by Daniel Hathaway
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1789, Parisians stormed the infamous Bastille prison, liberating seven political prisoners as well as its cache of arms and munitions, creating what has become France’s Independence Day.
Six years later, the revolutionary song La Marseillaise was adopted as the French national anthem. Claude-Benigne Balbastre, a famous Parisian organist of the time, wrote a set of variations on the tune that might be considered the equivalent of Charles Ives’ playful Variations on ‘America’.
Balbastre, who had served as organist of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and the Royal Chapel and taught keyboard lessons to Marie Antoinette, somehow kept his head on his shoulders during the political upheaval of the Revolution. Click here to enjoy his La Marche des Marseillois et l’air “Ça ira” performed by Michel Chapuis on the organ at the church of St-Roch, where Balbastre played to great popular acclaim.
As Charles Burney reported, Balbastre introduced into his improvisations “minuets, fugues, imitations, and every species of music, even to hunting pieces and jigs, without surprising or offending the congregation.”
