Monsieur Mouton, lutan och civilisationsprocessen

Abstract

Monsieur Mouton, the lute and the process of civilisation
This article presents some new findings concerning the Swedish connections of the lutenist Charles Mouton (1626?– after 1700). Mouton was the last of the great Parisian lutenists of the Baroque. He published several collections of Pièces de luth; his music is also documented in a number of manuscripts, scattered mainly over Central Europe. In November 1698, the young Swedish nobleman Hans von Fersen arrived in Paris together with his tutor, the érudit Carl Gustav Heraeus (1671–1725). Back in Stockholm in 1694 after studying in Germany and France, Heraeus – the son of a Stockholm court doctor – joined the neo humanist circles of the Swedish capital. After the von Fersen commission he made a remarkable career at the imperial court in Vienna. During the Paris sojourn, music took up a considerable part of von Fersen’s study program. After learning the basics of l’Angelique playing (a type of lute considered an amateur’s instrument), in 1699 he turned to the eleven-course lute. Heraeus engaged Mouton as his lute master. The purchase of a lute and of the master’s printed tabulatures is documented in the  accounts enclosed with Heraeus’ letters to the father of his pupil. Mouton, who resided in Faubourg S:t Germain, carved out a niche as the preferred Parisian lute master of foreign aristocrats. The interaction of Heraeus, von Fersen and Mouton demonstrates the socially fostering effects of lutenist culture in the broader context which the German sociologist Norbert Elias has labelled as “the process of civilisation”.