Le Jardin Secret
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CORO The Sixteen Edition CORO Other recordings on CORO MUSI Q UE cor16057 Fauré Mozart POUR Requiem Vespers Elin Manahan Thomas, Roderick Williams The Sixteen MAZARIN ! Academy of St Martin in the Fields Harry Christophers "…the sense of an ecstatic movement towards QUI A LE COEUR A TOUT Paradise is tangible." the times cor16023 La Jeune France Jolivet, Messiaen, Daniel-Lesur Three composers testing vocal technique as never before, in music that's rapturous, mystical, fresh and erotic " T h i s d i s c i s n o t f a r f r o m a r e v e l a t i o n . " le Jardin Secret the daily telegraph Elizabeth Dobbin - soprano Sofie Vanden Eynde · David Blunden · Romina Lischka · Marian Minnen To find out more about The Sixteen, concert tours, and to buy CDs, visit www.thesixteen.com cor16060 he wealth and volume of seventeenth century solo vocal literature is a rich 1 Spera mi disse Amore Orazio Michi (1594-1641) 3.32 source of repertoire indeed, but to choose an attractive programme from it 2 Ah! Qu’ils sont courts Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) 1.03 is no easy task. One is bound to have some kind of theme and structure in 3 Assez de Pleurs Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) (arranged de Visée) 1.47 Torder to help make an intelligible selection, but it is a danger that one then chooses a 4 Aux plaisirs Pierre Guédron (1564-1619) 2.49 Musique pour Mazarin! collection of overly similar works. provided us with an ideal 5 but not too restrictive focus for our choice and one which led inevitably to a very Ritournelle des Fées Jean-Baptiste Lully (arranged d’Anglebert) 1.56 varied programme. This variation comes about naturally from the juxtaposition of 6 Deh, memoria Giacomo Carissimi (1605–1674) 5.20 French and Italian musical language, showing so clearly the rich selection of music 7 Mio core languisce Luigi Rossi (1597-1653) (arranged David Blunden) 5.11 heard at Cardinal Mazarin’s court and demonstrating the stark contrast between the 8 Chaconne la Bergeronnette Louis Couperin (c.1626 - 1661) 2.05 French and Italian styles of the period. The added ingredient of political/cultural 9 Deh, piangete - from Psyché Jean-Baptiste Lully 1.53 rivalry and intrigue - the Italian born Cardinal importing Italian culture into a bl La chasse donnée à Mazarin par les paysans des bourgs et des 1.32 resistant French context - contributes a little 'piquancy' to the mix! villages sur le tocsin (Mazarinade) Anon (arranged David Blunden) We first worked with this theme when we were looking for a programme to bm Allemande Demachy (d. c.1692) 3.02 present at the Early Music Network Young Artists’ Competition in York, England, bn Tristes déserts Marc-Antoine Charpentier 3.15 in 2007, concentrating on works by Jean-Baptiste Lully and Luigi Rossi, the two bo main musical protagonists in Mazarin’s sphere. The programme seemed popular Toccata Settima Michelangelo Rossi (c.1601-1656) 3.49 and we won both the jury and audience prizes at the competition. Part of the prize bp Non pianga e non sospiri - from Orfeo Luigi Rossi 1.47 was the opportunity to make a recording for CORO and we decided for this project bq Tranquilles coeurs - from Le Triomphe de L’Amour Jean-Baptiste Lully 2.25 to augment the York 'Mazarin' programme, resulting in the selection of the pieces br Sans frayeur Marc-Antoine Charpentier (arranged David Blunden) 3.40 recorded here. We did not restrict the choice of pieces to those composed during bs Si ch’io voglio sperare Marc Antonio Pasqualini (1614-1691) 4.37 Mazarin's regency, but decided to delve deeper into the characteristics that emerged bt Avertissement des enfarinez à Mazarin sur ce qu’il doit craindre 2.05 from this French/Italian cultural interchange and from the connections between (Mazarinade) Anon (arranged David Blunden) French and Italian composers. Lully remains central, with the added curiosity that bu Le perfide Renaud me fuit - from Armide Jean-Baptiste Lully 4.41 although he was the French composer par excellence of his time, he was in fact born cl in Italy - a nice twist to the story. We hope the selection of pieces will be as enjoyable Chaconne des Harlequins Jean-Baptiste Lully (arranged de Visée) 2.29 to the listener as it has been to us! cm Ad un cuore - from L’Europe Galante André Campra (1660-1774) 4.11 le Jardin Secret Total playing time 64.29 2 3 the famous singer, Leonarda Baroni, royal family and the exile of Cardinal Buti, and the Count of Saint-Aignan and the no less famous castrato, Atto Mazarin from Paris. Mazarinades (a and Benserade. Italian singers mingled Melani, to court. In 1647 he staged Orfeo term coined by the poet Scarron), or with French. Among the list of dancers by Luigi Rossi from a libretto by Buti, pamphlets protesting against Mazarin for the spectacle, one notices the young an opera in which the Roman castrato, (often in violent terms), flourished Louis XIV and, by his side, Lully, who Marc Antonio Pasqualini (composer of during this period. Today about for a year had held the position of Si ch’io voglio sperare), played a leading 6000 of these pamphlets survive. The composer for the king’s chamber. To role. By introducing Italian opera into pamphlets, in verse or prose, French celebrate the marriage of Louis XIV France, Mazarin not only satisfied his or Latin, attacked Cardinal Mazarin and the Spanish infanta, Marie-Thérèse, own tastes in theatre and singing, but as much for his fortune, ancestry and Mazarin planned to stage Francesco also, more importantly, sought to endear Italian accent as for his political actions! Cavalli’s opera, Ercole Amante, composed himself to the aristocracy and possibly When Mazarin returned to Paris on especially for the occasion. However, the people by these dazzling spectacles. 3 February 1653, he recalled the Italian work on the grand hall of the Tuileries But the effect was quite the opposite. If musicians who had also been forced was not completed in time to host the the scenery and sets of these operas were to flee the hostile climate of Paris. spectacle. Instead, the Cardinal staged a source of admiration to the French He sensed, however, that he could not Xerse, another opera by Cavalli which public, the length of the works and pursue the diffusion of Italian art into had been composed some years earlier an of the church, politician the fact that they were in Italian, made France without adding some French and was on a smaller scale. With the par excellence, Giulio Mazarini them tedious. Moreover, the enormous components to the mix. theatre at the Tuileries finally finished, (1602-1661) was passionate expense incurred by the production of Ercole Amante was staged there on 7 Mabout music and theatre. Sent to Paris Orfeo caused disquiet among Parisians, In 1654, Le Nozze di Peleo e di Theti, February 1662. But Mazarin, who had from Rome in the capacity of Papal whose patriotic reactions were then subtitled a “comédie italienne en died on 9 March 1661, was no longer Nuncio, he obtained the protection of transformed into fury against the musique entremêlée d’un ballet sur le present to taste once more the theatre Louis XIII and of Richelieu. At the Italian minister and against his fellow- même sujet”, achieved a synthesis of and music which he had wanted, with death of Richelieu, he became a minister countrymen at the French court. Italian opera and French courtly ballet. such passionate obstinacy, to impose on of state under the regency of Anne This work was the result of a close the French people. of Austria. Charged with overseeing This was a time of grand revolt, the time collaboration between artists of both musical life at court, Mazarin invited of the Fronde which saw the exile of the countries: Carlo Caproli, the Abbot We know Mazarin’s motto was “Qui a 4 5 le cœur a tout” or, “he who has heart, differently from Mazarin. Not only did with virtuosity (Spera mi disse Amore). in Rome and the music he heard there has everything”. This motto is both he adapt to the artistic aesthetics of his The poetry burns with passion and the (notably the works of Carissimi) made an avowal of strength and a confession new country, but “Monsieur de Lully” dissonances are often unexpected, even a strong impression. Once he returned of weakness. It evokes the implacable, became the most uncompromising brutal (Deh, memoria), with an equal to France, he introduced numerous rebellious character of this headstrong defender of French music; while still taste for lamentation and suffering elements of the Italian style into his man who defended his ideas at the cultivating the language of his country of (Mio core languisce). Nothing is too compositions (such as the ostinato bass risk of ridicule. But the motto is also a birth (the plainte italienne of Psyché Deh, out-of-place, too surprising, too bizarre of Sans frayeur), even if the style of his strange and touching choice of words, piangete), he was responsible for creating or too exaggerated in the completely chanson airs (Ah! Qu’ ils sont courts) and as it places the heart centre-stage. As French opera (of which his final opera exteriorized Italian expression of affect. his airs in the lyric declamation style the most intimate home of emotion, the Armide represents the finest example). In contrast to the intimate backdrop (Tristes déserts) remained very French.