Works
D'Anglebert's principal work is a collection of four harpsichord suites published in 1689 in Paris under the title Pièces de clavecin. The volume is dedicated to Marie Anne de Bourbon, a talented amateur harpsichordist who later studied under François Couperin. Apart from its contents, which represents some of the finest achievements of the French harpsichord school (and shows, among other things, D'Anglebert's thorough mastery of counterpoint and his substantial contribution to the genre of unmeasured prelude), Pièces de clavecin is historically important on several other counts. The collection was beautifully engraved with utmost care, which set a new standard for music engraving. Furthermore, D'Anglebert's table of ornaments is the most sophisticated before Couperin's (which only appeared a quarter of a century later, in 1713). It formed the basis of J.S. Bach's own table of ornaments (Bach copied D'Anglebert's table ca. 1710), and provided a model for other composers, including Rameau. Finally, D'Anglebert's original pieces are presented together with his arrangements of Lully's orchestral works. D'Anglebert's arrangements are, once again, some of the finest pieces in that genre, and show him experimenting with texture to achieve an orchestral sonority.
Most of D'Anglebert's other pieces survive in two manuscripts, one of which contains, apart from the usual dances, harpsichord arrangements of lute pieces by composers such as Ennemond Gaultier, Denis Gaultier, and René Mesangeau. They are unique pieces, for no such arrangements by other major French harpsichord composers are known. The second manuscript contains even more experimental pieces by D'Anglebert, in which he tried to invent a tablature-like notation for keyboard music to simplify the notation of style brisé textures.
D'Anglebert's only surviving organ works are five fugues and a quatuor (an old French term for a four-voice contrapuntal organ piece). The fugues all elaborate on variations of the same subject, thus forming an extended ricercare (or a miniature The Art of the Fugue). The quatuor, one of the few surviving pieces of its kind, is built around three themes derived from the Kyrie Cunctipotens; it is to be played on three keyboards and the pedal keyboard.
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