Great honours were paid to Rameau by Louis XV., who granted him letters of nobility, and that only to render him worthy of a still higher mark of favour, the order of St. Michael. The composer on receiving his patent did not take the trouble to register it, upon which the king, thinking Rameau was afraid of the expense, offered to defray all the necessary charges himself. "Let me have the money, your Majesty," said Rameau, "and I will apply it to some more useful purpose. Letters of nobility to me? Castor and Dardanus gave them to me long ago!"
RAMEAU'S LETTERS OF NOBILITY.
Rameau's letters of nobility were invalidated by not being registered, but the order of St. Michael was given to him all the same.
The badge of the same order was refused unconditionally by Beaumarchais, when it was offered to him by the Baron de Breteuil, minister of Louis XVI., the author of the Marriage of Figaro observing that men whose merit was acknowledged had no need of decorations.
Thus, too, Tintoretto refused knighthood at the hands of Henry III. of France (of what value, by the way, was the barren compliment to Sir Antony Vandyke, whom every one knows as a painter, and no one, scarcely, as a knight)? Thus, the celebrated singer, Forst, of Mies, in Bohemia, refused letters of nobility from Joseph I., Emperor of Germany, but accepted a pension of three hundred florins, which was offered to him in its place; and thus Beethoven being asked by the Prince von Hatzfeld, Prussian ambassador at Vienna, whether he would rather have a subscription of fifty ducats, which was due to him,[37] or the cross of some order, replied briefly, with all readiness of determination—"Fifty ducats!"
Besides being a very successful operatic composer, (he wrote thirty-six works for the stage, of which twenty-two were represented at the Académie Royale), Rameau was an admirable performer on the organ and harpsichord, and wrote a great deal of excellent music for those two instruments. He, moreover, distinguished himself by his important discoveries in the science of harmony, which he published, defended, and explained, in twenty works, more or less copious.
"Rameau's music," says M. Castil Blaze, "marks (in France) a progress. Not that this master improved the taste of our nation: he possessed none himself. Although he had visited the north of Italy, he had no idea that it was possible to sing better than the hack-vocalists of our Opera. Rameau never understood anything of Italian music; accordingly he did not bring the forms of melody to perfection among us. The success of Rameau was due to the fact, that he gave more life, warmth, and movement, to our dramatic music. His ryhthmical airs (when the irregularity of the words did not trouble him too much), the free, energetic, and even daring character of his choruses, the richness of his orchestra, raised this master at last to the highest rank, which he maintained until his death. All this, however, is relative, comparative. I must tell you in confidence, that these choruses, this orchestra, were very badly constructed, and often incorrect in point of harmony. Observe, too, if you please, that I do not go beyond our own frontiers, lest I should meet a Scarlatti, a Handel, a Jomelli, a Pergolese, a Sebastian Bach, and twenty other rivals, too formidable for our compatriot, as regards operas, religious dramas, cantatas, and symphonies."
DEATH OF RAMEAU.
Rameau died in 1764. The Opera undertook the direction of his funeral, and caused a service for the repose of his soul to be celebrated in the church of the Oratory. Several pieces from Castor and Pollux, and other of his lyrical works, had been arranged for the ceremony, and were introduced into the mass. The music was executed by the orchestra and chorus of the Opera, both of which were doubled for the occasion. In 1766, on the second anniversary of Rameau's death, a mortuary mass, written by Philidor, the celebrated chess player and composer (but one of those minor composers of whose works it does not enter into our limited plan to speak), was performed in the same church.
The chief singers of the Académie during the greater portion of Rameau's career as a composer, were Jéliotte, Chassé, and Mademoiselle de Fel. Jéliotte retired in 1775, and for nine years the French Opera was without a respectable tenor. Chassé (baritone), and Mademoiselle de Fel, were replaced, about the same time, by Larrivée, and the celebrated Sophie Arnould, both of whom appeared afterwards in Gluck's operas.