Sanssouci

Music styles never just fall out of the sky. There is always a social story attached to it that made that particular music achieve so much success at the time.

The story behind the classic style is the Enlightenment. In the Baroque era, power lay with church and king. Music belonged to them, and had to depict their power. Church music especially was allowed to be a bit complicated. But under the influence of new ideas, the outlook on art changed. Above all, music had to be intelligible, song-like, and complicated things like fugues were out of the question.

Even then, the question was to whom the Enlightenment belonged. Should the old rulers implement the new plans? Or should the power lie entirely with the citizens? Throughout the classical period, music became a playing field between nobility and bourgeoisie. Composers profited from it, as an audience that previously did not spend any money on art – the upper middle class – now spent good money on it.

In 1789,  the Revolution broke out in France. With that, at least, that discussion was settled. Power now belonged entirely to the people. One of the greatest composers of the new regime of Étienne-Nicolas Méhul (1763-1817). Under the ancien régime, he had already tentatively made a name for himself, but now he wrote hymns for various holidays and commemorative days. The Hymne à la raison is composed for the Cult of Reason, an atheistic ‘religion’ imposed on the people under the Jacobins. The Hymne de guerre (1794) commemorates the war that would subject the southern and northern Netherlands to French rule. In the Hymne du 18 fructidor and Hymne du 9 thermidor, we recognise dates of the new Republican Calendar. Such festivals took the place of saint’s days.

In addition to this revolutionary music, we will also hear parts from his opera Joseph. In France, especially in Paris, opera was entertainment for all classes and denominations. You could make excellent propaganda with it. In this opera, Joseph leads the Jews out of Egypt and has to defy the cruel Pharaoh to do so. The new regime liked these kinds of stories.

But Méhul also composed instrumental music. From his early period, we will hear a piano sonata. More interesting and more ambitious is his Symphonie no. 1, a work that has been increasingly recorded in recent decades.

Playlist

1. Joseph: ouverture en aria “Champs éternels”
2. Hymne de guerre (1794)
3. Le 18 fructidor
4. Hymne du 9 thermidor
5. Hymne à la Raison
6. Pianosonate no. 1 in D major
7. Symphony no. 1 in G minor

Radio Symphony Orchestra Wien conducted by Michael Halász (Joseph, ouverture)

Léopold Simeneau (tenor), Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin conducted by Paul Strauss (Joseph, “Champs éternels”)

Wind octet Les Jacobins (2-5)

André Raynaud (fortepiano) (6)

Rheinische Philharmonie conducted by Jorge Rotter (7)