Louis de Cahusac

Louis de Cahusac (6 April 1706 – 22 June 1759) was an 18th-century French playwright and librettist, and Freemason, most famous for his work with the composer Jean-Philippe Rameau. He provided the libretti for several of Rameau's operas, namely Les fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour (1747), Zaïs (1748), Naïs (1749), Zoroastre (1749; revised 1756), La naissance d'Osiris (1754), and Anacréon (the first of Rameau's operas by that name, 1754). He is also credited with writing the libretto of Rameau's final work, Les Boréades (c. 1763).[1] Cahusac contributed to the Encyclopédie and was the lover of Marie Fel.[2]

For the French clarinetist and composer (1880–1960), see Louis Cahuzac.
Louis de Cahusac
Louis de Cahusac
La danse ancienne et moderne (The Hague 1754)
Born6 April 1706
Montauban
Died9 June 1759(1759-06-09) (aged 53)
Paris
OccupationPlaywright
Librettist

In 1754, he published La Danse ancienne et moderne ou Traité historique de la danse (The Hague, Jean Neaulme).

Among Rameau's librettists, he was the one whose collaboration lasted the longest; the composer was having a very bad character and he was also very stingy: only Cahusac managed to agree with him permanently.

Sources
  • Cuthbert Girdlestone Jean-Philippe Rameau: His Life and Work (Dover paperback edition, 1969)
  • The New Grove French Baroque Masters ed. Graham Sadler (Grove/Macmillan, 1988)

References
  1. Frank A. Kafker: Notices sur les auteurs des dix-sept volumes de « discours » de l'Encyclopédie. Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie. 1989, Volume 7, Numéro 7, S. 134
  2. Maurice Cranston Jean-Jacques: The Early Life and Work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1754, p. 252.


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