GCDSA 921611 Marc-Antoine Charpentier New release information May 2006 Messe & Te Deum à huit voix

NOTES (ENG) NOTES (FRA)

Mr Charpentier benefited greatly Mr Charpentier, qui a demeuré trois ans à Rome, by his three years in Rome, en a tiré de grands avantages. as demonstrated by his entire oeuvre. Tous ses ouvrages en sont une preuve. (Mercure galant, February 1681) (Mercure galant, février 1681)

Towards 1670 Marc-Antoine Charpentier returned from Vers 1670, Marc-Antoine Charpentier revint de Rome Rome following a sojourn of more or less five years, au terme d’un séjour de plus ou moins cinq années, his ears and mind brimming with ultramontane music les oreilles et les pensées pleines de musique et de and culture. No sooner did he come back to Paris, culture ultramontaine. Dès son retour à Paris, où il where he was born in 1643 and where his skills arrived était né en 1643 et où ses qualités l’avaient déjà ahead of him, than Charpentier found considerable devancé, Charpentier trouva d’appréciables appuis support amongst advocates of the Italian aesthetic parmi les partisans de l’esthétique italienne, qui who were themselves in contact with the leading centres entretenaient eux-mêmes des relations avec les of learning in Rome. principaux foyers romains d’érudition.

For a decade or so after his arrival in Paris, Charpentier Dès son arrivée à Paris et durant une dizaine d’années, Marc-Antoine Charpentier was a regular contributor to the Saint-Louis Jesuits, Charpentier collabora régulièrement aux cérémonies Messe & Te Deum à huit voix who commissioned him to produce great two-choir des Jésuites de Saint-Louis, qui lui commandèrent de compositions including the Mass for 8 voices and 8 grandes fresques à double chœur. Parmi elles figurent Le Concert Spirituel violins and flutes [H.3] and the Te Deum for 8 voices la Messe à 8 voix et 8 violons et flûtes [H.3] et le Te Stéphanie Revidat, Hanna Bayodi, with flutes and violins [H.145], which figure amongst Deum à 8 voix avec flûtes et violons [H.145], qui the composer’s most impressive and lavish works. comptent parmi les œuvres les plus imposantes et les François-Nicolas Geslot, Anders J. Dahlin, plus somptueuses du compositeur. Emiliano Gonzalez-Toro, Sébastien Droy, These masterly works of his youth, bearing out highly Benoît Arnould, Renaud Delaigue skilful composition, convey the foundations of a musical Témoins d’une grande science de l’écriture, ces Hervé Niquet language that was already very agile and personal, a magistrales œuvres de jeunesse présentent les language that was to assert itself in the course of the fondements d’un langage musical déjà très habile et Glossa GCDSA 920611 composer’s career and mark his contemporaries. personnel, qui allait s’affirmer au fil de la carrière du Composers in his wake, such as Michel-Richard de compositeur et marquer ses contemporains. Dans son NEW RELEASE Lalande and Henry Desmarest, even went so far as to sillage, des compositeurs comme Michel-Richard de Hybrid SACD - full-price digipak incorporate the double Italian choir with two orchestras Lalande ou Henry Desmarest osèrent jusqu’à introduire into the quintessentially French genre of the great le double chœur italien avec deux orchestres dans le motet. genre le plus français, le grand motet. Programme

Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704)

1-27 Messe à 8 voix et 8 violons et flûtes [H.3] NOTAS (ESP) NOTIZEN (DEU)

28-40 Te Deum à 8 voix avec flûtes et violons El Sr. Charpentier ha permanecido tres años en Roma, Herr Charpentier hat großen Nutzen gezogen [H.145] de los que ha extraído grandes enseñanzas. aus seinen drei Jahren in Rom, Todas sus obras son prueba de ello. was sein gesamtes Werk bestätigt. (Mercure galant, febrero de 1681) (Mercure galant, Februar 1681)

Production details Hacia 1670, Marc-Antoine Charpentier regresó de Roma Um 1670 kehrte Marc-Antoine Charpentier nach etwa al cabo de una estancia de alrededor de cinco años, dreijährigem Aufenthalt in Rom nach Frankreich zurück, Total playing time: 79’33 con los oídos y el pensamiento rebosantes de música Ohren und Gedanken übervoll mit ultramontaner Musik y de cultura ultramontana. Desde su regreso a París, und Kultur. Gleich nach seiner Ankunft in Paris, wo er Recorded at Église Notre Dame du Liban (Paris), donde había nacido en 1643 y donde sus cualidades 1643 geboren wurde, und wohin ihm nun die Kunde in September 2005 ya lo precedían, Charpentier contó con el apreciable von seinen Fähigkeiten bereits vorausgeeilt war, fand apoyo de algunos de los defensores de la estética Charpentier beträchtliche Unterstützung unter den Engineered by Manuel Mohino italiana, quienes de por sí mantenían relación con los Befürwortern der italienischen Ästhetik, die selbst im Produced by Dominique Daigremont principales círculos romanos de erudición. Austausch standen mit den führenden Kreisen des Executive producer: Carlos Céster gebildeten Rom. Desde su llegada a París y durante un decenio, Booklet essay by Thomas Leconte (Centre de Charpentier colaboró con asiduidad en las ceremonias Nach seiner Rückkehr nach Paris arbeitete Charpentier Musique Baroque de Versailles) de la congregación jesuita de Saint-Louis, que le etwa zehn Jahre lang regelmäßig mit den Jesuiten von encargó grandes composiciones para doble coro. Entre Saint-Louis zusammen, die ihn mit großen Design 00:03:00 oficina tresminutos ellas figuran la Misa a 8 voces, 8 violines y flautas Kompositionen für zwei Chöre beauftragten, wie die English - Français - Deutsch - Español [H.3] y el Te Deum a 8 voces, flautas y violines [H.145], Messe für 8 Stimmen und 8 Violinen und Flöten [H.3] que se cuentan entre las obras más imponentes y und das Te Deum für 8 Stimmen mit Flöten und Violinen suntuosas del compositor. [H.145], die zu den beeindruckendsten und überschwänglichsten Werken des Komponisten zählen. Estas magistrales obras de juventud, testimonio de una gran ciencia de la escritura, presentan los Diese meisterhaften Frühwerke, die hohe fundamentos de un lenguaje musical ya muy hábil y Kompositionskunst ausweisen, machen das Fundament personal que se afirmaría a lo largo de la carrera del einer bereits flexibel vielseitigen und persönlich compositor y marcaría a sus coetáneos. Siguiendo sus geprägten Musiksprache aus, die sich im Verlauf der pasos, compositores como Michel-Richard de Lalande Karriere des Komponisten noch weiter durchsetzen und o Henry Desmarest se atrevieron incluso a introducir seine Zeitgenossen beeinflussen sollte. In seinem el doble coro italiano con dos orquestas en el género Kielwasser wagten es Komponisten wie Michel-Richard francés por excelencia, el gran motete. de Lalande und Henry Desmarest gar, den zweiteiligen italienischen Chor mit zwei Orchestern in das französische Genre par excellence, die große Motette, einzuführen.

www.glossamusic.com Hervé Niquet A portrait

Prior to 1994 you had recorded plenty of sacred same thing as if you had Philip Glass writing French Baroque music – Campra, Gilles, Lully just for George W Bush. Can you imagine his – but no Charpentier. Was there a reason for fee? So it is the same thing with Charpentier. this? Many people say, ‘Ah poor Charpentier, he didn’t have enough success because Lully was a bad For a long time I had no interest in Charpentier’s man…’. I think that Charpentier had no need music because I had thought it just so Parisian, to be at the court of Louis XIV. but I was properly introduced to it by Catherine Cessac (a great specialist in the composer). How do you consider the experience of She showed me manuscripts, his own writings performing these large-scale works? and I became fascinated by all of this. Think that Charpentier had written some 593 pieces For Charpentier all his works were important. and maybe 80% of them hadn’t been recorded! If you take a small motet for three voices, this And so, my big adventure started. The music motet will have the same quality as the Mass is a mixture between Italian and French for 8 voices. It is strange, but true. Maybe it (particularly Parisian) music. I found it at the is because Charpentier was a genius. He same time both so essential and so exotic. In composed some 10-14 big motets for eight its performing requirements it encompasses voices and orchestra. My plan, in the future, is many configurations – from one unaccompanied to record all these. The Mass and the Te Deum singer to works scored for four choirs and four here represent, I hope, a beginning to this new orchestras. In sum the breadth of Charpentier’s adventure – following a certain line of thinking output gives you the opportunity to organize one has the Te Deum representing the height your ensemble just around pieces by him and of happiness and the Mass as the apogee of so at Le Concert Spirituel we started with music reflection. Between these two ‘atmospheres’ scored for four voices and continuo. After that we plan to incorporate all these other large- I became infatuated by Charpentier; it was like scale works. a drug, and my musicians felt the same. It became more than a pleasure to play In the meantime you are concentrating with Charpentier. Le Concert Spirituel on another large-scale project. For much of his career Hervé Niquet has been I believe that to understand a composer you – as he acknowledges – infatuated with the must know all the things around him, so I Yes, we have been performing and are now sacred choral music of Marc-Antoine Charpentier. needed to know where so much of Charpentier’s recording three operas that are all different For Glossa his recordings go from strength to music was played (in the chapel of Mademoiselle reflections of the same road being travelled by strength – in performance requirements too! de Guise), with what sort of musicians and French opera. Proserpine comes in a great In the fourth of his series of Charpentier singers and how he met them. For me, this is period in Lully’s career and shows the initial recordings for the label he and Le Concert normal. I do the same thing for the music of construction of opera in France. From Marin Spirituel have chosen the Messe à 8 voix et 8 Gounod, Ravel, Poulenc and so on. With Marais we have his ‘tragédie en musique’ Sémélé violons et flûtes, H3 (according to the Wiley Charpentier I discovered that he built a team written at the end of the reign of Louis XIV – Hitchcock catalogue) and the Te Deum à 8 voix of singers and instrumentalists around him and in it you sense that freedom is very close, the avec flûtes et violons, H145. Fascinating booklet one curious thing is that all his singers in the Regency is coming and the times of Louis XV. notes covering the origins of these two works Hôtel of Mademoiselle de Guise were his own Destouches’ Callirhoé comes from 1712 when have been supplied by Thomas Leconte from personal choices, based on auditions that he you can feel that French opera is indeed French the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles. held from people in her household; so there opera. Yet the plan of the three operas is the were singers from her chambre, her kitchens… same and the three composers all respect that Niquet is actively involved in a range of musical He taught them singing and ten years later plan. Across the three operas you can feel how activities at the moment. Alongside the they were the best singers in Paris. For them the model created by Lully was one of such Charpentier SACD, a trilogy of operas by Jean- he composed music and they became just genius and we hope to show (using the same Baptiste Lully, Marin Marais and André Cardinal singers for Charpentier’s music. This idea team of performers) all the different vocabularies Destouches has been started in performance – became my idea; with my ensemble I chose and atmospheres in these three great French including in Montpellier, Beaune, Metz and Paris to have all the time the same musicians, to operas. – and on record. Yet Niquet is not just dedicating have the same reflexes as his, the same ideas his time to the French Baroque: recently in as his, the same vision of sound. It was a case The musicians of Le Concert Spirituel know Madrid as part of the San Isidro festivities in of musical sociology, trying to do the same what they are up against? the Parque de El Retiro, Le Concert Spirituel thing as Charpentier. dazzled an audience (numbered in thousands) Indeed, they are part of my inheritance. I with their programme of Handel’s Water Music Twelve years later we have the experience of formed Le Concert Spirituel nearly twenty years and the Music for the Royal Fireworks, complete performing his larger-scale pieces – such as ago and many of the musicians have been with with a spectacular firework display. Time during the Mass and the Te Deum on the new me since the beginning. They know how to the year is also given over by Niquet to non- recording. We have learnt how to be very move in this sort of music with me and the Baroque activities, including his Artistic virtuosic and this recording represents a small singers, so it is always a big pleasure. For me Directorship of the Beethoven Academie part of the freedom that we have gained as there is no difference between the star singers orchestra in Antwerp and frequent conducting well as happiness and pleasure! Once you have on the stage and the last musician in the pit, forays around the world into the works of Mahler understood how the composer wrote and for so everybody knows everybody and for me or more modern French repertoire such as where and with whom, you don’t need your everybody is important. In these productions Saint-Saëns, Berlioz or Massenet. And Hervé own opinion – you have the opinion of the we have the feeling of being in a big musical Niquet the father is also faced with the composer and the singers that he employed. feast and I think that it is crucial for the conundrum of how to advise his three highly- You put your feet in their shoes and after that conductor to try and get everybody to think in motivated children keen to embark on the it is easy! And, remember that Charpentier the same way at the same moment. When it artistic life. His principal recommendation is worked for Mademoiselle de Guise for more works it is such a great pleasure – and don’t ‘hard work and lots of it!’. than 20 years. He became probably the best- forget that for me the music is just an paid composer in France – a star – writing opportunity to be happy together and to offer principally for her. Occasionally, she accepted pleasure to many, many people. that he wrote for the Jesuits close to her house. But don’t forget that he was a star – it is the MARK WIGGINS © 2006 Glossa Music www.glossamusic.com