Brigitte FRANÇOIS-SAPPEY, Between France and Germany, Boëly and strict composition

Abstract

Born of a lineage of singers at the Chapelle royale, formed by a father also harp
master to the princesses of France and theorist of Ramist obedience, your Boëly
leaves the national paths to take those more German of pure music, up to the point
that he will be taken for an avant-garde Beethovenian, then for “Bach risen from the
dead”. Fearing neither the word nor the label, he piles up composition in serious or
strict style. It seems possible today, through Boëly who dedicates his works to
personalities of the Germanic or Germanophile world, to establish a parallel between a French “seriousness” and the alter deutscher Ernst. And to hear perhaps a
resonance between the works of the forty years old French composer and the Stücke
of the young Mendelssohn, who had studied in Berlin with Zelter and Berger and
who was fostered in Paris by Marie Bigot and Pierre Baillot. The Sieben
Characterstücke op. 7 of the younger seem to resound a remote echo of the elder’s
Suites dans le style ancient op. 16.