Jacques Champion de Chambonnières, also known as "Jacques Champion" and as "Chambonnières" (ca. 1601 – 1672, Paris) was a French harpsichordist in the Early Baroque era.
Jacques Champion de Chambonnières was reported to have "excelled every performer in the softness and roundness of his touch." He is considered the founder of the French harpsichord school -- in part, because he published two collections of his works in 1670—although he probably inherited a rich and long tradition. The French harpsichord school flourished during the 17th and 18th centuries and led to François Couperin (1668-1733) and Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764).
His family was one of musicians. His grandfather, Thomas Campion, also known as Mithou (ca. 1525 – ca. 1580) and not to be confused with his English namesake, was harpsichordist to the King of France (Organiste et épinette du roy); he married the daughter of a Scottish lutenist, Jacques (James) Edinthon and had a son, Jacques Campion (ca. 1555 – 1642) who inherited his title according to the system of survivance (automatic transmission of a charge to an heir).
Chambonnières received the survivance from his father as early as 1611, actually sharing the charge with him from 1638. He was, at that time, an unsurpassed virtuoso of the harpsichord as was mentioned by the contemporary scholars Christiaan Huygens and Marin Mersenne, and his great ability was highly praised. He gave concerts under subscription in his home, with the collaboration of musicians he hired by himself, which were the first evidence of private concerts not given under royal or aristocratic control in France.
He wanted to be considered as a nobleman who practiced music as a dilettante, enjoying an extravagant lifestyle, and owning a horse driven coach. This was the cause of financial difficulties. He married twice, the first time (before 1631) to Marie Le Clerc; then, as a widower, to Marguerite Ferret on 16 December 1652. But they separated in 1657 due to Chambonnières's need for luxury, which was hardly compatible with his income.
He discovered the talent of Louis Couperin during a private party in his manor near Chaumes-en-Brie, and made him come to Paris where he was to have a brilliant and short career. Chambonnières was also the teacher of Jean-Henri d'Anglebert and Jacques Hardel.
He was also a good dancer, and performed in the Ballet Royal de la Nuit of 1653. From 1655 to 1656, he lost his influence among the musicians of Louis XIV, perhaps because he refused to play continuo in Lully's orchestra. He fell into disgrace and sold his title to his pupil Jean-Henry d'Anglebert. Louis Couperin had refused to take the place of his revered benefactor. Due to lack of money, Chambonnières decided to edit his pieces, and published two books with royal privilege in 1670. They contain some 70 pieces and are the first printed evidence of harpsichord music published in France. He died in poverty soon after.
Chambonnières was not the first French claveciniste, because there was a long tradition on this instrument before him, but he was the first in France who gained celebrity for it, for which his whole musical output is written. His style, inherited and adapted from that of the lutenists (style luthé or style brisé) with arpeggiated chords, notes inégales, is well suited to instruments made by the Ruckers in Antwerp, which became influential in Paris at this very time and had quite different characteristics from the lightly built Italian and French harpsichords. Chambonnières owned a harpsichord made by Johannes Couchet, the son-in-law of Ioannes Ruckers.
Not only is his whole output for the harpsichord; it is also exclusively dedicated to dance music. His pieces (rather short, mostly in binary form AABB) are not organized in suites, as they would be later by Johann Jakob Froberger, Nicolas Lebègue, Jean-Henri d'Anglebert and their followers. They may express a distinctive poetry and sensitiveness, announcing the style of François Couperin.
Except the two published books, his output has been preserved in several manuscripts, most of them in the famous Bauyn manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
More than a half are Courantes, but he also wrote Allemandes, Sarabandes, some Gigues and other rare or older pieces such as Gaillarde, Pavane [1], Canaris, Menuet, and Chaconne. No prelude (either measured or unmeasured) is presumably his work. Some pieces have an expressive title, a characteristic in common with the lutenists of his time. The use of expressive or enigmatic titles would be a distinctive attribute of French music until the last book of Duphly ("les Baricades", "l'Entretien des Dieux", "la Drollerie" etc).
One of the most instantly appealing of his unpublished works is the justly-celebrated Chaconne in F major (Bauyn I f.45v), with its refrain's use of three 'BbMaj9th' chords, the futuristic unusualness of which has led some to ascribe it elsewhere (eg. L. Couperin, by Alan Curtis - though this is surely unjustified on the grounds that the younger composer invariably uses short phrases for his chaconne refrains, generating momentum through repetition, whereas this refrain is constructed as a single 12-bar phrase with a clearly defined overall shape, despite its underlying harmony being 4+4+4). Certainly there is nothing else like it in the French baroque (perhaps Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre comes closest, towards the end of her A minor Sarabande), except for one interesting and seemingly unnoticed moment - in Chambonnières' own Allemande which opens the F major 'suite' published in Book II. At the end of the 3rd measure, there is a perfect cadence which uses exactly the same notes as that heard twice during this Chaconne's refrain.
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