The French Connection

François Francoeur (1698-1787) was a Parisian violinist and composer who played at the age of 15 in the Académie Royale de Musique and, after travels in Europe, returned to play an important part in musical life as a member of the Concert Spirituel and the 24 Violons du Roi. With François Rebel, he shared directorship of the Paris Opéra. Louis XV honoured him as his Music Master. His music is very attractive, if conservative compared with the emerging classical world of Haydn and Mozart, and provides an interesting parallel experience.

Jean-Philippe Rameau, his contemporary, was much more adventurous. He was an important musical theoretician but when he reached the age of 50, began composing the operas upon which his reputation largely rests today. At the time he was variously revered for his daring imaginative writing or vilified for destroying Lully's carefully curated musical order.

French musical styles were part of the wider European sensibility, particularly amongst the aristocracy and bourgeoisie who, of course, were the prime paymasters. And so we find French dance forms and the French 'Ouverture' used throughout the music of Europe. We play music by 1.5 German and 0.5 English composers: a French-inspired concerto for 2 flutes, bassoon and strings by the ever-imaginative Telemann, and the adopted Englishman Handel, in one of his fine concerti grossi.