Professor Graham Sadler
Professor Sadler is known internationally as an authority on French music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. After studying at the Universities of Nottingham and London and the Royal College of Music, he joined the Music Department at the University of Hull, where he remained as lecturer, reader and eventually professor until 2007. In addition to his part-time professorial appointment at Birmingham Conservatoire, he is currently a visiting Research Fellow in the Faculty of Music at Oxford University.
Areas of Expertise
French Music of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, especially Rameau, Charpentier, Lully, Campra and Couperin; opera and keyboard music.
Performance practice
Critical editing
Qualifications
BMus, Class I, University of Nottingham Graduate Certificate of Education, University of London PhD, University of Hull.
Memberships
- Emeritus Professor, University of Hull
- Research Fellow (part-time), Faculty of Music, University of Oxford
- International Editorial Adviser, Early Music (OUP)
- Editorial Committee, Jean-Philippe Rameau: Opera Omnia (Kassel: Bärenreiter)
- Advisory Committee GRIMAS (Université Paris-Sorbonne)
- Editorial Board Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music
- Member of the Royal Musical Association and the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music.
- Honorary President, International Rameau Ensemble
Research
Current research projects include the preparation of a monograph on Jean-Philippe Rameau and the European keyboard tradition; articles and chapters on Lully, Charpentier, François Couperin, Rameau, and the Édition classique published by Durand et Cie.
Graham would like to hear from any potential research students with interests in his research areas. Projects previously supervised to completion have included a significant number on the French Baroque topics.
Publications
Selected Publications
Books and critical editions
(ed. with Shirley Thompson and Jonathan Williams), The Operas of Jean-Philippe Rameau: Genesis, Staging, Reception [Ashgate Interdisciplinary Essays on Opera] (Routledge), in preparation.
(ed.) Jean-Philippe Rameau, Zoroastre (1756 version), vol. IV/26 of Jean-Philippe Rameau: Opera Omnia (Kassel: Bärenreiter/Société Jean-Philippe Rameau), at press.
(ed. with Julien Dubruque) Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, La Muse de l’Opéra, ou Les Caractères lyriques (Versailles: Éditions du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, 2017), 56 pp.
(ed. with Sylvie Bouissou and Solveig Serre) Rameau, entre art et science (Paris: École des Chartes, 2016), 554 pp.
The Rameau Compendium (The Boydell Press, 2014), xi + 269 pp.; revised 2nd edition, 2017, 272 pp.
(ed.) Jean-Philippe Rameau: Zaïs, vol. IV/15 of the Jean-Philippe Rameau: Opera Omnia (Kassel: Bärenreiter/Société Jean-Philippe Rameau, 2011), full score (lxiv + 400 pp.), vocal score (356 pp.)
(ed.) Masterpieces of the French Baroque: Nine Motets from the Century of Louis XIV (London: Faber Music, 2000), 32 pp.
French Baroque Opera: A Reader (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), ix + 160 pp. [with Caroline Wood]; enlarged 2nd edition (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), xiv + 214 pp.
(ed.) Jean-Philippe Rameau, Zoroastre (1749 version), vol. IV/19 of Jean-Philippe Rameau: Opera Omnia (Paris: Billaudot, 1999), full score (xcv + 438 pp.), vocal score (302 pp.)
The New Grove French Baroque Masters (London: Macmillan, 1986), 318 pp. [with James R. Anthony et al.]
(ed.) Jean-Philippe Rameau, “Les Indes galantes”, the composer’s transcriptions for harpsichord (London: Oxford University Press, 1980), 34 pp.1
(ed.) Jean-Marie Leclair “l’aîné”, Première recréation, op. 6 (London: Oxford University Press, 1979), 35 pp.
(ed.) Jean-Marie Leclair “l’aîné”, Two Trio Sonatas, op. 13 nos 1 & 2 (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 26 pp.
(ed.) André Campra, Operatic Airs, The Baroque Operatic Arias, vol. 2 (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), x + 94 pp.
Articles and chapters in journals, symposia, dictionaries etc.
‘Un groupe d’emprunts aux Quattro stagioni de Vivaldi dans Anacréon (1757) de Rameau et Bernard’, in Raphaëlle Legrand and Rémy-Michel Trotier (eds), Atelier Rameau: les actes de ballet, at press.
‘Agostino Steffani and the French Style’, in Agostino Steffani: Europäischer Komponist und hannoverscher Diplomat der Leibniz-Zeit, ed. Colin Timms, Claudia Kaufold and Nicole Strohmann, at press.
‘Saint-Saëns, d’Indy and the Rameau Œuvres complètes: New Light on the Zoroastre Editorial Project (1914)’, in Deborah Mawer (ed.), Historical Interplay in French Music and Culture, (Abingdon: Routledge), at press.
‘When Scarlatti met Rameau? Reflections on a Probable Encounter in the 1720s’, in The Worlds of Harpsichord and Organ: Liber Amicorum David Fuller, ed. Bruce Gustafson (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press), at press.
'Le ballet figuré chez Cahusac: hidden implications of a stage direction in Zaïs (1748) by Rameau’, in Thomas Soury and Alexandre de Cran (eds.), De ‘L’Europe galante’ de Campra à ‘La Caravane du Caire’ de Grétry : les métamorphoses du ballet en un genre majeur de l’art lyrique français (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles), at press.
‘La Maga et les bergers: quelques emprunts génériques à l’opéra vénitien dans les motets dramatiques de Marc-Antoine Charpentier’, in Catherine Cessac (ed.), Les Histoires sacrées de Marc-Antoine Charpentier: une histoire de genre (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), pp. 125-40.
‘Rameau, Cahusac and the rituals of French freemasonry: curious parallels between Zoroastre and a contemporary masonic exposure’, in Sylvie Bouissou, Graham Sadler and Solveig Serre (eds), Rameau: entre art et science (Paris: École des Chartes, 2016), pp. 117-32.
‘The inner string parts in the operas of Lully: authorship, function and evolution’, in Les Cordes de l’orchestre français sous le règne de Louis XIV: instruments, répertoires et singularités, ed. Florence Gétreau and Jean Duron (Paris: Éditions Vrin, 2015), pp. 219–40.
‘La Bibliothèque musicale du Dr Charles Burney’, in Catherine Massip et al. (ed.), Collectionner la musique: érudits collectionneurs (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 99-115.
‘“Even good Homer nods”: Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Remarques sur les Messes à 16 parties d’Italie and his copy of Beretta’s Missa Mirabiles elationes maris’, in Bulletin Charpentier, 5 (2015), pp. 3-28.
‘The Italian Roots of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Chromatic Harmony’, in Europäische Musiker in Venedig, Rom und Neapel 1650-1750 / Les musiciens européens à Venise, Rome et Naples 1650-1750 / Musicisti europei a Venezia, Roma e Napoli 1650-1750, ed. Anne-Madeleine Goulet and Gesa zur Nieden (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2015), pp. 546–70 [with Shirley Thompson].
‘The dramatic motets of Marc-Antoine Charpentier: a “foyer d’italianisme” within the liturgical context’, La musique d’Église et ses cadres de création dans la France d’Ancien Régime, ed. Cécile Davy-Rigaux (Florence: Olschki, 2014), pp. 159–74.
(trans.) Denis Herlin, ‘“Souvent dans le plus doux sort”: Notes on a Newly-discovered Autograph Letter and Drinking Song by François Couperin’, Early Music, xli (2013), pp. 393-401.
‘Adapting an Italian style and genre: Charpentier and the falsobordone’, in Musique à Rome au XVIIe siècle, Caroline Giron-Panel and Anne-Madeleine Goulet (Rome: École française de Rome, 2012), pp. 405-422.
‘Identifier les cantates « orchestrales » d’André Campra: l’implication des interprètes et des éditeurs’, in Itinéraires d’André Campra (1660-1744): d’Aix à Versailles, de l’Église à l’Opéra, ed. Catherine Cessac (Wavre: Mardaga, 2012), pp. 371-389.
‘Charpentier’s Void Notation: The Italian Background and its Implications’, in New Perspectives on Marc-Antoine Charpenter, ed. Shirley Thompson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 31-61.
‘Rameau, Jean-Philippe’, in The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia, ed. Annette Landgraf and David Vickers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 519.
‘The “Orchestral” French Cantata (1706–1730): Performance, Edition and Classification of a Neglected Repertory’, in Aspects of the Secular Cantata in Late Baroque Italy, ed. Michael Talbot (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009), pp. 201-30.
‘From Themes to Variations: Rameau’s debt to Handel’, in“L’Esprit français” und die Musik Europas: Entstehung, Einfluß und Grenzen einer aesthetischen Doktrin, ed. Michelle Biget and Rainer Schmusch (Hildesheim: Olms, 2007), pp. 592-607.
‘Idiosyncrasies in Charpentier’s Continuo Figuring: their Significance for Editors and Performers’, Les Manuscrits autographes de Marc-Antoine Charpentier, ed. Catherine Cessac (Wavre: Mardaga, 2006), pp. 137-156.
‘The French Baroque Orchestra: Lully, Charpentier, Couperin’, in From Renaissance to Baroque: Change in Instruments and Instrumental Music in the Seventeenth Century, ed. Jonathan Wainwright and Peter Holman (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 271-273.
‘A Philosophy Lesson with François Couperin? Notes on a Newly-discovered Canon’, Early Music, xxxii/4 (2004) pp. 541-547.
Numerous articles for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd edition, London: Macmillan, 2001).
‘The basse continue in Lully’s Operas: Evidence Old and New’, in Quellenstudien zu Jean-Baptiste Lully/L’Œuvre de Lully: Études des sources – Hommage à Lionel Sawkins, ed. Jérôme de La Gorce and Herbert Schneider (Hildesheim: Olms, 1999) pp. 382-397.
‘Marc-Antoine Charpentier and the “basse continue”’, Basler Jahrbuch für historische Musikpraxis, xviii (1994), pp. 9-30 [with Shirley Thompson].
24 articles for The Viking Opera Guide, ed. Amanda Holden (London: Viking, 1993).
‘Vincent d’Indy and the Rameau Œuvres complètes: A Case of Forgery?’, Early Music, xxi/3 (1993), pp. 415-421.
31 articles for The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1992).
‘A Re-examination of Rameau’s Self-borrowings’, in Jean-Baptiste Lully and the Music of the French Baroque: Essays in Honor of James R. Anthony, ed. John Hajdu-Heyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 259-290.
‘Patrons and Pasquinades: Rameau in the 1730s’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, cxiii (1988), pp. 314-337.
‘The Paris Opéra Dancers in Rameau’s Day: a Little-known Inventory of 1738’, Colloque international, Dijon 1983, ed. Jérôme de La Gorce (Paris/Geneva: Slatkine, 1987), pp. 519-531.
Introduction to Jean-Philippe Rameau: Les Paladins, comédie lyrique (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 1986), xxxvi + 300 p. [with R. Peter Wolf].
‘Rameau’s Singers and Players at the Paris Opéra: a Little-known Inventory of 1738’, Early Music, xi/3 (1983), pp. 453-467.
‘Rameau, Pellegrin and the Paris Opéra: the Revisions of Hippolyte et Aricie during its First Season’, The Musical Times, cxxiv (1983), pp. 533-537.
‘Rameau’s Castor et Pollux’, Early Music, ix/3 (1981), pp. 419-420.
‘Rameau and the Orchestra’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, cviii (1981-2), pp. 47-68.
Five entries in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1980).
‘Naïs, Rameau’s “Opéra pour la paix”’, The Musical Times, cxxi/7 (1980) pp. 431-433.
‘Notes on Leclair’s Theatre Music’, Music & Letters, lxi (1980), pp. 147-157 [with Neal Zaslaw].
‘The Role of the Keyboard Continuo in French Opera, 1673-1776’, Early Music, viii/2 (1980), pp. 148-157; translated by Irma Perrotti as ‘Il ruolo del continuo alla tastiera nell’opera francese 1673-1776’, in Scritti sull'opera e sul teatro in musica (1977-1981), Quaderni dell’IRTEM (Rome: Istituto Ricerca Teatro Musicale 1986), pp. 39-58.
‘Rameau’s Zoroastre: the 1756 Reworking’, The Musical Times, cxx/4 (1979), pp. 301-303.
‘Rameau’s Harpsichord Transcriptions from Les Indes galantes’, Early Music, vii/1 (1979), pp. 18-24.
‘A Letter from Claude-François Rameau to J.J.M. Decroix’, Music & Letters, lix/2 (1978), pp. 139-147.
‘Rameau’s last opera: Abaris, ou Les Boréades’, The Musical Times, cxvi/4 (1975), pp. 327-329.
‘Rameau, Piron and the Parisian Fair Theatres’, Soundings, iv (1974), pp. 13-29.
Editions for opera productions, concerts, recordings, broadcasts
Jean-Féry Rebel, Les Élémens. Staged by English Bach Festival (conductor, Andrew Parrott), Banqueting House, Whitehall, and Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 1979 and Holland Festival. Amsterdam, 1979; tele-recording by ORTF: Opéra Royal, Château de Versailles, 1979; concert performance by St James’s Baroque Players/Ivor Bolton, BBC Henry Wood Proms, broadcast Radio 3, 1997.
Jean-Philippe Rameau, Zoroastre (1756 version). Semi-staged by English Bach Festival, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 1979 (conductor, Andrew Parrott).
Rameau, Hippolyte et Aricie. Staged by English Bach Festival at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Athens Festival, 1980 (conductor, Sir Charles Mackerras); recorded by Les Musiciens du Louvre/Marc Minkowski (Archiv), 1994.
Rameau, Pigmalion, acte de ballet. Staged by English Bach Festival, Opéra Royal, Versailles, 1980 (conductor, Nicholas McGegan); recorded 1980 (Erato).
Rameau, Naïs, Opéra pour la Paix. Staged by English Bach Festival at the Théâtre Municipal, Dijon, Old Vic Theatre, London, and Opéra Royal, Versailles, 1980 (conductor, Nicholas McGegan); recorded 1980 (Erato).
Jean-Marie Leclair, ‘l’aîné’, Ouverture en trio, op. 13 no. 5 and trio sonata in D, op. 14. Performed by London Baroque, broadcast BBC Radio 3, 1981.
Rameau, Castor et Pollux (1754 version). Staged by English Bach Festival at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1981 (conductor, Charles Farncombe), and at the Salle Gamier, Monte Carlo (conductor, Roger Norrington), 1981; recorded 1982 (Erato).
Rameau, Platée (1749 version). Staged by English Bach Festival, Opéra Royal, Versailles, 1983 and Sadlers Wells Theatre, London, 1983 (conductor: Jean-Claude Malgoire); broadcast BBC Radio 3, 1983 (conductor, Nicholas Kraemer) in collaboration with the European Broadcasting Union; Paris Opéra production recorded by Les Musiciens du Louvre/Marc Minkowski, 1993 (Archiv); DVD of Paris Opéra production recorded 2003.
Rameau, Les Boréades. Staged at the Royal Academy of Music, 1986 (conductor, Roger Norrington).
Rameau, Overture Zaïs. Concert performance by St James’s Baroque Players/Ivor Bolton, BBC Henry Wood Proms, broadcast BBC Radio 3, 1997; recording by Les Talents Lyriques/Christophe Rousset, L’Oiseau-Lyre, 1998.
Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Precatio pro filio Regis (H166) and Quemadmodum (H174). Prepared for concert tour ‘Praying for reign: private music of a king-in-waiting’, given by ‘Emma Kirkby and Friends’, Southampton, Bristol, Tonbridge, York, Hull (2004-05).
Rameau, concert suites from Dardanus and Les Paladins. Prepared for San Francisco Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (conductor, Nicholas McGegan), broadcast BBC Henry Wood Proms (2005).
Journal guest editorships
Early Music, ‘Jean-Philippe Rameau and his world’, xliv/4 (2016), iv + 179 pp.
Early Music, ‘French Baroque I’, xxi/2 (1993), 159 pp.
Early Music. ‘French Baroque II’, xxi/3 (1993), 175 pp.
Recent conference presentations and public lectures
‘Du manuscrit à la gravure: le procès de production des partitions imprimées de Rameau’, De la typographie à la gravure: La partition de musique en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles et ses problèmes éditoriaux, Institute de Recherche en Musicologie, 12-13 May 2017.
‘La syntaxe de l’écriture orchestrale de Lully dans Les Amants magnifiques’, Les Amants magnifiques: réinventer d’un divertissement royale, at Université Rennes 2, January 2017.
‘Saint-Saëns, d’Indy and the Rameau Œuvres complètes: new light on the Zoroastre project (1914)’, The Many Faces of Camille Saint-Saëns,organized by Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca, and Palazzetto Bru Zane, Centre de musique romantique française, Venice, in Lucca, October 2016.
‘Rameau and the Tax Farmers: the curious case of the Paroles qui ont précédé le Te Deum (1744))’, 17th Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music, Canterbury Christchurch University, July 2016.
‘Policing royal monopolies: Lully and the publishing house of Ballard’, Composers, Publishers and Pirates of the Mid-Baroque, British Library, June 2016.
'Le ballet figuré chez Cahusac: les implications d’une curieuse didascalie dans Zaïs (1748) de Jean-Philippe Rameau’, De ‘L’Europe galante’ de Campra à ‘La Caravane du Caire’ de Grétry : les métamorphoses du ballet en un genre majeur de l’art lyrique français (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles), Université libre de Bruxelles, May 2016.
‘Modernité et tradition: symboles d’ornementation et notation de l’articulation dans le Persée de 1770’, Persée: Versailles 1770, in the Grande Écurie du Château de Versailles, January 2016.
‘When Scarlatti met Rameau: reflections on a probable encounter during the 1720s’, International Conference of the Historical Keyboard Society of North America, McGill University, May 2015.
‘Steffani and the French Style’, Society for Seventeenth-Century Music Annual Conference, Iowa City, April 2015.
‘Les Auto-emprunts dans les actes de ballet de Rameau’, Atelier Rameau, Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 21 November 2014.
‘Rameau parodié par Rameau: le cas curieux des Paroles qui ont précédé le Te Deum de 1744’, Rameau, de l'Opéra à l'Église : emprunts et adaptations dans la musique religieuse au xviiie siècle, Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, 11 October 2014.
‘Steffani and the French Style’, Internationales interdisziplinäres Symposium Agostino Steffani: Europäischer Komponist und hannoverscher Diplomat des Leibniz-Zeit, Herrenhausen Castle, Hanover, 19-20 September 2014.
‘On the trail of Rameau’s lost Traité sur les canons: evidence from the minute-books of the Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Catch Club of 1763’, Jean-Philippe Rameau: International Anniversary Conference, St Hilda’s College, Oxford, 11-14 September 2014.
‘The Maga and the Shepherds: Charpentier’s Appropriation of a Poetic Convention from Italian Opera in his Dramatic Motets’, 16th Biennial Baroque Music Conference, Salzburg, 9-13 July 2014.
‘Camille Saint-Saëns and the Rameau Œuvres complètes: a production score of Zoroastre lost & found’, Historical Interplay in French Music: International Symposium, Birmingham Conservatoire, 4 July 2014.
‘Animer l’inanimé : un cas d’intertextualité intentionnelle dans l’opéra de Zaïs de Cahusac et Rameau’, GRIMAS, Université Paris-Sorbonne, 5 June 2014.
‘Rameau, Cahusac et les rituels de la franc-maçonnerie’, Rameau, entre art et science, Paris, 20-22 March 2014.
‘La Bibliothèque musicale de Charles Burney (1726–1814): reconstruction et analyse’, Les érudits collectionneurs, Abbaye de Royaumont, 15 November 2013.
‘La Maga et les bergers: quelques emprunts génériques à l’opéra vénitien dans les motets dramatiques de Marc-Antoine Charpentier’, Les histoires sacrées de Marc-Antoine Charpentier: une histoire de genre, Abbaye de Royaumont, 25 May 2013.
‘Quand Rameau rencontre Scarlatti? Réflexions sur une réunion hypothétique pendant les années 1720’, GRIMAS, Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 25 January 2013.
‘Louis Dupré et les « Jeux isthmiques » : à la reconstruction des mouvements et gestes au concours sportif dans Naïs (1749) de Cahusac et Rameau’, La danse française et son rayonnement (1600-1800) : nouvelles sources, nouvelles perspectives, Versailles, CMBV, 17-19 December 2012.
‘Les Histoires sacrées de Marc-Antoine Charpentier : un « foyer d’italianisme » au sein de la liturgie’, Créer de la musique d’Église en France de la fin du concile de Trente à la Révolution : contraintes des usages et des pratiques ecclésiastiques, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 30 November-1 December 2012.
‘In “The Springtime of Love”? Rameau’s Anacréon and the Court voyage to Fontainebleau, 1754’, APGRD, Oxford University, 9 November 2012.
“Who Wrote the Inner Parts of Lully’s Opera?”, 15th Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music, Southampton University, 11-15 July 2012.
‘La Polychoralité dans les motets dramatiques de Charpentier : un lien avec les Théatins’, Journées d’étude Charpentier, Abbaye de Royaumont, France, 2-4 May 2012.
‘Rameau’s Acante et Céphise’, University College, London, 19 March 2012.
‘Les histoires sacrées de Marc-Antoine Charpentier: le transfert d’éléments italiens’, Journées d’étude Charpentier, Abbaye de Royaumont, France, 3-5 February 2012.
‘Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Harmonic Grounding in Italy’, Musicisti europei a Venezia, Roma e Napoli (1650-1750): musica, identità delle nazioni e scambi culturali, ANR-DFG MUSICI, Rome, 19-21 January 2012 [with Shirley Thompson].