Faà di Bruno, Giovanni Matteo [Horatio, Orazio] 83

Foucault, Henri

(fl Paris, 1690–1719/20). French music dealer and publisher. It is not known whether he was related to earlier publishers with the same family name, none of whom was apparently involved in music printing. Like other 18th-century music dealers, Henri Foucault was associated with the corporation of haberdashers and jewellers rather than that of the booksellers. He was originally a paper seller, with a shop ‘A la règle d’or’, rue St Honoré, but seems to have branched out from this trade by 28 June 1690, when a condemnation issued by the Conseil d’Etat accused him – in association with the engraver Henri de Baussen – of contravening Christophe Ballard’s royal privilege by publishing ‘divers airs de musique’. Two years later Foucault’s name appears on the title-page of Marais’s Pièces en trio pour les flûtes, violons et dessus de viole, in association with Hurel, Bonneüil and the composer, but he is still designated simply as ‘marchand papetier’. However by 1697, in Ballard’s edition of André Campra’s L’Europe galante, he is advertised as a music dealer offering for sale manuscript copies of extracts from Lully’s operas and early ballets in six folio volumes, as well as symphonies for violin, books of harpsichord and organ music, Latin motets, leçons de ténèbres and various novelties. He also offered to buy old operas and to copy music. Foucault thus functioned as a link between the composer and printer (using the services of various engravers, notably Baussen, Claude Roussel and F. du Plessy); he occasionally risked publication at his own expense, but more often shared the expense with the composer.

Foucault was the first music publisher seriously to threaten the Ballard monopoly. The Ballards, who had long dominated movable-type printing in France, had already encountered increasing competition from engraving. Between two collections of Airs sérieux et à boire by J.-B. de Bousset, published by Christophe Ballard in 1705–6 (F-Pn Rés. 1735 II), is a catalogue of printed music sold ‘A la règle d’or’, and this, together with the aforementioned advertisement of 1697, suggests that the rivals had reconciled their differences and were collaborating. In 1702 Foucault had collaborated with Baussen and Roussel in publishing a collection of airs by J.-B. de Bousset; in 1709 he republished this collection along with a second volume in association with Christophe Ballard’s sister-in-law (Pierre Ballard’s widow). A catalogue published by Christophe’s son J.-B.-C. Ballard in 1719 still advertises Foucault’s shop. The links between the two families were reinforced on 2 July 1724 when Henri Foucault’s successor François Boivin married Christophe Ballard’s granddaughter. Foucault must have died some time between 17 October 1719 and 1720, when his widow’s name appears on the title-page of a collection of motets by André Campra. On 15 July 1721 his widow sold the shop and music business in the rue St Honoré to François Boivin, who traded there with his uncle, Michel Pignolet de Montéclair.

The catalogue of 1706 advertises sonatas by Corelli, Jean-François Dandrieu, François Duval and Michely, trios by Michel de La Barre, harpsichord books by D’Anglebert, Chambonnières, Lebègue, Gaspard Leroux and Louis Marchand, organ books by Jacques Boyvin, Gaspard Corrette, Pierre-Claude Foucquet and Lebègue, motets by Bernier, Brossard, Campra, J.-F. Lochon, J.B. Morin and Suffret, vocal anthologies (Parodies bachiques and Brunettes) and theoretical treatises by L’Affilard and Masson. Foucault also published violin sonatas by Mascitti (1704, 1706–7, 1711 and 1714) and Henry Eccles (ii) (1720; a second set was issued by Boivin in 1723), two books of motets and six books of Cantates profanes à 1 & 2 voix by Bernier (1703–18; two further ones by Boivin in 1723), a collection of motets by G.A. Guido (1707), a Livre de musique d’église by Alexandre de Villeneuve (1719), and two sets of cantatas by T.-L. Bourgeois.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

G. Lepreux: Gallia typographica, série parisienne (Paris, 1911)

A. Devriès: Edition et commerce de la musique gravée à Paris dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle (Geneva, 1976)

FRANK DOBBINS

Fouchécourt, Jean-Paul

(b Blanzy, 30 Aug 1958). French tenor. He trained as a conductor and saxophonist before turning to singing. He quickly acquired a reputation in French Baroque music, singing principal haute-contre roles in Lully, Campra and Rameau, most notably with Les Arts Florissants under William Christie. He subsequently toured the world in opera from Monteverdi to Mozart, and more recently has undertaken light tenor roles in 19th- and 20th-century repertory such as Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann at the Metropolitan, New York, and Ravel's one-act operas throughout Europe. Despite his versatility, he remains best known as an exponent of French dramatic music, and his fluent, sensual delivery, acute theatrical sense and command of refined nuance have adorned many performances and recordings of works by Lully (Phaëton and Atys), Mondonville, Campra, Charpentier and Rameau (Les indes galantes and Hippolyte et Aricie). Fouchécourt's comic virtuosity and mimicry in Rameau's Platée, which he sang with the Covent Garden Company in 1997–8, have been exceptionally well received. He is also an admired concert singer and a sensitive exponent of mélodies.

JONATHAN FREEMAN-ATTWOOD

Foucquet [Fouquet].

French family of organists. They occupied the post at St Eustache, Paris, for more than a century (1681–1783); a detailed genealogical table is given in MGG1. The earliest member of the family known to us is Gilles Foucquet (d 1646), organist of St Laurent c1622 and of St Honoré from 1630.

(1) Antoine Foucquet (i)

(2) Pierre Foucquet

(3) Antoine Foucquet (ii)

(4) Pierre-Claude Foucquet

Both Pierre-Claude's sons held their father's post at St Honoré. The elder, François-Pierre-Charles Foucquet (1726–65), received the reversion on 4 March 1743. Louis Marc (d after 1790) succeeded his brother as reversioner and occupied the post after the latter’s death until 1780, when he resigned for reasons of health. He had obtained the reversion of the position of organist at St Victor on 11 July 1755, but on his father's death the chapter decided to open the post to competition (26 February 1772).

Nothing is known of the last Foucquet at St Eustache, Marie-Louis, except that he occupied that post before 1783.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BurneyFI

GerberL

MGG1 (E. Lockspeiser)

Registres des privilèges, F-Pn

F.W. Marpurg: Historisch-kritische Beyträge zur Aufnahme der Musik (Berlin, 1754–78/R), i, 460

De Jèze: Tableau de Paris pour l'année 1759 (Paris, 1759), 133, 135, 138, 206

M. Brenet: ‘La librairie musicale en France de 1653 à 1790’, SIMG, viii (1906–7), 401–66, esp. 446

G. Cucuel: ‘Quelques documents sur la librairie musicale en France au XVIIIe siècle’, SIMG, xiii (1911–12), 385–92

M. Frécot: La vie et l'oeuvre de Claude-Benigne Balbastre (diss., U. of Paris, Sorbonne, c1950), i, 68ff

R. Machard: ‘Les musiciens en France au temps de Jean-Philippe Rameau’, RMFC, xi (1971), 5–177

J. Gachet: L'oeuvre pour clavecin de P.C. Foucquet (diss., U. of Paris, Sorbonne, 1972)

JACQUELINE GACHET

Foucquet

(1) Antoine Foucquet (i)

(d Paris, 1708). His relationship to Gilles is unknown. He was organist to Queen Marie-Thérèse, wife of Louis XIV, around 1669, and probably succeeded Nicolas de Grigny at the basilica of St Denis. On 1 March 1681 he was appointed organist of St Eustache, and in 1696 he conferred the reversion of this post upon his son (2) Pierre. He had two other sons, one of them the organist (3) Antoine (ii).

Foucquet

(2) Pierre Foucquet

(d Paris, late 1734 or early 1735). Son of (1) Antoine Foucquet. He succeeded Louis Marchand at St Honoré (17 Jan 1707) while he was still reversioner at St Eustache, but resigned on 18 June 1708. His successor, Piroye, was dismissed on 22 February 1712, and Pierre then became the regular deputy of his son, (4) Pierre-Claude, the new titulaire.

Three Airs sérieux et à boire (Ballard, Nov 1703, Dec 1705 and Feb 1711) can be attributed to him. He was one of the first French composers to write sonatas after Italian models; his four violin sonatas (two solo and two trio) mentioned in the manuscript Catalogue de la bibliothèque de S. de Brossard are unfortunately lost.

Foucquet

(3) Antoine Foucquet (ii)

(d Paris, before 1740). Son of (1) Antoine Foucquet. He obtained the reversion at St Laurent in 1707, and was succeeded in 1726 by N.G. Forqueray. He must have been organist of St Victor around 1695, since he later handed on the post to his nephew (4) Pierre-Claude.

Foucquet

(4) Pierre-Claude Foucquet

(b Paris, 1694 or early 1695; d Paris, 13 Feb 1772). Organist and composer, son of (2) Pierre Foucquet and Charlotte Rolland. He was the most illustrious representative of this family: he took over from Piroye at St Honoré on the latter's dismissal and succeeded his uncle Antoine at the Abbey of St Victor (before 1740). He is first mentioned as organist of St Eustache in documents following his mother's death (1741). On 18 May (or 18 June) 1758 he was appointed organist of the royal chapel, replacing Dagincourt, and on 17 April 1761 he succeeded Jollage at Notre Dame for the October quarter, his colleagues being Daquin, Balbastre and Armand-Louis Couperin. The inventory after his death shows him to have lived in some comfort. His wife, Cécile Télinge, by whom he had six children (four daughters and two sons), survived him by almost four years. Biographical data are sparse and his life was certainly very quiet. If his official functions at Notre Dame and especially in the royal chapel brought him some recognition, it is worth noting that apparently he never appeared at the Concert Spirituel or in any public concert.

Foucquet's surviving works are few and include no organ music. Although the three harpsichord books were published between 1749 and 1751, the clear evolution between the first and last suggests that they were composed well before, as does the preface to book 1:

The special study that I have made of the organ and harpsichord impels me to share with the public the fruit of my labours. I shall be happy if this first essay finds favour. The harpsichord as well as the organ can express all the things that good music should portray. I have tried to represent them in several pieces which I have composed and which I shall publish presently, to prevent the faulty copies that exist from spreading further.

The first book comprises a preface, a method for learning the keyboard in one lesson, tables of ornamentation and scale fingerings, and eight pieces with descriptive titles. Compared with those of Couperin, Rameau, Dandrieu and Corrette, Foucquet's ornament table is the most informative. His fingerings show him to be an experienced teacher. The pieces which follow, all in G, are less original than those of the other books. Le feu is notable for its frankly descriptive style and its virtuosity.

The second book is composed of six pieces in F and seven in A, all with such evocative titles as La marche des pèlerins de Cythère, Le passe-temps and La destrade, which serve to indicate the spirit in which the piece is to be played. In this collection the rondo form is used frequently, including varied rondos like La laborieuse and rondos with two themes like Soeur Agnès, anticipating the rondo-sonata. The third book is in three parts: Les forgerons, a theme and variations, is followed by two groups of pieces in G and C-c, each containing an allemande remarkable for its ample and majestic style and complex harmony. A minuet in G at the end of the book bears no relation to the rest of the contents.

While remaining faithful to harpsichord sonority, Foucquet was not insensitive to modern tendencies and took advantage of such pianistic devices as arpeggiations, long rising and falling scales, and chord effects. The evolution from old-fashioned, short binary forms to new, more highly developed ternary forms can be seen in his works. Certain of his pieces such as Soeur Agnès, L'Hortense and the allemandes deserve to be brought out of oblivion to illuminate this particularly happy period of French musical history.

WORKS

La belle Sylvie me dit chaque jour, 2vv, bc, in Ballard: Récueil d'airs sérieux et à boire (Paris, 1719)

Les caractères de la paix, pièces de clavecin, op.1 (Paris, 1749/R)

Second livre de pièces de clavecin (Paris, 1750–51/R)

Les forgerons, le concert des faunes et autres pièces de clavecin, IIIe livre (Paris, 1751/R)

Minuet in G, in Musikalisches Allerley von verschiedenen Tonkünstlern, ix (Berlin, 1763)