Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer

Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer
(b Turin, c1705; d Paris, 11 Jan 1755). French composer, harpsichordist, organist and administrator.

His father was sent by Louis XIV to be the intendant of gardens and fountains at the court of Savoy; the family returned to Paris when Royer was still an infant, although he did not become naturalized until July 1751, less than four years before his death. For 25 years he was a central figure in Parisian musical life, with responsibilities at court, the Opéra and the Concert Spirituel. He acquired a great reputation for playing the harpsichord and organ (Laugier) and as a composer, was a brilliant and influential contemporary of Rameau through much of the latter's career. His first operatic essay was to contribute music to an opéra comique at the 1725 Foire St Laurent (Le fâcheux veuvage). His first term as maître de musique at the Paris Opéra (1730–33) saw the premières of his own Pyrrhus, with sets by Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni (1730), and Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie (1733). Important court appointments included maître de musique des enfants de France, jointly held with J.-B. Matho, and maître de musique de la chambre du roi. At the Opéra his principal successes were Zaïde, reine de Grenade (1739) and Le pouvoir de l'Amour (1743). In 1744 he began work on Voltaire's libretto Pandore, destined for the dauphin's wedding in 1745 but set aside in favour of a revival of Zaïde. The Duke of Luynes recounted the circumstances of the composition of the ode La fortune in 1746. The dauphin, just turned 17 but already possessing a good baritone voice as well as considerable talent, suggested to Royer that he should set the text of J.-B. Rousseau. Although the verses were described as ‘not being made to be sung’, Royer turned out a 45-minute divertissement, which the prince sang in his sisters’ apartments, surprising the courtiers, since he had only just begun music lessons. The work was repeated at court and at the Concert Spirituel by the much-admired baritone Benoit.