Les paroles politiques: Cherubini celebrates Louis XVIII

Through the 1790s, composer Luigi Cherubini was known as a revolutionary in multiple senses. His harmonically adventurous music and ability to depict dramatic situations with unique orchestral effect and coloring brought him recognition among much of late eighteenth-century opera audiences. At the same time, he was also increasingly aligned with the political revolutions that swept France and Europe. Musicologist Sarah Hibberd writes in the Cambridge Opera Journal (2012) about Cherubini’s revolutionary style that, especially in his operas of the 1790s,

“...his scores embrace male choruses, military rhythms and an expanded orchestra, each typical of the open-air pageants with which he [Cherubini] was to be involved in the mid-1790s, and which subsequently cemented his ‘revolutionary’ reputation.”

(Incidentally, Cherubini’s autograph manuscript of his 1797 opera Médée  can be found in the Stanford Libraries Department of Special Collections!).

As a result, Cherubini not only survived the French Revolution, but thrived. He was appointed as a teaching inspector at the Conservatoire National de Musique by Bernard Sarrette (the Conservatoire’s founder) in 1794 alongside some of France’s most celebrated composers. In this capacity, Cherubini composed hymns, odes, and marches celebrating political festivals and Napoleonic rule. Such music included one piece written in 1796 for the anniversary of the beheading of Louis XVI, in addition to ceremonial music for both Napoleon’s marriage to Marie-Louise of Austria and the birth of their son in 1810 and 1811, respectively (Fend, 2020 [2001])

Cherubini’s personal political views, however, remain obscure. The subjects of his works might give an observer trying to make sense of his political affiliation whiplash. Prior to the revolution, Cherubini was associated with the Ancien Régime aristocratic class and was known to be friendly with Marie-Antoinette. Despite this, audiences heard his music of the 1790s to align with shifting political winds. And while Cherubini remained employed and seemingly loyal to the new guard throughout Napoleon’s reign, many scholars note that his relationship with the emperor was contentious.

This is apparent in this chorus and couplets that Cherubini wrote in 1815 after Napoleon’s failed return as France’s emperor and the reinstatement of Louis XVIII after the Seventh Coalition. The text for a piece written to commemorate the return of the Bourbon king is included in the Stanford Libraries’ Memorial Library of Music collection and has been digitized for public view. The text reflects Cherubini’s —and France’s — precarious political environment in 1815. In December 1814, Louis XVIII, having returned to France as king after Napoleon’s exile to Elba, nominated Cherubini as superintendent of the royal chapel and named him Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur. His position was set to begin in the new year after Cherubini returned from a trip to London as guest conductor and composer-in-residence with the newly formed Philharmonic Society (today the Royal Philharmonic Society). Cherubini left Paris on February 25 and arrived in London on March 4, during which time, Napoleon was mounting forces for his return to France in his efforts to reclaim his title as emperor. These efforts eventually led to the War of the Seventh Coalition (also known as the Hundred Days). Due to his fraught relationship with Napoleon, Cherubini remained in London longer than expected, unsure whether his future in France was any longer tenable. He contemplated a position with the Prussian king, but ultimately decided against it.

Lucky for him, Napoleon was soon again exiled, and Cherubini felt it was safe enough to return to Paris in early June 1815. A letter attached at the end of the text suggests that Cherubini had previously written the text and the music, but their performance may have been delayed. The letter, addressed to a Monsieur Désaugiers (presumably the French composer and dramatist Marc-Antoine Désaugiers) suggests that the lyrics enclosed with the letter were as Cherubini had written them the previous year. Anticipating changes with the words to reflect Louis’s return, he wrote to Désaugiers that he would rather not change the music if indeed new verses needed to be written.

The first page of lyrics clearly indicates that this text is “for the festival of the King [on] the day of St. Louis.” This is in reference to the August 25th feast day of St. Louis, who was king of France as Louis IX from 1226-1270. Louis IX was known for his benevolence and charity, which contributed to his canonization by Pope Boniface VIII in 1297. Thereafter, French courts and military customarily celebrated their King on this feast day. Cherubini’s text is predictably festive and heavily focused on Louis’s salvation of France. The opening chorus clearly suggests that Louis XVIII is the subject of the text; it states “Heureuses France / Réjouis toi / La providence / te rend ton roi.” (“Happy France / Rejoice / Providence / has returned your king”). The text continues in a verse-chorus form, with each verse sung by a different voice or set of voices. The first verse, indicated in the text to be “un homme” in part reads:

Comme des cieux après l’orage
On admire encor mieux d’azur
À peine echappèe du naufrages
Nous goutons une bonheur plus pur.

Like skies after a storm
We admire ever more its azure
Having barely escaped from the shipwreck
We taste a purer happiness.

The music that these words were set to has not been published, but the manuscript is housed at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin as part of their Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.

We might say perhaps that Cherubini was more of a survivalist than an outright revolutionary, not committing to either side of France’s complicated political landscape at the turn of the nineteenth century. As evidenced by his oeuvre as well as the texts for this piece celebrating Louis XVIII, Cherubini was more interested in gainful employment than in ruffling anyone’s feathers.

Guest blogger Michael Kinney is a postdoctoral fellow with the Stanford Center on Longevity. His research engages the politics and ethics of listening by asking how sociocultural narratives about the human life course shape sound and musical practices, communities, institutions, histories, and aesthetics. He received his PhD in musicology from Stanford in 2023.

This article is one in a series highlighting rare music materials in the Stanford Libraries collections.