The fugues all elaborate on variations of the same subject, thus forming an extended ricercare (or a miniature The Art of the Fugue). The quatuor, one of the few surviving pieces of its kind, is built around three themes derived from the Kyrie Cunctipotens; it is to be played on three keyboards and the pedal keyboard.

External links

• Jean-Henri D'Anglebert bio, Classical Net.
• Kunst der Fuge: Jean-Henri d'Anglebert - MIDI files