Gaultier, Ennemond (EN)

Gaultier, Gautier Ennemond, known as Vieux Gaultier, Gaultier Le Vieux, Gaultier de Lion, Sieur de Nèves, *ca. 1575 Villette? (near Vienne, Dauphiné), †17 December 1651 Nèves (near Villette), French lutenist and composer.

At the age of 7, he became a page to the Duchess of Montmorency in Languedoc and remained in the service of this family until around 1610. It was probably then that he moved to the court of the Queen Mother, Marie de Médici. Around 1628, he performed with great success at the court of Charles I in London. In 1631, after the exile of Marie de Medici, he returned to his homeland, where after a few years he settled on his estate in Nèves. On the day of his death, he married B. Cousin, with whom he had previously lived for 16 years in concubinage. During his stay in Paris, he taught the lute to both virtuosos and aristocratic amateurs (including the queen mother herself and Cardinal Richelieu).

It is also highly likely that E. Gaultier is the author of many works bearing only his surname in the sources, especially those intended for the lute in the old tuning. The works of E. Gaultier published in the new edition – like those of Denis Gaultier, which are stylistically indistinguishable from them – mark the beginning of a mature period in the history of Rococo lute music, a period dominated by the crystallized brisé style. A characteristic feature here is the disappearance of polyphonic thinking; between the fairly consistent main melodic line and the accompanying bass, there are only short counterpoint melodies, which are rather a figuration of a chord consisting of the occurrence of individual components with a time shift. This distribution of chords is another characteristic feature here; it causes an exceptionally strong interpenetration of melodic and harmonic elements, as well as blurring the sharpness of the metrorhythmic pulsation. Ornamentation plays a significant role in the works discussed here. The composer writes out its more individual forms, while indicating the stereotypical ones (upper and lower mordent, upper and lower appoggiatura, vibrato, and various types of arpeggio) with special markings. E. Gaultier shows a preference for the low register; over longer sections, and even entire pieces, he sometimes does not use the two highest-sounding strings at all. The vast majority of notes are played on frets that do not require the player to leave the basic position, with frets 5 to 7 rarely used, and only very occasionally the 8th and 9th frets. The works attributed unequivocally to E. Gaultier in the sources (with one exception) are intended for the lute in a new tuning, which in the 17th century replaced both the old tuning and various transitional tunings. In addition to the name of the dance, or instead of it, some works by E. Gaultier and Denis Gaultier are given titles in the sources indicating that we are dealing with early examples of musical portraits.

Literature: L. de la Laurencie Les luthistes, Paris 1928; A. Tessier Ennemond Gaultier, Sieur de Nève, in: Melanges de Musicologie offerts a Lionel de La Laurencie, «Publications de la Société Française de Musicologie» II, Paris 1933.