Jacques Duphly

Jacques Duphly (January 12, 1715 – July 15, 1789) was a French harpsichordist and organist, and the composer of bright, lively, and attractive keyboard music.

Biography

He was born in Rouen, France, the son of Jacques-Agathe Duphly and Marie-Louise Boivin. As a boy, he studied the harpsichord and organ, and was employed as organist at the cathedral in Évreux.

His teachers were François d'Agincourt and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Later, Rousseau would ask him to contribute to his dictionary, for articles relating to the art of playing the harpsichord.

On 11 September 1734 'le sieur Dufliq, organist of the cathedral of Evreux' applied for a position at the church at St. Eloi; the register goes on to make clear that he had been trained by Dagincourt at Rouen, went to Evreux (c. 1732) for what must have been his first appointment (he was only 19 when he resigned from it) and returned to his native parish. His tenure at St Eloi began inauspiciously since old man he was replacing did not take kindly to this personnel decision, and locked the organ loft before he left and threw away the key, but the church quickly changed the locks. To St Eloi he added Notre Dame de la Ronde in 1740, his sister Marie-Anne-Agathe sometimes substituting for him when duties conflicted. He left both appointments in 1742 and moved to Paris. According to the clerk of St Eloi, it was affairs that drew him there, but other reports suggest that it was the realization that he would do better as a specialist of the harpsichord in Paris than as an organist in Rouen. Therefore in 1742 he settled in Paris, making his name as a harpsichordist, teacher and composer. He was praised for his light touch and a great ability to bring out the character of the pieces. In 1742, after the death of his father, Duphly moved to Paris, where he became famous as a performer and teacher. He was considered by Pascal Taskin, the harpsichord maker, to be one of the best teachers in Paris.

He started publishing books of original harpsichord music in 1744. His popularity continued to increase into the 1760s, and he published more volumes of harpsichord music. His four harpsichord collections (1744–68) are modelled chiefly on Rameau's. Book 3 (1758) includes a long, brilliant chaconne and a savage tirade, La Médée. In all, he published four volumes of harpsichord music (1744, 1748, 1756 and 1768). Book 4 of his harpsichord music contains the enchanting (and still regularly played today) rondeau, 'La Pothouin'.

Marpurg (1754) remarked that Duphly, a pupil of Dagincourt, plays the harpsichord only, in order, as he says, "not to spoil his hand with the organ. He lives in Paris, where he instructs the leading families". His reputation seems to have reached its peak in the 1750s and 60s. Marpurg's ‘Raccolta delle piu nuove composizioni di clavicembalo, ii’ (1757), contains a pair of rondeaux from Duphly's first book. In 1764 Walsh brought out an edition of his second book; in 1765 the 20-year-old Richard Fitzwilliam was studying with him. That year Pascal Taskin, the harpsichord maker, reckoned 'Dufly' among the best teachers in Paris, along with Armand-Louis Couperin, Balbastre and Le Grand. The article on fingering in Rousseau's Dictionnaire (1768) contains rules which the author presents 'with confidence, because I have them from M Duphli, excellent harpsichord teacher who possesses above all perfection in fingering' (though either Duphly or Rousseau overlooked the fact that these 'rules' were lifted word for word from Rameau's, in his Pieces de clavecin of 1724). The titles and dedications of Duphly pieces show him to have been a part of the inner circle of professional and aristocratic connoisseurs; yet he seems to have been unambitious and content with a simple and modest life of teaching and playing.

D'Aquin wrote that 'in general his pieces are sweet and amiable: they take after their father'. Although this represents a curious judgment of his music, which is often flashy and energetic, it may reflect a nature that allowed him to drift gently from view to a point of obscurity where it became necessary to inquire in the Journal general de la France (27 November 1788) 'what has become of M Duphlis, former harpsichord teacher in Paris, where he was in 1767. If he no longer exists, one would like to know his heirs, to whom there is something to communicate. He apparently never married, and when he died, no heirs appeared; even his sister could not be located. He died on July 15, 1789, the day after the storming of the Bastille, in an apartment in the Hôtel de Juigné, lonely, forgotten, with his library - and without a harpsichord. The mystery could possibly be clarified by this fact: in 1785, Antoine de Sartine, ex-chief of Police, and ex-minister of the Navy, lived at the same address.

Duphly left his possessions to his servant, who was with him for 30 years. But his will and the inventory of his effects show that he had been living in modest comfort in his small apartment. His dedication of his last pieces to the Marchioness of Juigne, 21 years before, did not exempt him from paying 300 livres a year for rent.

Dagincourt may have been Duphly's teacher, but Rameau's harpsichord music served as Duphly's chief model. Rameau's shadow falls on themes (the courante La Boucon in book 1 begins like Rameau's E minor courante, transformed in metre) and on whole pieces (Les colombes in book 2 -- which D'Aquin must have meant when he said of Duphly's music: 'On connait les tourterelles, qui affectent le coeur' -- is almost a condensed paraphrase of La timide from Rameau's Pieces de clavecin en concerts, 1741). Scarlatti's fast 3/8 sonatas have their echo in La De Caze (book 2) and La De la Tour (book 3), and Dagincourt (or Couperin, whom Dagincourt imitated) can be felt in a rondeau in C (book 1) and La De Brissac (book 2), among other pieces.

Book 3 mixes solos and two sonata-like groups with violin accompaniment; the latter are singularly unimaginative in their use of the violin, which seems to have been more a hindrance than a resource. Two solo groups in F minor and D are excellent, however. The first consists of a sombre rondeau in bass-viol range called La Forqueray after the late virtuoso of that instrument, a brilliant chaconne of 285 bars, and a savage tirade entitled La Medee and marked 'vivement et fort'. In the 12 years between books 3 and 4 fashion passed Duphly by: book 4 contains but six half-hearted essays in Alberti-bass style.

Only fifty-two works by Duphly are known, most of which were published during his lifetime in the four volumes of harpsichord music mentioned above. The titles of the work refer to well-known protectors of art (e.g. La Victoire, la de Sartine) or other composers (e.g. La Forqueray). His late music contains elements typical of the early classical movement - e.g. the use of Alberti bass, quite dissimilar to Jean-Philippe Rameau or François Couperin.

See also

• French baroque harpsichordists

References

• David Fuller. "Jacques Duphly", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed August 4, 2005), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
• Sleeve notes of vinyl record "Le Clavecin Français" par Pauline Aubert, Vogue MC 20123
• Françoise Petit: ‘Sur l’œuvre de Jacques Duphly’, Courrier musical de France, 23 (1968), pp. 188–90
• On the address of M. de Sartine: A. de Maurepas et A. Boulant"Les ministres et les ministères du siècle des Lumières", page 249

Free Scores

• Pièces pour clavecin Complete scores (Book I, II, III and IV) freely downloadable (modern edition), Discography.
• Free scores by Jacques Duphly in the International Music Score Library Project