Luigi Cherubini was born in 1760 in Florence, Italy, and died in 1842 in Paris, France. Most of his life was spent in France, but he was an Italian composer. Operas and sacred music are the two genres he mostly composed. He was a contemporary of Beethoven. Cherubini was taught music from his father starting at a young age. Before reaching adulthood, he had already composed a large amount of religious works. When he was twenty years old, Cherubini went to study in both Bologna and Milan after receiving a scholarship from the Grand Duke of Tuscany. After attending college, he began writing opera seria. He also wrote an opera buffa when he moved to London. When he moved to Paris, he wrote a tragédie en musique. Tragédie lyrique is an interesting genre because they are in French, about gods and kings, serious, elegant/courtly, and praises the monarch. The name of the tragédie lyrique is Démophoon. It possesses many of the characteristics of this genre. Jean-François Marmontel asked Cherubini to write this operatic work for him. Its first performance was in 1788 at the Paris Opera. After its first performance, it was not a hit to the French people because the text was too pompous, and there was an unnecessary sub-plot. Also, Cherubini could not amount to the style of Christoph Willibald Gluck.
Démophoon contains twelve characters and a chorus role. It was written during the Classical Period. Démophoon is separated into three sections/movements. In the second act, one of the characters, Osmide, mourns the death of his wife and child. Cherubini creates an emotional impact in the orchestration to allow the audience to feel the pain of Osmide. The tragédie lyrique praises the king in the mythological story after he spares the life of a virgin. After a series of unfortunate events, happy news is received and a marriage occurs.
Démophoon- Overture
The overture in Cherubini's Démophoon is written for eight different instruments. Near the middle, the violin and viola parts have a faster melody line than the other instruments. There are also dotted rhythms to indicate that this is a French overture.
The overture in Cherubini's Démophoon is written for eight different instruments. Near the middle, the violin and viola parts have a faster melody line than the other instruments. There are also dotted rhythms to indicate that this is a French overture.
Démophoon
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Cherubini
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_XuFNcKI_s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9mophoon
http://imslp.org/wiki/D%C3%A9mophoon_(Cherubini,_Luigi)
http://www.allmusic.com/composition/d%C3%A9mophoon-trag%C3%A9die-lyrique-in-3-acts-mc0002358035
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jv5GwJn7RY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demofonte
Going back to what Dr. ME said in class today, I think it's super interesting that we only know and talk about .1% of all of the composers that were living and writing music in this time period. I had never heard of Cherubini or this tragedie lyrique before, and I think it's kinda sad that he worked just as hard as Gluck but wasn't as appreciated or liked.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Tori. And even to think that Beethoven regarded Cherubini as a talented composer and yet he is not as widely known as other composers during that time. I think its interesting that this libretto is based on a work by Metastasio and I read several web sources that discussed the disservice of Cherubini's piece. It is thought that he struggled to set the French language and added a sub-plot that marred Metastasio's original work.
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