Jean-Francois Tapray (1738/39?-1800?)

Gary Smith and Dennis Pajot

                                    French composer, teacher and organist.  Jean-Francois Tapray was born in Nomeny, France (it is believed) in 1738. His father was Jan Taperet, who was also a well regarded teacher and organist in France.  Jan Taperet had six children, four of which were organists and teachers.  These were his sons Jean-Baptiste, Claude-Antoinette and Henri-Philibert.  The latter son played for the Royal Family at Versailles in 1755 and was the best-known Tapray organist.  It is only from a newspaper article written about him that we have a mention of his brother Jean-Francois writing an organ concerto at age 18 in 1757, thus giving us the only information on his probable year of birth.   

Jean-Francois studied music and organ in his early years and performed around France until 1765, when he became organist at Besancon Cathedral. He had begun composing around 1758, issuing that year a set of six concerti for organ or harpsichord, with strings.  Tapray spent the summers of 1767 and 1768 in Paris, no doubt looking for advancement.  He eventually (in 1772) settled in Paris, becoming the 'maitre de clavecin' and organist at the Ecole Royale Militaire. The chapel there was attached to the Ordres Royaux Militaires et Hospitaliers de Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel et de Saint-Lazare de Jerusalem in 1779, and Jean-Francois retained this name in his primary title for the rest of his life.  He did, though, add “former” when he resigned from this post in 1786 due to poor health.

On April 10, 1778, he performed in a symphonie concertante by Navoigille at the Concert Spirituel in Paris, his only recorded appearance there.  Mozart was in Paris at this time, and very likely attended this concert. There was another concert by the Concert Spirituel on April 12th as well; which was the one where Mozart's Symphonie Concertante was to have premiered, but instead Cambini's latest one with the same four players that Mozart wrote his for, played in its stead.

During his time in Paris, he performed, composed and became an excellent teacher of harpsichord and piano. Grétry, for one, chose him to instruct one of his daughters in keyboard technique around the time of his retirement from the Ecole Militaire.  He was listed primarily as a teacher from that point on, issuing a well-received keyboard method for teaching piano (or clavier) in 1789.  He left his position at the Ecole Militaire in 1786 due to poor health, and soon retired to Fontainebleau. Here he is reported to have conducted at least two concerts (1793, 1794) as well as continuing to compose.  Virtually all of his works are for harpsichord and piano, spanning the era, which saw the transition of the one instrument to the other.

In Fontainebleau, Jean-Francois gradually faded from the musical stage.  His last works date from 1798, after which very little information is to be found on him.  The first biography on him (dating from 1811) does not indicate clearly if he was still alive then.  He is not listed as a living relative on his sister’s death certificate from 1815.  One claim is made that he died in 1819, but nothing has been discovered to verify this point.

Jean-Francois Tapray, as did most Parisian composers of the time, made no significant stylistic distinction between composing for harpsichords and pianos.  He was the most published French member of the Paris school of keyboard composer/players in the two decades leading up to the Revolution.  This was a time when Germans and Alsatians dominated this field (hence one reason Mozart came to Paris). His work is musically simple compared to most of his contemporaries, but the best of it features good quick movements coupled with a songlike beauty in the slower ones. Perhaps recognizing the need to create interest in the face of harmonic and figural monotony, Tapray often called for unusual timbres in many of his works (harpsichord, piano and violin as soloists in the op. 9 Symphonie concertante, for example). 

The style of the times called for the keyboard to normally be accompanied, almost always carries the thematic material (which means that there is little meaningful division of the music into solo or chamber or orchestral categories), and to seemingly spin out improvisatory charming melodies over figured accompaniments, with minimal development and simple modulations. This style found a paying public in France; a much smaller one in the German states.  In fact, the music periodical Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung singled Tapray out in 1800, publishing a lengthy, scathing article, analyzing his last work (opus 29; the only one known in Germany).  Holding Mozart up as the ideal, this article lamented the lack of tonal variety, formal coherence and “correctness” in modulating passages. In his article on Tapray, Barry Brook writes that he "…was a composer of limited gifts; except for a few moments, his music lacks imagination and organic unity."

Tapray's compositions include numerous works, largely for harpsichord or piano. His Symphonie concertantes are all for Harpsichord and Piano with Orchestra; Op.8 (1778); Op.9 (includes a violin soloist, 1778); Op.13 (1781), and Op.15 (c.1782/83). He also composed 3 symphonies, 7 concerti for keyboard, some 68 sonatas of various types, 4 quartets for keyboard, and numerous variations and keyboard arrangements of operatic works.

Mozart Comparisons:

In the mood to listen to one of the out of the way composers in my collection, I put on an old LP of a Symphonie Concertante in Eb for Piano, Harpsichord, Violin and Orchestra Op.9 of Jean-Francois Tapray. When the 3rd movement started I was rather taken back. I was listening to a familiar Mozart piece. Sure enough, I listened again and the Rondo (A) theme of this movement was the same as the 5th movement to Mozart's Divertimento K251. The LP notes by Carl de Nys (on a Musical Heritage Society album from 1973, originally recorded by Schwann) stated the Symphonie Concertante first appeared in 1778 and bears a dedication to Mademoiselle de Montlevaus.  In his Preface to "4 Symphonie Concertantes by Tapray" Bruce Gustafson stated this Op.9 was published in Paris in 1778. The New Grove and Barry Brook's article on Paris Sinfonia Concertantes also give this date.

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Mozart's Divertimento K251 was written in July 1776. It is thought to have been written for his sister's, Nannerl, 25th birthday on July 30--or her name day on July 26. It consists of 6 movements, the last being a "Marcia alla francese". As K251 was not issued in Mozart's lifetime and there is no reason to believe it was ever heard out of Salzburg, it would not be possible for Tapray to have used K251 as a model for his Symphonie Concertante theme. And I don't see how it could be possible how Mozart could have used Tapray as a model, even if Op.9 was written a few years before it was published.

But there could be a different connection here. Mozart's last movement as stated is entitled "Marca alle francese". Perhaps Nannerl was in some type of "French" mood and Mozart's last movement for the Divertimento for her was a Rondo with its "A" theme being from a French folk song. Wolfgang then added to the French flavor by finishing off the Divertimento with the "Marca alla francese". The French-theme music came back to him in July 1778, when from Paris he wrote to his sister "I am sorry not to be able to send you a present of a musical composition, such as I did a few years ago". Perhaps he heard the Tapray Symphonie Concertante and the theme made him think of the Divertimento for Nannerl.

Certainly all in the above paragraph is speculation, but food for thought.

Regarding the Barry Brook comment that Tapray had limited gifts and lacks imagination. Brook certainly was much more familiar with his works than I, but I do have the LP, which contains in addition to the Symphonie Concertante an Organ concerto (probably Op. 3 or one of the six in Op. 1) and "Symphonie in G, Op.12", which is in reality a Harpsichord Concerto. These works fit the Brook description. However I have a French import CD that includes 4 chamber music works for piano and various instruments. These pieces are much more imaginative and charming. Especially a Quartet for Clavecin, Flute, Viola and Cello in G Op.19/6, that is very "Mozartean" (It appears to have appeared in Paris about 1784). As a matter of fact the closing theme of the first section of the first movement of this quartet bears a very striking resemblance to the first movement theme of Mozart's Flute Quartet K285b. If anyone has access to these compositions take a listen, I guarantee you will be amazed at the similarities.

Dennis is almost certainly correct; it is very doubtful Tapray could have "borrowed" Mozart's theme as the work was a Salzburg family production piece. This would almost certainly have to mean that there was a "common" source for both composers. It may be a folk song, or perhaps a current popular song that was making the rounds, or even some published work both composers had access to and found appealing.

For that matter, K.285b is not totally free of questions itself. An article in the Mozart Jahrbuch of 1997 by Roger Lustig argues that this work is not by Mozart in the form known to us, and is most likely an arranged job by the publisher. All we in fact have of this two-movement work (the second movement is a re-arranged version of the 6th movement of the "Gran Partita") by Mozart is a short sketch of this first movement amounting to some ten measures. Is it possible Mozart remembered this work from Tapray and sketched out some parts for use later? Or is this sketch one Mozart made upon hearing the work for the first time, back in Paris?  A minor mystery, this.

Sources:

Gustafson, Bruce   Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era:  Jean-Francois Tapray Four Symphonies Concertantes for Harpsichord and Piano with Orchestra ad libitum Oxford, 1995

Nys, Carl de LP liner notes on a Musical Heritage Society album (originally recorded by Schwann) of the Symphonie Concertante in Eb for Piano, Harpsichord, Violin and Orchestra Op.9 of Jean-Francois Tapray  1973  record number MHS 1627 (LP)

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