Jean-Henri d'Anglebert - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Jean-Henri d'Anglebert
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jean-Henri d'Anglebert (baptized 1 April 1629 23 April

1691) was a French composer, harpsichordist and organist. He
was one of the foremost keyboard composers of his day.

Contents
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Life
Works
References
External links
Jean-Henri d'Anglebert

Life
D'Anglebert's father Claude Henry dit Anglebert was an affluent shoemaker in Bar-le-Duc. Nothing
is known about the composer's early years and musical education. Since he at one time composed a
tombeau for Jacques Champion de Chambonnires, it is possible that Chambonnires was his
teacheror at any rate a friend for whom D'Anglebert had much respect. The earliest surviving
manuscript with D'Anglebert's music dates from 16501659. It also contains music by Louis
Couperin and Chambonnires, and possibly originated in their immediate circle; thus already by the
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 the organist
Franois Roberday. 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. Honor, where he
was still organist in January 1660. In August 1660 he succeeded Henri Dumont as harpsichordist to
Philippe I, Duke of Orlans, 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
Chambonnires, who had been recently disgraced at the court; Chambonnires 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, Pices de clavecin, appeared just two years before, in 1689.
The rest of his musicmostly harpsichord works, but also five fugues and a quatuor for organ
survives in manuscripts.

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Works
D'Anglebert's principal work is a collection of four harpsichord
suites published in 1689 in Paris under the title Pices de
clavecin. The volume is dedicated to Marie Anne de Bourbon, a
talented amateur harpsichordist who later studied under
Franois Couperin. 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 and his substantial contribution to the
genre of unmeasured prelude), Pices de clavecin is historically
important on several other counts. The collection was
The complete table of ornamnets
beautifully engraved with utmost care, which set a new standard
from d'Anglebert's Pices de
for music engraving. Furthermore, D'Anglebert's table of
clavecin.
ornaments is the most sophisticated before Couperin's (which
only appeared a quarter of a century later, in 1713). It formed
the basis of J.S. Bach's own table of ornaments (Bach copied D'Anglebert's table ca. 1710), and
provided a model for other composers, including Rameau. Finally, D'Anglebert's original pieces are
presented together with his arrangements of Lully'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 pieces by composers such as Ennemond
Gaultier, Denis Gaultier, and Ren Mesangeau. 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-like notation for
keyboard music to simplify the notation of style bris textures.
D'Anglebert's only surviving organ works are five fugues and a quatuor (an 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.

References
Ledbetter, David. "Jean Henry D'Anglebert". In Macy, Laura. Grove Music Online. Oxford
Music Online. Oxford University Press. (subscription required)

External links
Jean-Henri D'Anglebert bio (http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/anglebert.php),

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Henri_d'Anglebert

Classical Net.
Free scores by Jean-Henri d'Anglebert at the International Music Score Library Project
Kunst der Fuge: Jean-Henri d'Anglebert - MIDI files (http://www.kunstderfuge.com
/anglebert.htm)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jean-Henri_d%27Anglebert&
oldid=705635842"
Categories: 1629 births 1691 deaths 17th-century classical composers
17th-century French people Baroque composers Composers for harpsichord
French classical composers French male classical composers French harpsichordists
People from Bar-le-Duc
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