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'The “Orchestral” French Cantata (1706–1730): Performance, Edition and Classification of a Neglected Repertory'

The so-called _cantate françoise_ of the early eighteenth century is generally regarded as vocal chamber music, and nowadays the obbligato lines in such works are thus almost invariably performed by one instrument to a part. Sadler’s article nevertheless produces strong contextual and musical evidence to show that a large number of these cantatas – almost one-third of the repertory – were designed for performance with an orchestral accompaniment that included multiple string players. Furthermore, the article demonstrates that many cantatas were published in the _partition réduite_ (‘reduced score’) format characteristic of published editions of French operas, in which the inner parts were customarily omitted. Indeed, several of these cantatas are described in printed sources or in press reports as being ‘à grande symphonie’, a term which, according to J.J. Rousseau’s _Dictionnaire de musique_ (1768), indicates large forces that specifically include violas. The consequences of these findings for the present-day performance of such works are considerable, since most cantatas published as _partitions réduites_ require the editorial reconstruction of viola parts. Even so, many of the airs in these scores can be shown to be textually complete; Sadler therefore provides editors with guidelines, based on an analysis of French orchestral practice of the period, on how to distinguish between ‘reduced’ and self-contained scoring.