François Giroust (1737-1799) - Super flumina Babylonis (1767)

Joyeux anniversaire François Giroust! 🌼🍷

Composer: François Giroust (1737-1799)
Work: Super flumina Babylonis (1767)
Performers: Bernadette Dеgеlin (soprano); Catherine Vandеvеlde (soprano); Jean Nirοuеt (counter tenor); Howard Crοοk (tenor); Michel Verschaеvе(bass);
Chœur de chambre de Namur; Musica Polyphonica; Louis Dеvοs (1926-2015, conductor)

Painting: Pierre-Antoine Demachy (1723-1807) - Intérieur de l’église de la Madeleine d’après le projet de Contant d’Ivry (1763)
Image in high resolution: https://flic.kr/p/2nd1zE2

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François Giroust
(Paris, 10 April 1737 - Versailles, 28 April 1799)

French composer. He was a member of the choir school of Notre Dame from January 1745 until October 1756, where he studied with Louis Homet and Antoine Goulet. As head boy he had two works performed on 17 June 1756: the motet Lauda Jerusalem and a Magnificat. He was ordained and took minor orders before leaving to become maître de musique at Orléans Cathedral. Giroust also led the Académie de Musique in Orléans. Some programmes survive from the ambitious weekly concerts he led (1764-65 and 1768-69). These usually included opera extracts (Rameau, Campra, Mouret and others) and a grand motet – often by Giroust himself. At least 22 of his motets date from this period, although most survive only in later revisions. His works were first performed at the Concert Spirituel in Paris in 1762. His Exaudi Deus, performed four times in 1764, was praised by Rameau, whom Giroust admired greatly. He subsequently wrote a Dies irae for Rameau which was played at a memorial service held in Orléans on 15 January 1765. For a contest sponsored by the Concert Spirituel in 1768, Giroust submitted two settings of Super flumina Babylonis. There were three finalists, and when Giroust was revealed as the composer not only of the first prize, but also of a specially demanded second prize, there was a great sensation. The second setting was compared with the work of Pergolesi and it seems d’Alembert and others supported it believing it to be by Philidor. For the next seven years Giroust was the most frequently performed composer at the Concert Spirituel, aside from the director, Dauvergne. In 1769 he became maître de musique at Saints-Innocents in Paris. Two years later he married Marie Françoise d’Avantois de Beaumont, a soprano at the Concert Spirituel and Académie Royale who was related to the Archbishop of Paris.

They had nine children; Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette stood, by proxy, as godparents to the first child born in Versailles, Louisa Antoinette. On 17 February 1775 Giroust replaced Gauzargues as sous maître de chapelle at the Chapelle Royale in Versailles. He composed many motets for the chapel, together with the Coronation Mass for Louis XVI and a memorial Missa pro defunctis for Louis XV. On 16 June 1780 he purchased the position of surintendant de musique, en survivance, from de Bury, assuming the post in 1785. He retained the post of maître de chapelle, to the chagrin of Le Sueur and others. Some secular works, including masonic entertainments, date from this period. Giroust stayed in Versailles after the fall of the monarchy in 1792 and, whether from fear or desperation, threw in his lot with the Revolution. He conducted nearly all the Revolutionary ceremonies in the city, and wrote over 50 songs, hymns and occasional pieces for them. Many were to texts by Félix Nogaret, a fellow freemason and radical colleague of Robespierre. The Chant des versaillais was performed for the National Convention and circulated throughout the country, becoming his most famous work and one of the best-known tunes of the Revolution (it survives in more than 50 versions and parodies). He suffered some financial hardship during this time, but in May 1793 was given the modest post of concièrge at the Château in Versailles, and in 1795 was awarded a government pension. On 13 February 1796 he became the first non-resident composer elected to the Institut de France, joining Méhul, Gossec and Grétry. He was much appreciated by the Commune of Versailles and received many tributes at his death, although later he was criticized for his political turn-around.