Michel Corrette
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Michel Corrette (April 10, 1707 – January 21, 1795) was a French organist, composer and author of musical method books.
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[edit] His life
Michel Corrette was born in Rouen, Normandy. His father, Gaspard Corrette, was an organist and composer. Michel served as organist at the Jesuit College in Paris from about 1737 to 1780. It is also known that he traveled to England before 1773. In 1780 he was appointed organist to the Duke of Angouleme and some 15 years later died in Paris at the age of 87.
[edit] His music
Corrette was prolific. He composed ballets and divertissements for the stage, including Arlequin, Armide, le Jugement de Midas, les Âges, Nina and Persée. He composed many concertos, notably 25 concertos comiques. Aside from these works and concertos for organ, he also composed sonatas, songs, instrumental chamber works, harpsichord pieces, cantatas and other sacred vocal works.
In its entry to Michel Corrette, The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music comments disparagingly that "most of his music is facile and inconsequential and many of his works use popular tunes."[1].
"Until now the relatively few works I've managed to hear by 18th-century French organist/pedagogue/author Michel Corrette have made a dull impression," complains the critic John Greene for ClassicsToday.com.[2] "Not only does his music tend to lack originality, but whatever inspiration he does display rarely transcends the 'borrowed' material he primarily relies on.".[3]
[edit] His teaching
Aside from playing the organ and composing music, Corrette organized concerts and taught music. He wrote nearly twenty music method books for various instruments -- the violin, cello, bass, flute, recorder, bassoon, harpsichord, harp, mandolin, voice and more -- with titles such as l'Art de se perfectionner sur le violon (The Art of Playing the Violin Perfectly), le Parfait Maître à chanter (The Perfect Mastersinger) and L′école d′Orphée (The School of Orpheus), a violin treatise describing the French and Italian styles. These pedagogical works by Corrette are valuable because they "give lucid insight into contemporary playing techniques."[4]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Corrette: Tous les bourgeois de Chastres [5]
- Corrette: Noël provençal [6]
- Free scores by Michel Corrette in the Werner Icking Music Archive
- Michel Corrette (1709 - 1795), biographical sketch on Here of a Sunday Morning website
- Michel Corrette, translation from the French Wikipedia
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