Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre: Campanae Lovanienses

The Leuven Bell and Carillon Association Campanae Lovanienses will perform and publish Tom Gurin’s carillon arrangement of the full Suite No. 5 in D Minor by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre in spring 2022. The 27-page arrangement received 4th prize in the International Matthias vanden Gheyn Composition Contest, which received 62 total submissions from twelve countries.

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International Matthias vanden Gheyn Composition Contest

The performance by Luc Rombouts of Gurin’s arrangement will take place on the Peace Carillon of Park Abbey in Leuven, Belgium. Donors from both Leuven and the German city of Neuss jointly funded the creation of this carillon in recognition of the destruction of Leuven that took place in 1914. The carillon was dedicated on November 11, 2018.

Matthias vanden Gheyn (1721—1785) was city carillonist of Leuven and organist of St. Peter’s Church from 1745 until his death. The Matthias vanden Gheyn Composition Contest honors his compositional output for the carillon (most notably his eleven preludes) and marks his 300th birthday.

The jury for the contest consisted of Stefano Colletti (France), Koen Cosaert (Director of Royal Carillon School “Jef Denyn,” Belgium), Monika Kazmierczak (City Carillonist of Gdańsk, Poland), and Tiffany Ng (Associate Professor of Carillon at the University of Michigan, USA). The results were announced during the 2021 virtual congress of the World Carillon Federation. Gurin is the only participant under 30 years of age to receive recognition in the contest.

About Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre

Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, also known as Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre or Elisabeth Jacquet, (1666, Paris —1729, Paris), was a French composer, harpsichordist, and organist. She was the first woman to publish an opera in France and one of the first composers to publish a composition for harpsichord.

La Guerre came from a family of harpsichord builders. She was recognized at a young age for her virtuoso harpsichord performances, especially her improvisations. King Louis XIV noticed her talents and ensured that she received an education at his court.

La Guerre published her first harpsichord pieces in 1687, when she was only 22. Publishing harpsichord compositions was rare in seventeenth-century France; for La Guerre to do so as a woman demanded both musical and political innovation. Her political sagacity is evident in her dedication of the set to Louis XIV:

I am indebted to You for all that my genius has produced up to the present.…The usual exercise of my muse, which continually blesses the peace of this glorious reign, so appropriate for cultivating the fine arts which one sees flowering throughout the entire empire because of the efforts of the grandest monarch in the universe.

The Suite No. 5 in D minor comes from her later 1707 set of self-publications, which also included six sonatas for violin and figured bass, along with another harpsichord suite in G. The publication followed a thirteen-year period of non-publication from La Guerre. During this span between 1794 and 1707, her mother, father, husband, and only child perished. Her 1707 publication took advantage of the increasingly popular sonata, which came into vogue in France at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

The opening to the suite in D minor, “La Flamande et son double,” is, contrary to the title’s suggestion, an allemande with a variation of each section. The suite’s wide range and generous ornamentation are in keeping with the style of the French clavecinistes, such as Franҫois Couperin. The suite in D minor also includes a courante, a sarabande, two gigues, two rigaudons, and a virtuosic chaconne as conclusion.

La Guerre continued to perform publicly in Paris while publishing new compositions, including several cantatas, until 1717.

An electronic version of the publication, containing, Gurin’s arrangement for carillon of the entire Suite No. 5 in D minor, is now available for download using this link.

Author: Tom Gurin

Tom Gurin is an American composer, multimedia artist, and carillonist based in Switzerland. He is currently a master’s student in electronic and multimedia composition at the Haute École de Musique de Genève. He received his bachelor's degree with honors in music from Yale University, his Diplôme Supérieur from the École Normale de Musique de Paris, and also studied composition privately with Allain Gaussin. He was a 2023 laureate-resident at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris, and the 2021-2022 recipient of a joint Fulbright-Harriet Hale Woolley Award at the United States Foundation in Paris. He is a Fellow of the Belgian-American Educational Foundation. A graduate of the Royal Carillon School in Belgium, Gurin served as Duke University Chapel Carillonneur until summer 2021. Tom is also a music composition teacher with experience educating composers of all experience levels. For information on compositions, performances, or lessons, contact him online here.