World Première Recording (?)
Marche des Marseillois: 00:00 Var. 1: 1:24 Var. 2: 2:51
Var. 3: 4:15 Var. 4: 5:27 Var. 5: 6:52
Here’s a recording made especially for all my French friends, in order to get them in the “mood” for celebrating Bastille day tomorrow (July 14, of course).
When the French Revolution occurred in 1789, it electrified all of Europe. Many were the people in other countries who became enthusiastic about the ideas of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” that the revolutionaries preached. Of course, those who started this upheaval felt no “fraternity” for anyone who was at all connected to the aristocracy; they did not treat THEM as “equals”, nor did they allow them their “liberty”. Quite the contrary: during the “Reign of Terror” phase of the revolution, they guillotined thousands of innocent people whose only crime was having been born into the “wrong class”.
Many thinkers in Germany had their enthusiasm for the “cause” greatly dampened when the news of such excesses reached them. Christian Friedrich Ruppe probably wrote these variations before he had heard of the “Reign of Terror”. Thus he most likely was in favor of the revolution when he composed this work. No matter what one thinks of that earth-shaking period of French history, I think most musicians would agree that the revolutionaries had come up with a really good national song in the “Marseillaise”; Goethe himself (who was a talented musician, in addition to being one of Germany’s greatest writers) once expressed his admiration for the tune. No doubt that Ruppe’s variations found quite a few buyers back in the 1790s, for they are quite catchy! Ruppe was born in Salzungen (Germany), though by the 1780s he had taken up residence in Leiden (Holland).There he worked as an organist at the Lutheran church in that city, and later also took on a position at the university as music teacher, music director, and also choir director.
P.S: Before the “Marseillaise”, France had no official national anthem, though there was a song that almost reached that status: “Vive Henri IV”, on which Jan Ladislav Dussek based another fine set of variations. You can hear it at this link: [ Ссылка ] (As good as the “Marseillaise” is, I personally prefer “Vive Henri IV”: could I have been a French monarchist in a past life? Hmmm...)
– David Bolton, “The Digital Harpsichordist”
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