Castor and Pollux: Chaconne

Composer: RAMEAU, Jean-Philippe
  • Castor et Pollux is a tragic opera in five acts. It was Rameau’s third opera, and it premiered on October 24, 1737.1
  • When Rameau revived Castor and Pollux in a 1754 performance, it came to be regarded as his masterpiece.2
    • The successful revival of Castor and Pollux was also a point scored for the French classicists in the querelle des bouffons. The “Quarrel of the Buffoons” (or War of the Buffoons, or War of the Comedians) was literary/musical dispute in which proponents of old-fashioned French opera and fans of newfangled, slapstick Italian opera buffa duked it out in Parisian publications between 1752-1754.3
  • Castor and Pollux was unusual within French opera of its time in that its theme is not romantic love, but brotherly love – the bond between mythical twin brothers Castor, who is mortal, and Pollux, who is immortal.4
  • Ballet was central to French opera in the Baroque (and it continued to be, way into the Romantic period). This chaconne is one of the many dances in Castor and Pollux.5

Sources

  1. Graham Sadler and Thomas Christensen, “Rameau, Jean-Philippe,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed January 2, 2020, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000022832. 
  2. Graham Sadler, “Castor et Pollux,” Grove Music Online (2002), accessed January 2, 2020,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000007426.
  3.  Stanley Sadie, “Bouffons, Querelle des,” in The Oxford Companion to Music (Oxford University Press, 2011), https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199579037.001.0001/acref-9780199579037-e-914. 
  4. Sadler and Christensen, “Rameau, Jean-Philippe,” Grove Music Online.
  5. Ibid.

Cut IDs

49241