June 28 - Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Oley Speaks (The Musical Birthday Series, 3rd Annual Cycle)

Previous posts for June 28th are found here: Richard Rodgers (2019) and Joseph Joachim (2020)

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Querelle des Bouffons in a Nutshell

The Querelle des Bouffons ("Quarrel of the Comic Actors") was the name given to a battle of musical philosophies that took place in Paris between 1752 and 1754. The controversy concerned the relative merits of French and Italian opera. --- adapted from Wikipedia

J.-J. Rousseau,

As you may know,

    Put the tune, not the harmony, first;

J.-P. Rameau

Was all gung ho

   For the very same thing, but reversed.

 

 

 

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Oley Speaks (28 June 1874 – 7 August 1948) was an American composer, chiefly of songs.

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The Sun Never Sets....

A song one seldom hears today,

Except in an ironic way,

Is Speaks’s “Road to Mandalay,”

Which was a hit because it caught

The cocky way the British thought

About the Empire God had wrought.

Envoi

Today the terra is less firma

When singing songs of British Burma!

 

 

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