Montéclair: Concerts for Flute & Continuo

Michel Pignolet de Montéclair is today considered one of the finest composers in France in the generation between Lully’s death and Rameau’s meteoric rise as a stage composer in the 1730s. Unusually, Montéclair’s career did not center on a court position. While his music was met with success, he was best known for his skills as an educator during his lifetime.

Montéclair’s six Concerts were published separately between 1724 and 1725 by his nephew François Boivin. Flexibly marketed for multiple melodic instruments, Montéclair’s first four Concerts are designated for transverse flute or the musette in the case of the third Concert; these were fashionable instruments popular with amateur musicians at this time. His last two Concerts entitled La Guerre and La Paix are imaginative collections of program music for a large instrumental complement including trumpets, oboes, violins, fifes, musettes, percussion, and other surprises.

Montéclair was not a flautist but he knew the instrument well. Many of the first works for the transverse flute were written by virtuoso flautists like Michel de la Barre or Jacques-Martin Hotteterre. Montéclair’s Concerts are among the first works for the transverse flute written by a major composer.

Though Montéclair’s Concerts feature the transverse flute, the basso continuo complement which could be composed of viola da gamba, harpsichord, and lute, is also active and evocative. In the Concerts, the viola da gamba often departs from the basso continuo as an independent voice.

Unrelated to Italian concerto form, concert referred to a collection of instrumental character pieces. Montéclair’s choice of the word may have been inspired by Sainte-Colombe’s Concerts à deux violes esgales or François Couperin’s Concerts royaux (1722) in which Couperin sought to reconcile Italian virtuosity and complexity with French expressive language. While Couperin never traveled outside France, Montéclair had direct contact with Italian musicians while he worked for Charles-Henri de Lorraine, prince de Vaudémont. During his time in Milan, Montéclair participated in Italian operas and exposed Italian musicians to French music.

In the preface of his Brunettes Anciènes et Modernes (1720), Montéclair wrote that “French [composers] are the only ones who have the true taste of these little pieces that other nations name bagatelles.” He felt these brunettes were more difficult to perform than grander pieces because of their simplicity. Many movements including Le Parisien from his first Concert are reminiscent of these brunettes, popular strophic songs often performed with improvised reprises or wildly ornamented second verses.

One of the most striking aspects of Montéclair’s Concerts is the extreme compositional variety he exhibits in these pieces – certainly due to his experiences in Italy. Montéclair explores various national styles in his first Concert, combining French, Italian, and Spanish languages similarly to Couperin in his goûts-réunis.

Montéclair’s second Concert juxtaposes French dances alongside serious movements typically heard in Italian instrumental suites. Montéclair includes more transcribed ornamentation here than in his first suite. The second Concert is set in C minor which has a tender and muted effect on the instruments of this period. The timbral qualities of the instrument are highlighted particularly in the Prelude and the Plainte.

Montéclair explores the transverse flute’s pastoral associations in his third Concert, which can be performed alternately by musette or transverse flute. Several movements in this Concert are derived from Montéclair’s opéra-ballet Les Festes de l’été (1716) as well as his earlier Sérénade ou concert (1697). Montéclair draws liberally from instrumental dances as well as vocal excerpts in the case of the third Concert’s Musette, drawn from an aria in the première entrée, the Sarabande adapted from the prologue’s air for deux amantes, the Rigaudon borrowed from an aria for a masque in the quatrième entrée, and La Chasse which Montéclair adapted from a chorus in the deuxième entrée.

The fourth Concert’s titles relate to abstract affective states and mythological figures. While most movements in his other Concerts remain in one tonal area, the contrast between the mild B-flat major of Les Nayades and the harsh b minor of La Ténébreuse in the fourth Concert is quite shocking before he returns to the blithe B-flat major which concludes this Concert.

— Joanna Marsden