Antoine de Lhoyer (1768-1852)
Complete Guitar Duos
Antonio Rugolo, Angelo Gillo (guitars)
rec. 2017, Castellaneta, Italy
Brilliant Classics 95725 [5 CDs: 280]
Until the last few decades Lhoyer and his music were almost entirely neglected. So, for example, he has no entry in Philip J. Bone’s book of 1914, The Guitar and Mandolin: Biographies of Celebrated Players and Composers for These Instruments. Nor can I find any mention of him in Stephen Wade’s Traditions of the Classical Guitar (1980). In 1992 (Notes, 48:3, p.1091), when reviewing a modern edition of Lhoyer’s Trio Concertant, Op. 29, Gerald Klickstein very reasonably began by describing the composer as “virtually unknown today”, though, interestingly, he closed his review by judging the Trio to be “a well-rounded work of irresistible charm”.
Antoine de Lhoyer (a name which sometimes appears as “L’hoyer”) led a life so varied and intriguing that it reads like the subject for a historical novel (or even a picaresque novel!). He was born at Clermont Ferrand in the Massif Central of France, son of bourgeois parents of some means. In his youth he studied harpsichord and then guitar. He was in Paris by the late 1760s and was active there as a guitarist. A passionate royalist, around the age of 20 he joined the Gardes du Corps du Roi, i.e. the bodyguard of Louis XVI. However, in 1790 the success of the Revolutionary forces made it necessary for him to leave France. He is next heard of in Germany, teaching guitar. In 1792 he chose to enlist again, this time in what was known as the armée des Princes, a force raised in the names of the king’s exiled brothers Louis, Comte de Provence and Charles, Duc d’Artois. This armée joined with the army of Charles, Duke of Brunswick to oppose the forces of the Revolution. From 1794-1797 he served in the armée du Condé, a force raised by the Prince of Condé, cousin of Louis XVI. Fighting alongside the Austrian army, Lhoyer was wounded – the wound badly affecting his right arm and hand for some time. Around 1799/1800 he settled, at least briefly, in Hamburg, giving guitar lessons and writing music for the instrument. Indeed, it seems to have been in Hamburg that he wrote and publishing his Grand Sonata (Op.12) – one of his few compositions for solo guitar. Late in 1802 he left Hamburg to make his way to St. Petersburg, where interest in the guitar was growing.
If the hypothetical novel about Antoine de Lhoyer – to which I alluded in the opening sentence of the previous paragraph – were ever to be written, its author would surely have fun with an episode which happened when Lhoyer was making his journey to Russia. Early in January of 1803, en route to Russia, Lhoyer met the French dramatist, librettist and theatre director Alexandre Duval (1767-1842) – who was elected a member of the Académie française in 1816 – who was also making his way to St. Petersburg. They met when they were both detained by heavy snow for several days at the town of Memel, now Klaipéda in Lithuania. In the booklet notes to this set of CDs, the guitarist and scholar Erik Stenstadvold (an authority on, and editor of, Lhoyer) tells the story thus “The evenings were used for storytelling and Lhoyer contributed by recounting his adventures during his exile years and how he had endured this period by teaching the guitar and playing concerts ‘all over Germany’. He charmed the small audience by always ending his evening stories playing some pieces on the guitar and, according to Duval, Lhoyer’s mastery of the instrument ‘would have made him appear a virtuoso even in Paris’”. Lhoyer was to stay in St. Petersburg for something like ten years, becoming guitar tutor to the Tsarina and a popular figure at the court; while there his compositions included a set of 12 waltzes (Op. 23), 12 Romances novelles for soprano and guitar (Op. 24) and Six Exercices (Op.27).
He returned to Paris late in 1812 or early 1813. Once back in the French capital, he involved himself in the city’s musical life so that, for example, Ferdinando Carulli dedicated to Lhoyer his Op.12 (Trois solos, Op.76) when it was published in 1814. The same year saw the publication, in Paris, of three Duos with which Disc 1 of this set opens, carrying a dedication to ‘Madame la Princesse de Croy Solré’. From 1816 Lhoyer held a number of administrative/military posts in various regions of France. The July Revolution of 1830 meant that he no longer served in such a way. Lhoyer and his familylived in Aix-en-Provence and then, briefly, in Algeria. In 1836 he returned to Paris and seems to have stayed there until his death in 1852, apparently in a state of considerable poverty (his military pension was doubtless exhausted by this time).
As noted earlier, Lhoyer was unusual amongst his guitarist-composer contemporaries in that he wrote relatively little for the solo guitar. Most of the music he published was for two, three of four guitars or for small ensembles including the guitar; there are also some songs with guitar accompaniment and among his early compositions there is (Op.16), a concerto for guitar and strings, probably written around 1798/9.
It isn’t easy to date very precisely most of the music on these discs. As mentioned earlier, the Op.34 Duos were published in 1814 (Paris, Gaveaux). The Opus 34 duets were published in 1819 as Trois Duos Concertants Composés et Dédiés à Monsieur Le Compte Rochecouart (Paris: Koliker); the Duo Concertant, Op. 44 seems to have been published in 1826. The Douze Valses, Op.32 were perhaps composed/published around 1815-1816. It is, I believe, safe to assume that with the exception of the Douze Valses, Op.23, which were produced while Lhoyer was in Russia, all the music on these discs belongs to the years after Lhoyer returned to Paris in 1814. Professor Stenstadvold gives the following dates: Op.30 (1814?), Op.33 (1816/17), Op.35 (c.1820), Op.36 (1820) and Op.37 (c.1821-23). After around 1826, when he was appointed to a position in Corsica, Lhoyer must have been very largely out of touch with the musical life of Paris; he seems to have composed little or nothing after this date.
Still, we have some thoroughly enjoyable music from his pen. I call it ‘enjoyable’ music because it is essentially salon music of the highest order. It doesn’t in any way reflect the turbulent life of its creator. If you demand great passion or profundity from the music you listen to, or expect to be ‘challenged’ by the music you experience, this is not for you. If, on the other hand, you are happy – in some moods at least – to listen to sophisticated, well-made music which involves much that is charming and a lot of quasi-conversational interplay between instruments, then do try these discs. Given the inevitable limitations in terms of colours and dynamics with the same two instruments heard throughout, it would, naturally, not be sensible to listen to all five discs at one sitting.
It would be fair, I suppose, to say that this is very much music of its period – but it isn’t music that deserves to ‘die’ with its own period; although Antonio Rugolo and Angelo Gillo play modern copies of guitars from the nineteenth century, there is too much vitality and sparkle for this to be regarded as a merely antiquarian exercise and there is enough variety in the music to maintain the listener’s interest; everywhere one is conscious of Lhoyer’s profound knowledge of the guitar.
There are some very short pieces, such as the twelve Op.32 Waltzes, each of them under two minutes long in performance; but on the other hand, the Fantaisie Concertante, op.33, is in eight related movements and comes in at around 35 minutes. Whether Lhoyer’s Duos are miniatures (not a term I intend as any kind of denigration) or are more substantial works almost all of them seem to treat the two performers as equals – rather than as first and second guitars. This ‘equality’ is perhaps implicit in the term concertant(e) which Lhoyer uses in so many of his titles. In terms of technical demands the two guitars are treated equally and in movements which are in sonata form (as are the opening movements of several of the Op.31 Duos, for example) the thematic expositions are shared alternately between the guitarists (I say this on the evidence of what I can hear, not having access to the scores).
Lhoyer is often at his most memorable in slow movements as, for example, in the second movement of the first of the Op.31 Duos, marked ‘Adagio cantabile’ or in the second movement of the third Duo of the same set, marked ‘Romance. Andante sostenuto’. Both are works of real quality and many more such examples might be cited, such as the ‘Andante sostenuto’ which forms the brief second movement of Op.34, No. 3. But Lhoyer is equally capable of using the guitar for terpsichorean purposes – listen, for instance, to No.6 of the Op.32 Waltzes, which has some particularly attractive interplay between the instruments.
Generally speaking, the writing is attractively inventive; it is clear that Rugolo and Gillo love this music, which they play with unfailing respect and commitment. While a number of Lhoyer’s contemporaries also wrote guitar duos (e.g. Sor’s ‘L’Encouragement’, Op.34 or Giuliani’s Variazioni Concertanti, Op.130) none of them wrote anything like so many as Lhoyer and it is reasonable to say that the latter discovered more of the format’s potential. For that reason, these Duos, as well as making for pleasurable listening also have at least a minor historical importance.
Glyn Pursglove
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Contents
CD1
Duo Concertante, Op. 31 No.1
Duo Concertante, Op. 31 No.2
Duo Concertante, Op. 31 No.3
Six Duos Nocturnes, Op.37
CD2
Duo Concertant, Op. 34 No.1
Duo Concertant, Op. 34 No.2
Duo Concertant, Op. 34 No.3
Duo Concertant, Op.44
CD3
Duo Concertant, Op. 35 No.1
Duo Concertant, Op. 35 No.2
Duo Concertant, Op. 35 No.3
Duo Concertant, Op. 35 No.4
Duo Concertant, Op. 35 No.5
Duo Concertant, Op. 35 No.6
CD4
Fantaisie Concertante, Op.33
Douze Valses, Op.32
CD5
Sérénade Facile, Op.36 No.1
Sérénade Facile, Op.36 No.2
Sérénade Facile, Op.36 No.3
Sérénade Facile, Op.36 No.4
Sérénade Facile, Op.36 No.5 ‘L’orage’
Sérénade Facile, Op.36 No.6
Douze Valses, Op.23
