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    The livre d'airs et de simphonies meslés de quelques fragmens d'opéra 1697 of Pierre Gillier : an edition and study : a thesis submitted to the New Zealand School of Music in fulfilment of the degree of Master of Music in Musicology
    (Massey University, 2010) Gerrard, Kathleen
    The Livre d’Airs et de Simphonies meslés de quelques fragmens d’Opéra de la Composition de P. Gillier (Book of Airs and Instrumental Pieces mixed with some operatic fragments composed by Pierre Gillier) was published in Paris in 1697. Its contents are dedicated to the twenty-three year-old Philippe duc de Chartres (son of Philippe I duc d’Orléans, only brother of Louis XIV). Of the life of Pierre Gillier (1665- died after 1713), we know only that he possessed an haute-contre voice, and was employed as a chamber musician in the households of Philippe I duc d’Orléans and of his son, Philippe II. The Parisian courts of the Dauphin, and of Philippe I supported the secular arts that Louis XIV (self-exiled at Versailles), had rejected. There was an insatiable appetite for amateur music making in late seventeenth-century France, notably in the broader societal context of airs: the salons. Composers generally wrote individual airs (of the serious and drinking types), complete operas, or theatre works. In such a context, Gillier’s publication is unique: his declared aim was to assemble a collection of serious songs linked together tonally in suites with instrumental pieces by means of their keys, for chamber music performance. As a precursor to the arrival in France of the multi-movement sonata and cantata, Gillier’s grouping together of instrumental and vocal movements to make larger musical entities has exceptional interest. His procedure has close links with theatrical practice. The thesis includes a critical edition of Gillier's complete collection made from the copy preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France as F-Pn/ Rés. Vm7 305. The edition is prefaced by a study of performance practices in vocal and instrumental music in late seventeenth-century France.
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    Canons, airs sérieux and airs à boire : a study of the contribution of the eighteenth century French composer and copyist C. de La Serre
    (Massey University, 2010) Dillon, Teressa
    C. de La Serre was a composer, copyist and maître de musique. His known compositions are all airs sérieux and airs à boire, appearing in printed sources and manuscripts between 1716 and 1724. His individual collection, Recueil d’airs nouveaux sérieux et à boire (1724) provides the most complete picture of his achievements as a composer, as it exhibits the largest number of his songs in a single volume. Another side of La Serre’s musical activity is also considered in the present study, as it includes the examination of selections from the manuscript F-CECm/Ms. 282, of which he was the copyist. The distinguishing characteristic of this manuscript is its collection of canons, which may be the largest of its kind. La Serre’s own music is included in F-CECm/Ms. 282, along with airs by composers such as Jean-Baptiste de Bousset, François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau. This thesis places canons, airs sérieux and airs à boire composed by La Serre and other prominent songwriters of the period within the social context of the French Regency, and the context of the genres at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The conventions of verse and music are also considered in relation to specific airs of the printed collection and the manuscript. A catalogue of La Serre’s Recueil d’airs nouveaux sérieux et à boire and the edited selections of F-CECm/Ms. 282 is also included. Volume II comprises a critical edition of La Serre’s 1724 collection and selections from the manuscript.