Jean-Henri d'Anglebert (Composer)

Born: April 1, 1629 - Paris, France
Died: April 23, 1691 - Paris, France

Jean-Henri [Henry] d'Anglebert was a French composer and harpsichordist in the court of King Louis XIV of France. He was the son of an affluent tradesman from Bar-le-Duc, from a musical family (his brother-in-law was the organist François Roberday). A pupil of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières, he succeeded his teacher as harpsichordist to the King after Chambonnières' disgrace in 1663 or 1664. This position was hereditary, and so passed to J.H. d'Anglebert's son after his death.

Jean-Henri d'Anglebert's only published work, Pièces de clavecin, appeared in Paris in 1689. It has the distinction of being the first printed music in France to contain a table of ornaments together with their realizations. One of the pieces, Le tombeau de M. de Chambonnières, is a tribute to his late teacher. Alongside four original suites for harpsichord, it also includes transcriptions for keyboard of excerpts from operas and ballets by his friend Jean-Baptiste Lully. This publication represents some of the most polished French keyboard writing of the time, and represent a significant element in French keyboard music between Chambonnires and François Couperin. Ris style puts an elaborate counterpoint and precise system of embellishments at the service of an elegant melodic line, which is never obscured by these additions, his suites show a facility at working with multiple lines at a time to form a unified counterpoint. Typical of the period, his harpsichord suites include unmeasured preludes and all manner of dances. Ris celebrated Le tombeau de M. de Chambonnières pays homage to the first important French exponent of solo harpsichord performance; his small organ output provides a welcome glimpse into the playing of the period. J.H. d'Anglebert also composed five fugues for organ based on a theme he had composed in his childhood, and a Kyrie.

J.S. Bach Connection

J.S. Bach was presumably familiar with Jean-Henri d'Anglebert's Pièces de clavecin (Paris, 1689), for he copied out the ornament table from it around 1709-1712. J.H. d'Anglebert's style of ornamentation and his use of ornament signs appear to have exerted some influence on J.S. Bach, judging by the ornaments table in the Clavierbüchlein for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach of 1720 and the ornaments in J.S. Bach's keyboard works from the 1720's onwards. It is often assumed that the influence extended to the substance of J.S. Bach's suites, but this has not been firmly established.

Source: Wikipedia Website; De Personen Encyclopedia (Author: Todd McComb, June 1994); Naxos Website; Malcom Boyd, editor: Oxford Composer Companion J.S. Bach (Oxford University Press, 1999, Article author: Richard D.P. Jones)
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (November 2008)

Works in J.S. Bach's Library

From Pieces de clavecin (Paris, 1689)
Suite Nr. 3 d-moll: Prelude
Suite Nr. 3 d-moll: Allemande
|Suite Nr. 2 g-moll: Courante
Suite Nr. 3 d-moll: Double de la Courante
Suite Nr. 3 d-moll: Sarabande
Pieces d-moll: Gigue
Pieces D-dur: Tombeau de M. de Chambonnieres

Links to other Sites

Bibliography

Beverly Scheibert: Jean-Henry d'Anglebert and the Seventeenth-Century Clavecin School