lisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 of 5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lisabeth_Jacquet_de_La_Guerre

lisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

lisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (full name lisabethClaude Jacquet de la Guerre; born lisabeth Jacquet, 17
March 1665, Paris 27 June 1729, Paris) was a French
musician, harpsichordist and composer.

Contents
1 Life and works
1.1 List of works
1.2 Stage
1.3 Vocal music
1.4 Instrumental
2 See also
3 References
4 Bibliography
5 External links

lisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre

painted by Franois de Troy.

Life and works

Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre (ne Elisabeth Jacquet) was born into a family of musicians
and master instrument-makers in the parish of Saint-Louis-en-l'Ile, Paris. A child prodigy, she
received her initial musical education from her father and performed on the harpsichord at a young
age before King Louis XIV. As a teenager she was accepted into the French court where her
education was supervised by the kings mistress, Franoise-Athnas, marquise de Montespan. She
stayed with the royal court until it moved to Versailles and in 1684 she married the organist Marin
de La Guerre, son of the late organist at the Sainte-Chapelle, Michel de La Guerre. After her
marriage she taught, composed, and gave concerts at home and throughout Paris, to great
acclaim.[1]
Jacquet de La Guerre was one of the few well-known female composers of her time, and unlike
many of her contemporaries, she composed in a wide variety of forms.[2] Her talent and
achievements were acknowledged by Titon du Tillet, who accorded her a place on his Mount
Parnassus when she was only 26 years old, next to Lalande and Marais and directly below Lully. A
quote from Titon du Tillet describes her
"marvellous facility for playing preludes and fantasies off the cuff. Sometimes she

10/4/2016 6:18 PM

lisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2 of 5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lisabeth_Jacquet_de_La_Guerre

improvises one or another for a whole half hour with tunes and harmonies of great
variety and in quite the best possible taste, quite charming her listeners." (Le Parnasse
Franais, 1732)
Her first published work was her Premier livre de pices de clavessin which includes unmeasured
preludes and was printed in 1687. It was one of the few collections of harpsichord pieces printed in
France in the 17th Century, along with those of Chambonnires, Lebgue and d'Anglebert. During
the 1690s she composed a ballet, Les Jeux l'honneur de la victoire (c. 1691), which has
subsequently been lost. On 15 March 1694, the production of her opera Cphale et Procris at the
Acadmie Royale de Musique was the first of an opera written by a woman in France. The five-act
tragdie lyrique was set to a libretto by Duch de Vancy. Like her contemporaries, she also
experimented with Italian genres: principally the sonata and the cantata.[1] In 1695 she composed a
set of trio sonatas which, with those of Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Franois Couperin, Jean-Fry
Rebel and Sbastien de Brossard, are among the earliest French examples of the sonata.[1]
During the next few years many of her near relations died, including her only son who was ten
years old, her mother, father, husband, and brother Nicolas. She continued to perform, however,
and in 1707 her collection Pices de Clavecin qui peuvent se jouer sur le Violon, a new set of
harpsichord pieces, was published, followed by six Sonates pour le violon et pour le clavecin.
These works are an early example of the new genre of accompanied harpsichord works, where the
instrument is used in an obbligato role with the violin; Rameau's Pieces de clavecin en concerts are
somewhat of the same type. The dedication of the 1707 work speaks of the continuing admiration
and patronage of Louis XIV:
"Such happiness for me, Sire, if my latest work may receive as glorious a reception from
Your Majesty as I have enjoyed almost from the cradle, for, Sire, if I may remind you,
you never spurned my youthful offerings. You took pleasure in seeing the birth of the
talent that I have devoted to you; and you honoured me even then with your
commendations, the value of which I had no understanding at the time. My slender
talents have since grown. I have striven even harder, Sire, to deserve your approbation,
which has always meant everything to me...."
She returned to vocal composition with the publication of two books of Cantates franoises sur des
sujets tirez de l'Ecriture in 1708 and 1711. Her last published work was a collection of secular
Cantates franoises (c. 1715). In the inventory of her possessions after her death, there were three
harpsichords: a small instrument with white and black keys, one with black keys, and a large
double manual Flemish harpsichord.
During the 1990s there was a renewed interest in her compositions and a number have been
recorded.[3]

List of works

10/4/2016 6:18 PM

lisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

3 of 5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lisabeth_Jacquet_de_La_Guerre

Jacquet de la Guerre's early trio sonatas and violin/viola da gamba sonatas survive only in
manuscript sources in Paris. The rest of her output is thought to have been published in her lifetime,
although Titon du Tillet mentioned a lost Te Deum setting in his tribute to Jacquet de la Guerre.[4]

Stage
Les jeux lhonneur de la victoire (ballet, c. 1691), lost
Cphale et Procris (tragdie lyrique, 1694)

Vocal music
Cantates franoises sur des sujets tirez de l'Ecriture, livre I (Paris, 1708)
Esther
Le passage de la Mer rouge
Jacob et Rachel
Jonas
Suzanne et les vieillards
Judith
Cantates franoises, livre II (Paris, 1711)
Adam
Le temple rebasti
Le deluge
Joseph
Jepthe
Sampson
La musette, ou Les bergers de Suresne (Paris, 1713)
Cantates franoises (Paris, c.1715 [3 cantatas; 1 comic duet])
Semel
L'Ile de Delos
Le Sommeil d'Ulisse
Le Raccommodement Comique de Pierrot et de Nicole
Te Deum (1721, lost)
Various songs published in Recueil d'airs srieux et boire (171024)

Instrumental
Pices de clavessin (Paris, 1687)
Suite in D mi: Prelude / Allemande / Courante / 2d Courante / Sarabande / Gigue /
Cannaris / Chaconne lInconstante / Menuet
Suite in G mi: Prelude / Allemande / Courante / 2d Courante / Sarabande / Gigue / 2d
Gigue / Menuet
Suite in A mi: Prelude / Allemande / Courante / 2d Courante / Sarabande / Gigue /
Chaconne / Gavott / Menuet

10/4/2016 6:18 PM

lisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

4 of 5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lisabeth_Jacquet_de_La_Guerre

Suite in F ma: Tocade / Allemande / Courante / 2d Courante / Sarabande / Gigue /

Cannaris / Menuet
Pices de clavecin qui peuvent se jouer sur le violon (Paris, 1707)
Suite in D mi: La Flamande / Double / Courante / Double / Sarabande / Gigue / Double /
2d Gigue / Rigadoun / 2d Rigadoun / Chaconne
Suite in G ma: Allemande / Courante / Sarabande / Gigue / Menuet / Rondeau
Sonatas [2], violin, viola da gamba, and basso continuo (c.1695)
Sonatas [6], violin and basso continuo (Paris [chez l'auteur, Foucault, Ribou, Ballard], 1707)
Sonata [no. 1] in D mi: Grave / Presto / Adagio-Presto-Adagio / Presto-Aria / Presto
Sonata [no. 2] in D ma: Grave / Allegro / Aria (Affettusos) / Sarabande / Gavotte
(Allegro) / Presto
Sonata [no. 3] in F ma: Grave / Presto-Adagio / Presto / Aria / Adagio
Sonata [no. 4] in G ma: [Grave]-Presto-Adagio / Presto-Adagio / Presto-Adagio / Aria
Sonata [no. 5] in A mi: Grave / Presto / Adagio-Courante-Reprise / Aria
Sonata [no. 6] in A mi: Allemande / Presto / Adagio / Aria / Adagio / Presto-Adagio /
Aria

See also
French baroque harpsichordists

References
1. Catherine Cessac. "Jacquet de La Guerre, Elisabeth." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online.
Oxford University Press. Web. 9 Mar. 2015. [1] (http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article
/grove/music/14084).
2. Mary Cyr. "Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre: Myth or Marvel? Seeking the Composer's Individuality."
The Musical Times. Vol. 149, No. 1905 (Winter, 2008), pp. 79-87.
3. Mary Cyr. "Representing Jacquet de La Guerre on Disc: Scoring and Basse Continue Practices, and a
New Painting of the Composer". Early Music, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Nov., 2004), pp. 549-567.
4. Adrian Rose. "A newly discovered source of vocal chamber music by Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la
Guerre and Ren Drouard de Bousset". Early Music, Vol. 36, No. 2, Pp. 245-264. Published by Oxford
University Press.

Bibliography
Cessac, Catherine. Elisabeth Jacquet De La Guerre: Une Femme Compositeur Sous Le Rgne
De Louis Xiv. Paris: Actes Sud, 1995. Print. (French)
Cyr, Mary. "Representing Jacquet de La Guerre on Disc: Scoring and basse continue
Practices, and a New Painting of the Composer." Early Music 32, no. 4 (2004): 549-567.
"Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed March 14,
2015), grovemusic.com (http://www.grovemusic.com/) (subscription access).

10/4/2016 6:18 PM

lisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

5 of 5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lisabeth_Jacquet_de_La_Guerre

External links
Biography on Goldbergweb.com
Wikimedia Commons
(http://www.goldbergweb.com/en/magazine/composers
has media related to
/1998/03/77_2.php)
lisabeth Jacquet de La
Free scores by lisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre at the
Guerre.
International Music Score Library Project
Profile of Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre (http://musiced.about.com/od/baroque
/p/edelaguerre.htm)
Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre (http://www.wwnorton.com/college/music/enj9/shorter
/composers/guerre.htm)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=lisabeth_Jacquet_de_La_Guerre&
oldid=738488856"
Categories: Baroque composers Female classical composers French classical composers
French harpsichordists Child classical musicians 1665 births 1729 deaths
Musicians from Paris 18th-century keyboardists 18th-century classical composers
This page was last modified on 9 September 2016, at 07:21.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional
terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit
organization.

10/4/2016 6:18 PM