Anne Louise Brillon de Jouy (née Boyvin d'Hardancourt; 13 December 1744 – 5 December 1824) was a French musician and composer. Born in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
, she lived in
Passy and played and composed for the harpsichord and the piano. She learned to play the harpsichord as a child.
Life
Her parents were Marie-Élisabeth, (née Martin) (1723-1785) and Louis-Claude Boyvin d'Hardancourt (c. 1710–1756), a royal tax clerk.
In October 1763 Anne Louise married tax clerk Jacques Brillon de Jouy (1722-1787), 22 years her elder. They had two daughters, Cunégonde and Aldegonde. Cunégonde went on to marry the General
Antoine Marie Paris d'Illins.
She died at
Villers-sur-Mer,
Calvados
Calvados (, , ) is a brandy from Normandy in France, made from apples or pears, or from apples with pears.
History In France
Apple orchards and brewers are mentioned as far back as the 8th century by Charlemagne. The first known record of Nor ...
, aged 79.
Career
Every Wednesday and Saturday Anne Louise held a salon at her house in the country in Passy, which became a permanent fixture. Foreign musicians passing through Paris performed with her. In doing so, she acquired an excellent reputation as a musician and composer, despite not performing publicly or having any of her compositions published. Several composers dedicated sonatas to her, including
Johann Schobert
Johann Schobert (c. 1720, 1735 or 1740 – 28 August 1767) was a composer and harpsichordist. His date of birth is given variously as about 1720, about 1735, or about 1740, his place of birth as Silesia, Alsace, or Nuremberg. He died after eatin ...
,
Luigi Boccherini
Ridolfo Luigi Boccherini (, also , ; 19 February 1743 – 28 May 1805) was an Italian composer and cellist of the Classical era whose music retained a courtly and ''galante'' style even while he matured somewhat apart from the major Europea ...
,
Charles Burney,
Ernst Eichner
Ernst Dietrich Adolph Eichner rnesto Eichner(born 15 February 1740 in Arolsen, died early 1777 in Potsdam) was a German bassoonist and composer.
Biography
Eichner was born to Johann Andreas Eichner (1694–1768), a court musician to the court of ...
, and
Henri-Joseph Rigel.
Her compositions number almost 90. Most are instrumental chamber music, including solo and accompanied keyboard sonatas; sonatas for cello, violin or harp; trios for two harpsichords and piano; and vocal music. She wrote music to perform herself and with the two Brillon daughters, Cunégonde and Aldegonde. The piano music written for her own performance is virtuosic, incorporating new keyboard techniques and sonorities, along with a number of innovations usually associated with later pianist-composers such as Czerny and Liszt. Her manuscripts are in a private French collection and in the American Philosophical Society library in Philadelphia.
When
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
arrived in Paris in 1777 as ambassador from the American colonies, he lived near the Brillon residence and was a welcome guest at her distinguished salon, which he described as 'my Opera', where there are 'little Concerts' with music and singing. After his return to America in 1785, he and Mme Brillon maintained an active correspondence.
In 1767,
Boccherini composed in Paris his ''Six Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violin op 5''. The set was dedicated to Anne Louise Brillon: ''Madame, I have never before composed for the keyboard; I heard you play on that instrument, and then I wrote these sonatas; the homage that I offer you through them is, simultaneously, a fitting tribute, and one of reconnaissance; you have inspired them, and you embellish them.'' The piano was a relatively new instrument when Boccherini wrote his ''Six Sonatas op 5'', but Anne Louise Brillon de Jouy inspired him to write the keyboard part specifically for the new instrument, including
dynamic markings. When the sonatas were published in 1769, the reference to the pianoforte was replaced by "harpsichord" and many dynamic markings were removed because the harpsichord was still the dominant keyboard instrument, and the publisher had to adapt the sonatas for commercial reasons. Charles Burney wrote of her, ''She is one of the greatest lady-players on the harpsichord in Europe. This lady (...) plays the most difficult pieces with great precision, taste and feeling (...). She likewise composes, and she was so obliging as to play several of her own pieces both on the harpsichord and pianoforte accompanied with the violin by M. Pagin, who is reckoned in France the best scholar of
Tartini ever made.''
[Charles Burney, The Present State of Music in France and Italy: Or, the Journal of a Tour through those Countries, Undertaken to Collect Materials for A General History of Music, 2nd ed. (London: T. Becket and Co., J. Robson, and G. Robinson, 1773), 43.]
In 1777, she composed the ''Marche des insurgents'' (''March of the Insurgents'') to celebrate an American victory in the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
.
Works
88 pieces have been listed to date.
1775-1783:
* ''Trio pour trois clavecins en ut-mineur (ou pour piano anglais, piano allemand et clavecin)''. (Trio for three harpsichords in C-minor; or for English piano, German piano, and harpsichord)
* ''Premier recueil d'œuvres pour clavecin ou pianoforte avec 15 sonates pour pianoforte et violon''. (First collection of works for harpsichord or pianoforte with 15 sonatas for pianoforte and violin)
* ''Sonate en la mineur pour pianoforte''. (Sonata in A minor for pianoforte)
* ''Trio pour pianoforte, violon et violoncelle en sol mineur''. (Trio for piano, violin, and cello in G minor)
* ''Quatuor pour clavecin, deux violons et contrebasse en mi mineur''. (Quartet for harpsichord, two violins, and double bass in E minor)
1777:
* ''Marche des insurgents'', (March of the Insurgents, which was first published in an arrangement for brass quintet in 1992 by the Hildegard Publishing Company)
1779-1785:
* ''Duos pour clavecin et pianoforte''. (Duets for harpsichord and pianoforte).
In popular culture
Madame Brillon appears in the 1939
children's book
Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader.
Children's ...
''
Ben and Me'' by
Robert Lawson, about Benjamin Franklin's time in Paris, where she is the subject of an elaborate, humorous full-page illustration. However she does not appear in Disney's 1953 Academy Award-nominated
animated short film
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...
adaptation of the book.
Bibliography
* Christine de Pas, ''Madame Brillon de Jouy et son salon : Une musicienne des Lumières, intime de Benjamin Franklin,'' Paris, Éditions du Petit Page, 2014, 306 p. (, BNF 44213135).
* Rebecca Cypess, ''Women and Musical Salons in the Enlightenment'' Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2022. 368 p. ISBN 9780226817910.
Discography
"The Piano Sonatas Rediscovered", Nicolas Horvath, piano. Naxos: Grand Piano GP872-73 (2020). 2-CD album.
"In the Salon of Madame Brillon: Music and Friendship in Benjamin Franklin's Paris", The Raritan Players, directed by Rebecca Cypess. Acis Productions APL40158 (2021).
References
External links
*
Her connection with Boccherini, at MusicWeb
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brillon De Jouy, Anne Louise Boyvin Hardancourt
1744 births
1824 deaths
French women composers
Musicians from Paris
18th-century French women classical pianists
19th-century French women classical pianists