BODIN DE BOISMORTIER (Joseph)

Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689- 1755)

• Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, baroque composer (instrumental and vocal music, cantatas, ballet operas), was one of the first desiring to live from his music without having recourse to a patron.
• Indeed, once obtained the royal privilege to publish and sell his works to the public (1738-1750), the breadth and success of his compositions (one hundred and thirty volumes listed) enabled him to live in comfort, without as much to occupy an official position (court, chapel).
• It was in 1700 that the Bodin dit de Boismortier family left Thionville to settle in Metz. Joseph, aged about ten, received musical instruction there from Joseph Valette de Montigny (1665-1738), a composer famous for his motets, who taught him song and flute.
• In 1713, Boismortier followed his master to Perpignan and obtained the post of receiver of the Régie Royale des Tabacs for the troops of Roussillon. In 1720 he married Marie Valette, daughter of a wealthy Catalan goldsmith and (distant) niece of his teacher. From 1724, Bodin de Boismortier, lived in Paris and began a career as a successful composer.
• Much of his work is written for the flute. She contributed to the development and improvement of this instrument (her treatise Principles of the flute, 1740, is now lost). Other instruments are not forgotten either: bass sonatas, harpsichord suites, quartet sonatas, works for oboe and recorder, "trendy" instruments: bagpipe and viola, viola top….
• Boismortier composed several operas for the Royal Academy of Music (including Les Voyages de l'Amour, opera ballet, 1736, Daphnis et Chloé, pastorale, 1747) and a few motets intended for the Concert Spirituel (including the grand motet, Fugit Nox, 1741). His compositions, much appreciated by the Parisian public, open the doors of the most famous salons and fortune.
• Joseph Bodin de Boismortier died in 1755 in his residence at La Gâtinellerie, in Roissy-en-Brie.
• © Didier Chagnas