A Rediscovery

I seem to recall that promotional material that I received for an earlier Devienne record said or implied that that composer was the only one of significance to be born in France In the latter half of the 18th century. Depends, of course, on what is meant by "significance." Mehul was born in 1763, Boieldieu in 1775, Auber in 1782. If none of them are heard around Lincoln Center these days, they were important in the development of French opera - though admittedly that genre seems to be little regarded now.

For that matter, one does not recall encountering much by Devienne at the Philharmonic or Mostly Mozart in recent years (i.e., since 1933, which, according to the Episcopal Church, marked the age of discretion for me). In fact, before I cast my lot with MHS (20 years ago?!), I'd never heard of the fellow. (Thank you, MHS, for expanding my musical horizons.)

Was Devienne significant? The Larousse La Musique des origins a nos jours (a present from Cathy 30 years ago!) notes him, in the operatic context, merely as "melodiste agreable." Baker's, however, labels him "versatile," and adds that he was an "extraordinarily prolific composer of peculiar importance from the impulse which he gave to perfecting the technique of wind instruments." Grove (William Montgomery) concurs that his "com­positions did much to raise the musical level of works written for wind instruments in France in the late 18th century" and that his "melodies are elegant and graceful." In other words, Devienne, it would appear, is being rediscovered.

He was born in Joinville in 1759, a year that also marked the births of Robert Bums, William Pitt the Younger, Danton, Maria Theresia von Paradis, William Wilberforce, W.F.E. Bach, William Collins, Franz Krammer, Friedrich Schiller, and J.C. Schlick, the deaths of Handel and the Generals Wolfe and Montcalm, the opening of the British Museum, and the publication of Voltaire's Candide.

His father was a harness maker. Where young Francois learned music is uncertain, though there is no evidence for the childhood prodigies of composition once claimed for him. At the age of 20 he was playing bassoon in the Paris Opera Orchestra. Apparently it was about then that he turned to the flute, became part of the household of Cardinal de Rohan, and repeatedly distinguished himself as flute soloist in public concerts. As a member of the orchestra of the Loge Olympique, he played In the premieres of Haydn's Paris Symphonies.

During and after the Revolution he was in the band of the Garde Nationale and in the orchestra of what would soon become the Opera-Comique. He was also put in charge of the music school that in 1795 became the Paris Conservatory. In fact, the 1790s were a very busy time for him. He began writing operas at the beginning of the decade and in 1792 had a very palpable hit with Les visitandines, a comic opera in which a nunnery is mistaken for an inn. (Later, after the monarchy was restored, the nunnery became a girls' school to discourage suspicion of religious impropriety.)

It was also around this time that he married; subsequently he fathered five children. In 1803 he was committed to the madhouse at Charenton, where he joined the marquis de Sade. (Marat had suffered an attack of Charlotte Corday ten years earlier in his hot tub, and so was unable to keep his rendezvous with Peter Weiss.) Devienne's incapacity was said to have derived from "sorrows incurred during the Revolution," though his symptoms sound much like those of paresis.

According to Montgomery, he left 12 operas, 56 songs, 7 symphonies concertantes, 19 concerti, 2 overtures, 25 quartets, 46 trios, 147 duos, 67 sonatas, and an enormously influential flute method. So far I've found nothing very profound in Devienne's music. His long suit was melody which seems to have gushed from his soul like a mountain spring. The bulk of his music understandably features the flute.

Joel-Marie Fauquet's liner notes for this record tell us that Devienne spent some time in London between 1790 and 1792 studying oboe with J.C. Fischer, and that in 1798 J.G. Sieber published a set of six sonatas for oboe and bass instrument from which the present works are drawn. (Devienne, Incidentally, was unable to compose after 1799.)  Montgomery, however, calls these arrangements of sonatas for flute and bass.