J.S. Bach and the French Baroque

During Bach’s composing years, French style and culture were highly influential in Germany, considered to add a refined touch to fashion, music, and more. So it is that French grace notes, like the rhythms of court dances, found their way into the music of a composer who never visited the country. Yet, as always, in his habit of exploring other genres and composers—he was known as a particular admirer of Couperin—Bach emerged as a distinctive voice. “What I call the French foam in Sebastian Bach’s music cannot—I must admit—be so readily lifted off that you can lay your hands on it. It is like ether: it permeates all, yet it is intangible,” German composer Karl Freidrich Zelter wrote in 1827, adding “his style is typically Bach, as is everything about him.”  

In that aspect, Bach was joined by Jean-Marie LeClair, a dancer, violinist, and composer credited with establishing the French school of violin performance. Leclair discovered the music of Italian and other composers during his extensive travels, and in blending them into a style of his own, has been called the French Bach. Conductor Théotime Langlois de Swarte contrasts the contemporaries as the soloist in twin A-minor concertos, and leads Les Elèmens by Jean-Fery Rebel. Set as music for a ballet based on the Creation, Rebel’s instrumentation injects an avant-garde sense of chaos unusual for his time.