(b Avignon, 11 April 1682; d Charenton, 22 Dec 1738). French composer. A fine singer, he was in Paris by 1707 and soon maître de musique for the Marshall of Noailles. Inc 1708-1736 he was court surintendant de la musique, at Sceaux; as a theatre composer his main post was at the New Italian Theatre, 1717-37. From 1720 he also sang in the king's chamber; and he was artistic director of the Concert Spirituel, 1728-34. Highly popular in his day, he wrote nine operas and ballets and over 400 divertissements for plays. His controversial opéra ballet, Les fêtes ou Le triomphe de Thalie (1714), was among the first to use comedy. His other works include motets, cantatas, cantatilles, airs and instrumental works, notably the Suites de symphonies (1729).
Jean-Joseph Mouret had a career including vast popularity and a sudden fall from success. His father was a silk merchant and avid amateur violinist who saw to it that his son received complete instruction in music. Details of this education are unknown, but musical historians consider it likely that it occurred in the choir school of Notre Dame des Doms, an important regional church.
Mouret's family's wealth, his charm, and his lovely singing voice made him welcome in the best company. By 1707, he was in Paris, where he was appointed music master for the Marshall of Noailles. By 1709, he had the position of surintendent de la musique at the court of Sceaux. There, from 1714 through 1715, the Duchess of Maine was the hostess of the renowned Grandes Nuits, for which Mouret wrote much of the music. In 1714 to 1718, he was the orchestra director of the Paris Opéra. In an age when elevated Greek tragedy, pastoral romance, and histories based on figures of antiquity were de rigeur, Mouret was bold enough to introduce comedy into his operas.
Mouret's first opera, Le fêtes ou le triomphe de Thalia, told of the humiliating rout by Thalia, the Muse of Comedy, over her sister, Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy. The main body of the story is not set in some vague legendary scene, but involves clearly contemporary figures, such as a group of "coquettish widows" all dressed in recognizably French costumes. Mouret and his librettist, La Font, daringly placed this production on the august stage of the Paris Opéra, a virtual shrine to tragedy. This resulted in a scandal and La Font honorably took the blame for the sacrilege and in a new prologue said all the success of the work was due to the music and dance. Mouret went on to write Le mariage de Ragonde (1714), a true lyric comedy anticipating by 30 years Rameau's Platée, which is often considered the origin of French musical comedy.
Mouret also wrote standard tragedies and heroic ballets, but was notably less successful with them than in his more lighthearted works, which also included a series of divertissements for Paris' French Theater (beginning in 1716) and the New Italian Theater, where Mouret became director in 1717; he also wrote motets and cantatas.
In 1718, he was given a royal privilege to publish music and in 1720 was appointed an ordinaire du Roy, as singer in the King's chamber. He was music director of the Concert Spirituel from 1728 to 1734. This appointment marked the beginning of the end of his great success, for the Concert Spirituel had financial and legal problems that affected him personally. Then in 1734, the troubled institution was taken over by the Académie Royale de Musique, which sacked Mouret. In 1736, the Duke of Maine died and Mouret lost his position at Sceaux. In 1737, the Italian Theater had a change of policy that resulted in Mouret losing that job as well. Within four years, he had lost all sources of income and was essentially maintained as a charity case by the Prince of Carignan, who annually gave him a pension.
It is intriguing to note that George Frideric Handel went through periods of such reverses but was able to find a way to have a comeback. Mouret was not as fortunate or resilient; his spirit was progressively broken by all of these career misfortunes and in 1737, he began to go mad. Just after his 50th birthday, he was placed in the care of the Fathers of Charity at Charenton and died in that institution eight months later. ~ Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide
Jean-Joseph Mouret (April 11, 1682, Avignon - December 22, 1738, Charenton-le-Pont) was a Frenchcomposer whose dramatic works made him one of the leading exponents of Baroque music in his country. Even though most of his works are no longer performed, Mouret's name survives today thanks to the popularity of the Fanfare-Rondeau from his first Suite de Symphonies, which has been adopted as the signature tune of the PBS program Masterpiece and is a popular musical choice in many modern weddings.
Life
Erigone and Bacchus in Act 5 of Jean-Joseph Mouret's Le triomphe des sens
Mouret's father was a prosperous silk merchant of Avignon, an amateur violinist who recognized his son's precocious musical abilities and provided him with a fine education. The elder Mouret generously supported his son's decision to pursue a musical career. As a youth, Mouret proved himself a talented singer while also earning success for his compositions.
Around the age of twenty-five, Mouret settled in Paris. News of his arrival did not take long to spread and he was introduced to Anne, Duchess of Maine, whose salon at Sceaux was a center of courtly society in the declining years of Louis XIV. His genial character strongly assisted him in securing the patronage of the Duchess, who made him her Surintendant de la musique at Sceaux about 1708. At Sceaux he produced operas and was in charge of the sixteen bi-weekly Grandes Nuits in the season of 1714–1715, for which he produced interimèdes and allegorical cantatas in the court masque tradition, and other music, in the company of the most favoured musicians, for the most select audience in France. Mouret thus launched his adult career under highly favorable auspices.
At court Mouret maintained a post as singer, and directed the grand divertissements offered by the Regent, the duc d'Orléans at his château of Villers-Cotterêts on the occasion of Louis XV's coming-of-age, 1722.
In Paris he collaborated with the Académie Royale de Musique. He directed the orchestra of the Paris Opéra (1714–18), composed music and directed the Nouveau Théâtre Italien du Palais-Royal (1717–37)— for which he composed divertissements that accompanied, for example, the tender comedies of Marivaux, and which, printed, fill six volumes. Concurrently, he was director of the concert series established by the orchestra of the Opéra, the Concerts Spirituel (1728–34), positions which provided a public outlet for his own music and which permitted him to live in affluence. Mouret married and had one daughter. However, his later years were overshadowed by financial and social disappointments. Sinking into poverty, Mouret died in a charitable asylum run by the Roman Catholic Church in Charenton-le-Pont.
Works
Mouret composed mainly for the stage. He contributed to the emergence of the distinctively French genres of lyric tragedy and opera-ballet but his jealousy of the rising star of Jean-Philippe Rameau led to the bitterness and madness in which he ended his days:
Les fêtes de Thalie opera-ballet for the Paris Opéra, (1714)
Le mariage de Ragonde et de Colin for Sceaux, (1714) (1742 version: Les amours de Ragonde)
Ariane et Thésée (1717)
Pirithoüs Paris Opéra, (1723)
Les Amours des dieux Paris Opéra, (1727)
Le triomphe des sens (1732)
Les grâces héroïques (1733)
Le temple de Gnide Paris Opéra (1741).
Mouret also wrote airs, divertissements, cantatilles, motets, and instrumental works (sonatas, fanfares). Among his other compositions, the two Suites de Symphonies (1729) deserve special mention. The First Suite, renowned for its Masterpiece theme, is entitled "Fanfare for trumpets, timpani, violins, and oboes" and dedicated to the son of the Duchess of Maine, the Prince of Dombes. The Concert Spirituel, conducted by Mouret himself, gave the premier performance of this Suite. The Second Suite, scored for violins, oboes, and horns, was first played at the Hôtel de Ville before King Louis XV.
