Essay on the Origin of Languages and Writings Related to Music

Letter to M. Grimm on the Subject of the Remarks Added to His Letter on “Omphale”

Letter to M. Grimm on the Subject of the Remarks Added to His Letter on “Omphale” Picas quis docuit verba nostra, conari?1 I congratulate you, Sir, on your new fame. You are now in possession of an honor which Homer and Plato had only long after their deaths, and which Boileau alone enjoyed among us during his lifetime: You have a Commentator.2 The remarks on your letter do not, it is true, bear the title of Commentaries; but you know that Commentators suppress the essential things and expand on those which have no need of it, that they have passion for interpreting everything that is clear, that their explanations are always more obscure than the text, and there is nothing they fail to perceive in their Author, except for grace and Wnesse. Now, the remarks do not say a word about Omphale, which is the subject of your letter. On the other hand, they expand at great length on your somewhat overlong digressions. You have spoken of Recitative, and the remarks make a sermon about it of which your words are the text. French Recitative is slow; Wrst point. French Recitative is monotonous; second point. Careis taken to supplement the deWnition they claim you should have given of Italian Recitative. After this the Recitative or the Melopee of the ancients is deWned.3 Soon the Arietta will be deWned; and what is not deWned? A grand Commentary on the fact that you would like to forbid certain people from listening to the Music of Pergolesi, Buranello, Adolfati; a Commentary which proves very methodically that you are right to say that nothing should be concluded against Italian Recitative from the fact that it is not listened to at the Opera.4 Another grand Commentary on the Arietta, invented in Bologna by the famous Bernacchi, but put into practice by others, given that the famous Bernacchi was not a Composer at all, but a famous Singer.5 A second Commentary on the art of listening, which the Commentator takes for the art of opening one’s ears. About which he complains very wittily about the art of understanding being neglected.6 A Commentary on what you have said about the abuse of gestures: but here the Commentator takes the liberty of not being of your opinion, because gesture is essential to Lully’s Music.7 121 Item, a grand Commentary on your sensitivity for the Wne arts and for talents in every genre. You have raised a Temple to the God of Taste and of talent. One ought to believe the Commentator on this matter when he declares to us that your Gods are not at all his. In saying this he has proved it, and he can be quite sure that he will never be suspected of that idolatry. Let us pass to the clarity of interpretations. The Commentator, who has the charity to supply the deWnitions which he maintains you are wrong for having omitted, dictates to you this one for Italian Recitative. Italian Recitative, steady in its pace, gives each feeling enough time for the Orchestra to facilitate its changes in key, and by this means avoids Wnal cadences, and often knows rest only at the end of the Recital. The Orchestra does not at all obscure the declamation of the Actor by a heap of chords; but to each diVerent expression it conWrms the same feeling by a new way of expressing it. This is what makes it susceptible of variety.8 To tell you my view of such a clear deWnition frankly, I think that the Author must have heard some Italian Recitative by chance, shorn of ritornelli and of the features of instrumental playing, and he must simply have taken this for the general character of the Recitative. What is quite certain in all this is that the Author of this deWnition, whoever it may be, has never known Music. But another deWnition which must be heard out of curiosity is that of the Arietta. I am going to transcribe it very exactly. The famous Bernacchi put the minor between two majors, and had the Wrst and principal motif of the song repeated by the diVerent transitions in key, so that the ear would better grasp by this repetition the character of the thoughts of the Music. You laugh: patience, you are not at the end; you must still suVer through the footnote , if you please. What I have called minor is often only...