Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer (ca. 1705 – 1755) was a
French composer and harpsichordist. Born in Turin,
Royer went to Paris in 1725, and in 1734 became maître
de musique des enfants de France, responsible for the
musical education of the children of the king, Louis
XV. Together with the violinist Jean-Joseph Cassanéa
de Mondonville, Royer directed the Concert Spirituel,
starting in 1748. Royer was at the Paris Opéra during
the 1730s and the 1750s, writing six operas himself, of
which the b...(+)
Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer (ca. 1705 – 1755) was a
French composer and harpsichordist. Born in Turin,
Royer went to Paris in 1725, and in 1734 became maître
de musique des enfants de France, responsible for the
musical education of the children of the king, Louis
XV. Together with the violinist Jean-Joseph Cassanéa
de Mondonville, Royer directed the Concert Spirituel,
starting in 1748. Royer was at the Paris Opéra during
the 1730s and the 1750s, writing six operas himself, of
which the best known is the ballet-héroïque Zaïde,
reine de Grenade. In 1753 he acquired the prestigious
position of music director of the chambre du roi (the
king's chamber), and in the same year was named
director of the Royal Opera orchestra. He died in
Paris.
Royer is particularly known for his often extravagant
and virtuosic harpsichord music, especially "La Marche
des Scythes," which ends his first book of harpsichord
pieces. Why the harpsichord works of Pancrace Royer are
not performed more often is a mystery. His one book of
Pièces de clavecin, published in 1746, is full of
spark and variety, ranging from the dulcet “La
Zaïde” to the robust jollity of “Les matelots”,
and from the eloquence of “La Sensible” to the
dizzyingly quirky virtuosity of “Le vertigo”. And
while it is Rameau who rightly dominates our knowledge
of the musical times in which Royer lived as
harpsichord teacher to Louis XV’s daughters, composer
of operas and director of Paris’s prestigious Concert
Spirituel, as a keyboard composer in the imaginative,
full-bodied mould of someone like Forqueray, Royer need
not be considered as totally blotted out by the more
famous composer’s shadow.
In music theory, a leading-note (La Sensible) is a note
or pitch which resolves or "leads" to a note one
semitone higher or lower, being a lower and upper
leading-tone, respectively. Typically, the leading tone
refers to the seventh scale degree of a major scale
(scale degree 7), a major seventh above the tonic. In
the movable do solfège system, the leading-tone is
sung as ti.
A leading-tone triad is a triad built on the seventh
scale degree in a major key (viio), while a
leading-tone seventh chord is a seventh chord built on
the seventh scale degree (either viiø7 or viiø7).
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading-tone).
Although originally scored for Harpsichord, I created
this Interpretation of the "La Sensible" from "Pièces
de Clavecin" for Concert (Pedal) Harp.
SHEET MUSIC