Many many thanks for all this fascinating information. Jourdan must have
been quite an important person in Louis' household. I have only one
comment - Corbetta died in 1681 so he can't have succeeded Jourdon in 1695
and in any case he spent most of his last 20 years in England although he
visited France again on a number of occasions. Perhaps he gave Louis a few
master classes when he was in Paris.
Best
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jean-Marie Poirier" <jmpoiri...@wanadoo.fr>
To: "Monica Hall" <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk>; "Peter Danner" <peter...@aol.com>
Cc: "'Lute List'" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Sunday, March 02, 2014 5:13 PM
Subject: Re: [LUTE] Re: De Visee
Marcelle Benoit quotes a document of 1695 from the Archives Nationales
where the surviving papers of the royal household are kept. It is from the
"Secrétariat de la Maison du Roi" and on march 14th 1695, f° 38v in the
series O.1 39 there is this allusion to Jourdan :
"Retenüe de joüeur de guitarre du Roy, pour le Sr de la Salle
Ayant egard aux services que feu Bernard Jourdan de la Salle nous a rendu
depuis l'année 1650 que nous le choisismes pour nous enseigner a joüer de
la guitarre, nous avons bien voulu, en cette consideration, conserver lad.
charge a Louis Jourdan de la Salle, son fils, et luy contnuer les gages
ordinaires de 1200 livres tournois qui y sont attribuez..."
We learn that Louis XIV started to learn the guitar when he was 12 years
old and that his teacher, who had come to France 10 years before the
king's marriage with his Spanish cousin Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche, was dead
by 1695 ("feu Bernard Jourdan de la Salle").
Marcelle Benoît in her "Dictionnaire de la musique en France aux XVIIe et
XVIIIe siècles" writes that he was a native a Sanlucar de Barrameda in the
province of Cadiz, as Monica justly quotes. Louis, his son who succeded
him in his functions, was born in 1659 and Louis XIV was his godfather and
Anne d'Autriche - the king's mother - his godmother. Bernard married a
certain Elizabeth Lesueur and had a daughter Elizabeth Laurente in 1660.
That's about the only facts we have about Bernard Jourdan de la Salle, who
was naturalized in 1681, and the act where this is recorded says that he
was "natif de St Luc en Espagne (=Sanluccar) faisant profession de la
Religion catholique, apostolique et romaine" (O.1 25, f° 203 & 242)
In 1684 he was paid 600 lt, like Champion, Ithier, Marais etc... and was
qualified "La SAlle, maître à jouer de la guitarre".
Same thing in 1686.
In 1688 he received 1200 lt, wheres the other musiciens of la Chambre had
only 600 lt.
In 1689, he had only 600 lt.
In 1691, he received 1200 lt. againn more than Michel Lambert, the singer
and Lully father-in-law who only got 720 lt...
In 1693, he is called "Sieur de la Salle" and is listed for a sum of 600
lt with a comment "n'a pas été payé faute de de fonds dans l'estat de
distribution" ( ;-) public money shortage not a new problem it seems...)
Eventually, in 1695 the money (1200 lt.) is delivered to "Louis Jourdand
de la Salle, maistre à jouer de la guitarre du Roy, au lieu de feu Bernard
Jourdan de la Salle son père".
Louis XIV must have been a rather gifted sutdent as, after his death, his
brother's wife Elisabeth-Charlotte de Bavière wrote in a letter : "il ne
connaissait aucune note de musique, mais il avait l'oreile juste et il
jouait de la guitare mieux qu'un maître, arangeant sur cet instrument tout
ce qu'il voulait"...
According to M. Benoit, Francisque Corbett (= Corbetta) seems to have been
Bernard Jourdan's successor in spite of Louis Jourdan, legal heir of his
father's functions.
End of story. No music so far has been unearthed that could be attributed
to one of the two Jourdan de la Salle...
We were more lucky with another Spaniard who had settled inFrance, Luys de
Briceño, but that is another story ;-) !
All the best,
Jean-Marie
PS: all the information is to be found in Marcelle Benoit, "Versailles et
les musiciens du roi" and "Musiques de cour, chapelle, chambre, écurie;
recueil de documents", Paris : Picard, 1971 and her Dictionnaire, Paris :
Fayard, 1992
--------------
I can only tell you what James Tyler has said in his book "The guitar and
its music" (2002) p. 108 as I don't have a copy of Benoit.
Jourdan de la Salle had been Louis XIVs' "Maitre de guittarre" at least
since 1650 and
he died in 1695. He was then succeeded by his son Louis who died in 1620.
Louis Jourdan was succeeded by De Visee.by which time of course Louis XIV
had died and Louis XV had succeeded him.
Jourdan apparently was from Sanlucar de Barrameda in the province of
Cadiz.
This is a small town on the coast.
The reference which Jim gives is Benoit "Dictionnairede la musique en
France
aux XVIIe et XVIIIe" 1992 p. 728
I am not sure about this and perhaps Jean-Marie can enlighten us - but I
wonder if "Maitre de guitarre" doesn't necessarily mean that he actually
taught Louis to play. More that he was there to play to the King in his
leisure hours. He may not have been a composer but a lot of stuff in
manuscript is anonymous and it may have been difficult to get guitar music
printed in France before engraving rather than printing from musical type
became common.
Best
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Danner" <peter...@aol.com>
To: "Monica Hall" <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk>
Cc: "Lutelist" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Sunday, March 02, 2014 3:04 PM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: De Visee
Monica is quite right in pointing out that de Visee was never Louis
XIV's
official guitar teacher, which brings up another question. It has been
years since I looked into the matter, but I find this in my notes.
Perhaps
someone can remind me of the Benoit citation. It identifies de la Salle
as
Spanish:
From 1650 Bernard Jourdan de la Salle, a native of Saint-Luc, was the
King's teacher of the guitar. He was replaced by his son Louis Anne in
1695.
"1681. Juillet. Naturalité pour Bernard Jourdan dit la Salle, natif de
St.
Luc en Espagne, faisant profession de la Religion catholique,
apostolique
et romanine." Benoit, p.79.
Just who was this Bernard Jourdan de la Salle, and where was Saint-Luc?
Why is there no surviving music by him?
Peter Danner
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