François-Joseph Fétis | |
|---|---|
 Fétis in 1841, byCharles Baugniet | |
| Born | (1784-03-25)25 March 1784 |
| Died | 26 March 1871(1871-03-26) (aged 87) |
François-Joseph Fétis (French:[fetis]; 25 March 1784 – 26 March 1871) was a Belgianmusicologist, critic, teacher andcomposer. He was among the most influential music intellectuals in continental Europe.[1] His enormous compilation of biographical data in theBiographie universelle des musiciens remains an important source of information today.
Fétis was born inMons,Hainaut, eldest son of Antoine-Joseph Fétis and Élisabeth Desprets, daughter of a noted surgeon. He had nine brothers and sisters. His father was titular organist of thenoble chapter of Saint-Waltrude.[2] His grandfather was an organ manufacturer. He was trained as a musician by his father and played at young age on the choir organ of Saint Waltrude.
In October 1806 he married Adélaïde Robert, daughter of the French politicianPierre-François-Joseph Robert andLouise-Félicité de Kéralio, friend ofRobespierre. They had two sons: the elder sonÉdouard Fétis [fr] helped his father with the editions ofRevue Musicale and became member of the Royal Academy, while the younger sonAdolphe Louis Eugène Fetis [ca] was a composer and professor.
In 1866 his wife died, and he withdrew from the Brussels society and court. When his father died, Eduard inherited his complete library and collection of musical instruments.
His talent for composition manifested itself at the age of seven, and at nine years old he was an organist at Saint Waltrude, Mons. In 1800 he went toParis and completed his studies at the Conservatory under such masters asBoïeldieu,Jean-Baptiste Rey andLouis-Barthélémy Pradher.[3]
In 1806 he undertook the revision of the Romanliturgical chants in the hope of discovering and establishing their original form. In this year he also began hisBiographie universelle des musiciens, the most important of his works, which did not appear until 1834.[3]
In 1821 he was appointed professor at theParis Conservatory. In 1827 he founded theRevue musicale, the first serious paper inFrance devoted exclusively to musical matters. Fétis remained in the French capital till 1833, when at the request ofLeopold I, he became director of theRoyal Conservatory of Brussels and the king's chapelmaster.[4] He also was the founder, and, until his death, the conductor of the celebrated concerts attached to the conservatory of Brussels, and he inaugurated a free series of lectures on musical history and philosophy.[3]
Fétis produced a large quantity of original compositions, from theopera and theoratorio to the simplechanson, including several musicalhoaxes, the most famous of which is the "Lute concerto by Valentin Strobel", premiered withFernando Sor as soloist. Carcassi, as well as Sor, participated in the performance. The work is attributed not to the Alsascian lutenist Valentin Strobel, but to Jean (Johann) Strobach, a member of a prominent Bohemian family of musicians. This Strobach (fl. 1650–1720) served Leopold I, and there is no evidence that Fétis's score is a hoax. The composition was published in 1698, although no copy is known to have survived, except Fétis' manuscript score, which is in the Royal Conservatory Library in Brussels.[citation needed]
In 1856, he worked closely withJean-Baptiste Vuillaume in writing a treatise aboutAntonio Stradivari (Antoine Stradivari, luthier célèbre). It includes detailed chapters on the history and development of the violin family, old master Italian violin makers (including the Stradivari andGuarneri families) and an analysis of the bows ofFrançois Tourte. His interest in instruments can also be gathered from his very substantial collection, which includes the oldest surviving Araboud.[5]
Fétis had the privilege to haveNiccolò Paganini,Robert Schumann, andHector Berlioz as contemporaries and to work with the violin maker and dealer,Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. Fétis's work provides a unique window into the times and as such is a particularly valuable reference for the modern researcher, dealer and player.
More important perhaps than his compositions are his writings on music. They are partly historical, such as theCuriosités historiques de la musique (Paris, 1850), and theHistoire générale de la musique (Paris, 1869—1876); and partly theoretical, such as theMéthode des méthodes de piano (Paris, 1840), written in conjunction withMoscheles.[3]
While Fétis's critical opinions of contemporary music may seem conservative, his musicological work was ground-breaking, and unusual for the 19th century in attempting to avoid an ethnocentric and present-centered viewpoint. Unlike many others at the time, he did not see music history as a continuum of increasing excellence, moving towards a goal, but rather as something which was continuallychanging, neither becoming better nor worse, but continually adapting to new conditions. He believed that all cultures and times created art and music which were appropriate to their times and conditions; and he began a close study ofRenaissance music as well as European folk music and music of non-European cultures. Thus Fétis built the foundation for what would later be termedcomparative musicology.
Fétis died inBrussels. His valuable library was purchased by the Belgian government and presented to the Royal Library. His historical works, despite many inaccuracies, remain of great value for historians.[3]
His pupils includedLuigi Agnesi,Jean-Delphin Alard,Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga,Friedrich Berr,Louise Bertin,William Cusins,Julius Eichberg,Ferdinand Hérold,Frantz Jehin-Prume,Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens,Adolphe Samuel,Charles-Marie Widor,Hippolyte André Jean Baptiste Chélard,Émile Bienaimé,Théodore Labarre,Louis van Waefelghem,Federico Consolo,Jean-Grégoire Pénavaire [fr],Jan Van den Eeden [fr],François Riga [nl],Charles Baetens [ca],Stanisław Duniecki [pl], andJosé Parada y Barreto [es]. See:List of music students by teacher: C to F#François-Joseph Fétis.
Some of his criticisms of contemporary composers have become quite famous, as well as the responses that they engendered. He said of Berlioz, "...what Monsieur Berlioz composes is not part of that art which we distinguish as music, and I am completely certain that he lacks the most basic capability in this art." In theRevue musicale issue of 1 February 1835[6] he wrote of theSymphonie Fantastique:
I saw that melody was antipathetic to him, that he only had a faint notion of rhythm; that his harmony, formed by an often monstrous accretion of notes, was nevertheless flat and monotonous; in a word I saw that he lacked melodic and harmonic ideas, and I judged that he would always write in a barbarous manner; but I saw that he had the instinct for instrumentation, and I thought that he could fulfil a useful vocation in discovering certain combinations that others would put to better use than he.[7]
Berlioz, who had proof-read Fétis' editions of the first eightBeethoven symphonies for the publisher Troupenas,[8] commented that
[Fétis had altered Beethoven's harmonies] with unbelievable complacency. Opposite the E flat which the clarinet sustains over a chord of the sixth (D flat, F, B flat) in the andante of the C minor symphony, Fétis had naively written ‘This E flat must be F. Beethoven could not have possibly made so gross a blunder.' In other words, a man like Beethoven could not possibly fail to be in entire agreement with the harmonic theories of M. Fétis.
Troupenas did in fact remove Fétis' editorial marks, but Berlioz was still unsatisfied. He went on to criticize Fétis in one of the monologues ofLélio, ou le Retour à la vie, the 1832 sequel toSymphonie Fantastique:
These young theorists of eighty, living in the midst of a sea of prejudices and persuaded that the world ends with the shores of their island; these old libertines of every age who demand that music caress and amuse them, never admitting that the chaste muse could have a more noble mission; especially these desecrators who dare lay hands on original works, subjecting them to horrible mutilations that they call corrections and perfections, which, they say, require considerable taste. Curses on them! They make a mockery of art! Such are these vulgar birds who populate our public gardens, perching arrogantly on the most beautiful statues, and, when they have soiled the brow of Jupiter, Hercules' arm, or the breast of Jupiter, strut and preen as though they have laid a golden egg.[9]
Not one to be outdone, Fétis may have had the last word in this debate. In the 1845 edition of his treatiseLa musique mise à la porte de tout le monde, he describes the word "fantastique" saying that "this word has even slid into music. ‘Fantastique' music is composed of instrumental effects with no melodic line and incorrect harmony."
Although known primarily for his contributions to musicology and criticism, Fétis had effects on the realm of music theory as well. In 1841 he put together the first history of harmonic theory, hisEsquisse de l'histoire de l'harmonie. Assembled from individual articles that Fétis published in theRevue et Gazette musicale de Paris around 1840, the book predatesHugo Riemann's more well knownGeschichte der Musiktheorie by fifty years. TheEsquisse, as the title implies, is a general outline rather than an exhaustive study. Fétis is attempting to show the "facts, errors, and truths" of previous theories and theorists, as he interprets them, in order to provide a solid grounding for other scholars and to prevent subsequent interpretive mistakes.
Fétis' main theoretical work and the culmination of his conceptual frameworks of tonality and harmony is theTraité complet de la théorie et de la pratique de l'harmonie of 1844. This book has influenced later theorists and composers includingPaul Hindemith,Ernst Kurth, andFranz Liszt. In theMusik-Lexicon of 1882, Hugo Riemann states that "to [Fétis'] meditations we are indebted for the modern concept of tonality…he found himself emancipated from the spirit of a particular age, and able to render justice to all the various styles of music." Though some other theorists, most notably Matthew Shirlaw,[10] have had decidedly negative views, Riemann's assessment captures the two key features of Fétis' text. Though he did not coin the term "tonality," Fétis developed the concept into its present-day form. He claimed that"tonalité" is the primary organizing agent of all melodic and harmonic successions and that the efforts of other theorists to find the fundamental principle of music in "acoustics, mathematics, aggregations of intervals, or classifications of chords have been futile."[11]
The majority of theTraité complet is devoted to explaining howtonalité organizes music. The primary factor of determining tonality is the scale. It sets out the order of the succession of tones in major and minor (the only two "tonal" modes which he recognizes), the distances which separate the tones, and the resultant melodic and harmonic tendencies.[12] Tonality is not only a governed and conditioned state, but it is a socially conditioned one. Scales are cultural manifestations, resulting from shared experience and education. Nature provides the elements of tonalité, but human understanding, sensibility, and will determine particular harmonic systems.[13] This concept was called a "Metaphysical principle" by Fétis, thoughCarl Dahlhaus argues that the term is used in this case to denote ananthropological, culturally relative sense in his 1990 bookStudies on the Origin of Harmonic Tonality, and theorist Rosalie Schellhous posits that the Kantian term "transcendental" might be more appropriate.[14]
In his comparative work, Fétis attempted "a new method of classifying human races according to their musical systems"[15] following contemporary trends of social darwinism in the emerging fields of ethnology and anthropology.
However, if one wishes to interpret Fétis' metaphysical theory, one of his unique theoretical ideas is laid out in book 3 of theTraité complet, that ofharmonic modulation. Fétis argues that tonality has evolved over the course of time through four distinct phases, orordres:
Fétis later applied this same system of ordres to rhythm, "the least advanced part of music...[where] great things remain to be discovered."[18] Though he did not publish these theories in any of his treatises, they appear in several articles for theRevue musicale and in some lectures which had a profound impact onLiszt.[19] Though music had not yet made it past the first phase, Unirhythm, by Fétis' time, he argues that composers may be able to "mutate" from one meter to another within the same melodic phrase. Though Liszt may have been an open disciple of the ideas of the Omnitonic and Omnirhythmic, the influence of such thinking can perhaps be seen most clearly in the music ofBrahms, wherehemiola and mixing of time signatures is a common occurrence.
The Italian art song, "Se i miei sospiri", appeared in a Paris concert organized by Fétis in 1833. Fétis published the piece for voice and strings in 1838 and then again in 1843 for voice and piano with alternate lyrics ("Pietà, Signore"). It is these alternate lyrics with which the piece is now typically associated. Fétis attributed the song toAlessandro Stradella and claimed to possess an original manuscript of the work but never produced it for examination. As early as 1866, musicologists were questioning the authenticity of the song, and when Fétis' library was acquired by the Royal Library in Brussels after his death, no such manuscript could be found. Owing to this and the fact that the style of the piece is inconsistent with Stradella's own period, the authorship of the piece is now typically attributed to Fétis himself. The original Italian text for the song (Se i miei sospiri) was found set to different music byAlessandro Scarlatti in his 1693 oratorio "The Martyrdom of St. Theodosia".[20]
Kingdom of Belgium:
Kingdom of the Netherlands: Commander in theOrder of the Oak Crown.[21]
Kingdom of Prussia: Knight of theOrder of the Red Eagle.[21]
Kingdom of France: Officer of theLegion of Honour.[21]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Fétis, François Joseph".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 294–295.
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