The wedding of Louis XIV with the Infanta of Spain, on 9 June 1660, was an exceptional event, sealing the peace between two monarchies that had been opposed for centuries. The 21-year-old King set off on a journey lasting thirteen months to cross and discover his kingdom: 15,000 people and 8,000 horses, 3,200 km in 95 stages, culminating in a wedding in Saint Jean de Luz! The greatest festivities took place during the wedding ceremony, then on the journey of their Majesties, for their solemn entry into Paris and finally for the opera given in the Louvre in honor of the bride and groom! The finest composers contributed to the celebrations: the King’s trumpets opened the concert, while the church galleries hosted Du Mont’s symphony, organ and motets; finally, the most beautiful excerpts from Cavalli’s Xerxes and Lully’s accompanying ballets celebrated the Royal Wedding of Louis XIV through opera. Vincent Dumestre brings to life the musical splendors of the wedding of the century!

Includes:

Jean-Baptiste Lully - Sonneries pour les trompettes du Roi; Entrée pour la Maison de France; Les Espagnols; Les Basques; Motet pour la Paix (Jubilate Deo)

Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers - Livre d'Orgue contenant Cent Pièces: Plein jeu du 3e ton & Récit de cromorne du troisième ton

Francesco Cavalli - Magnificat; Xerse: Lasciatemi morire

Juan Hidalgo - Celos aun del aire matan; Dos zagalas venian

REVIEW

“The wedding of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Austria was the event of the century!” trumpets the website material for this disc. The King’s various wars might have been even more important events, but as royal weddings go, the one on 9 June 1660 was certainly a big one, not least politically, which for 17^th century royals usually meant dynastically. Maria Theresa was the Infanta of Spain, so the marriage brought peace to monarchies long opposed.

Never mind the title and the recording location. The knot was not actually tied in Versailles. The 21-year old King first went on a year’s royal progress around France to see his new kingdom, and the Infanta of Spain by tradition could not leave her country until she was married. So the borderland of the Basque country was the venue and the celebrations – of marriage and a peace treaty – were held in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, before the new couple progressed through France to Versailles, where yet more celebrations were held.

Music accompanied the royal couple along the way as well. Couperin and Lully tagged along at times, and there was Lully’s now mostly lost Ballet de Toulouse written for one of the stages en route. Vincent Dumestre and Le Poème Harmonique have assembled here just over an hour’s programme selected from across these extended festivities; the exact works used at any point are often uncertain. Matthieu Franchin’s excellent booklet says that the disc “offers […] a selection of music from among all those that may have accompanied, directly or indirectly, the festivities taking place within the vicinity of this wedding”.

The pieces are arranged in five sections to reflect the ceremonial sequence: Aux portes du temple, Entrée des délégations, Célébration de la paix, Mariage and Réjouissance et ballet des nations. The programme opens with a regal sound of some splendour with trumpets and drums of Lully’s fanfare “Sonneries pour les trompettes du Roi”, and these instruments feature quite often in later parts. Couperin’s austere organ prelude follows, to remind us we are in an ecclesiastical building. Lully’s ballet music offers dances suitable for Spaniards and then Basques, the former with guitars and castanets. Veillot’s “O filii e filiae” launches the celebration of the peace with simple and attractive monophony, first with women’s voices solo and choral, with the men joining later.

Lully’s Jubilate Deo sequence, also known as his “Motet de la Paix”, is one of two larger works on the disc included in their entirety. This excellent motet is known to have been much admired by the King, who commanded several performances. It opens with a fine five-part instrumental prelude (or “symphony”), and the choral writing is at times richer still. The choir Compagnie de la Tempête sound thoroughly idiomatic, as do the vocal soloists, none of whose names I knew but who all have attractive voices and the right style and scale for the era.

Two organ pieces by Nivers and a Sinfonia by Rossi lead the sequence for the Marriage itself, which is dominated by the other extended work on the disc, Cavalli’s Magnificat. Every time I hear an unfamiliar piece by the great Venetian, he sounds in the same league as Monteverdi, and so it is here. There is an impressive range of music within the work, plenty of praise and joy of course, but also a brief but searching Et misericordia (“His mercy continues from generation to generation”). The livelier sections are sung and played with impressive agility.

The final Réjouissance (rejoicing) brings secular song and opera, ending with a contribution from the Spanish side. Hidalgo’s opera was commissioned to celebrate the peace and marriage, and was the first Spanish opera, or possibly the first that survived. It makes a light-hearted and jolly close, of the sort not only royal weddings require. We are not quite eavesdropping on history, as this exact sequence of pieces is acknowledged as speculative. But in its spirit of intelligent and informed reconstruction, it is to be celebrated.

The disc has added to my collection no fewer than six names I had not known, and the music is worth hearing. Perhaps it is not quite, in the end, a sequence greater than the sum of its parts, so that one might listen selectively on subsequent playings of the disc. But the standards of execution under Vincent Dumestre’s direction are very good, justifying the high reputation of Le Poème Harmonique, whose earlier discs have won much praise. The booklet, on which I have drawn much here, is very informative, as it must be for this programme. The sound is atmospheric, doubtless reflecting the acoustic of the Royal Chapel of the Château de Versailles, and captures the tang of the colourful old instruments.

--MusicWeb International (Roy Westbrook)

Mondonville achieved the apotheosis of the Grand Motet à la Française: the fruit of Lalande's rhetorical heritage and Rameau's operatic style, in which he developed a sacred work symbolic of the Enlightenment. His great musical frescoes, animated by a sumptuous counterpoint that transfigures the sound of the choir, require unprecedented virtuosity to touch the sublime. A true star of the Concert Spirituel, Mondonville became its most frequently played composer, all the while serving the Chapelle Royale: audiences flocked to enjoy this "rocaille" style music, the sacred expression of Louis XV's reign. Gaétan Jarry offers us the three most splendid jewels.

A small opera played in the evening as part of a festive event, the Venetian Serenata was performed outdoors as a crowning moment of the ceremonies. The French Ambassador is said to have commissioned Vivaldi to create this festive Seine to be performed in the Loggia of his Palace overlooking the Lagoon in 1725. As Louis XV came to power after the Regency, the Virtue and the Golden Age returned to France and to the Seine to celebrate the glory of the King. This Serenade, the most extensive left by Vivaldi, is a sumptuous tribute to the young French sovereign. Diego Fasolis conducts the Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal and its magnificent soloists, restoring the colours of this masterpiece, adorned with gold and jewels like the French Crown.

Marc Minkowski returns with relish to Rameau: the rich colors of the orchestra, the irrepressible dynamics, an exceptional melodic sense make the extracts of his greatest lyrical tragedies shine, like so many anthological moments. These famous overtures, these masterful symphonies, paint a shimmering portrait of Rameau Master of orchestration: it is a veritable feast of oboes, flutes, clarinets, horns and bassoons... Pyrotechnics, storms and rockets leap, and adorned with splendor night or a dazzling light, Rameau's work dazzles us again. Florian Sempey deploys his masterful and truly royal voice when he appeals to the Sun, monstrous when he plays the ogre, but of unparalleled finesse in pain and love... Leaping and mysterious, Rameau's orchestra revived by Minkowski is sumptuous, dancing, jubilant!

Le Destin du Nouveau Siècle [The Fate of the New Century]: what a pertinent idea for a libretto for the year 1700! This unknown opera-ballet by Campra, premiered at the Collège Louis-le-Grand, foreshadowed the Century that was opening in France, where Louis XIV had been King for... 57 years! Saturn wants to regulate the destiny of this new century according to the will of the people, but some wish to ignite an eternal War, while others celebrate Peace. Campra's splendid music is here marvelously revealed by exceptional soloists, under the direction of Patrick Bismuth. The Europe of the old King was rumbling with war and famine to come, unrest mingled with hope at the dawn of this new century... here is the musical snapshot of this so particular era!

In 1743, two years before Rameau’s Platée, Boismortier created an extraordinarily modern and madcap “comic ballet”, Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse. As the exuberant plot unfurls, Cervantes’ hero encounters monsters, enchanters, princesses and people from Japan, making for plenty of offbeat and audacious dances and choruses. Musical beauty rubs shoulders with satirical and irreverent comedy. A choice work for Hervé Niquet, who leads his Concert Spirituel with unparalleled energy!

François Dieupart is an intriguing composer of the early 18th century and a pioneer of the repertoire, even before Couperin and Rameau, a precursor of the “Goûts Réunis” whose grace already heralded the Regency. Closely associated with the English court exiled in France, Dieupart travelled to England at the turn of the century where he stayed for three decades. Drawing on French and Italian styles, his music remains eminently personal, full of delicacy and freshness of tone. First performed in 1702, his new style of music enjoyed a lasting success throughout Europe, even inspiring Bach: Marie van Rhijn reveals its secret enchantments.

Here are assembled three Grands Motets by Lully, associated with key moments in the reign of Louis XIV. In 1660, the Jubilate Deo celebrating the La Paix des Pyrénées and the king's wedding, erupts in unheard of proportions, that no other composer in France had produced before, and with breathtaking modernity. The music is triumphant, with a French-style overture worthy of future operas, grand theatrical narratives and choruses alternating between plenitude and exaltation: the celebratory motet was thus born with dazzling panache. The Quare fremuerunt gentes, even more dramatic, celebrated la Paix de Ratisbonne (the Peace of Regensburg) in 1685 with powerful operatic accents. Finally, the Miserere (1664) is the most famous French motet of the 17th century. Played in 1672 for the funeral service of Chancellor Séguier, it brought tears to Madame de Sévigné's eyes: "I don't believe there is any other music in heaven." Stéphane Fuget and his ensemble Les Epopées pursue their grace-filled cycle.

French music owes a great deal to dance, from the survival of the Ballet de Cour in the comedies-ballets of Lully, to his tragedies lyriques, these compositions imposed the French choreographic model in Europe. Here is the sequel to Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, which in 1670 marked the peak of the Comédie-Ballet, when Louis XIV stopped dancing. With his Characters of the Dance in 1720, Rebel offers a work without sung text, the first maturity of the choreographic genre, before Rameau gives it a prominent place in Pygmalion, a sumptuous ballet act. When Gluck adapts his Orphée for Paris, he amplifies the danced parts with exceptional inspiration. Finally, Mozart integrates a vast French-style ballet into his Idoménée: the Chaconne is irresistible... Galvanizing the Royal Opera Orchestra, Reinhard Goebel's sharp baton stretches the arc of a century of French-style dance !

Vivaldi's work is extraordinarily profuse, and from his “extraordinary fury of composition” resulted a collection of 12 concertos, preserved in Paris since then, genuine jewels of Vivaldian music! However, for whom were they composed? The French Ambassador in Venice, Jacques-Vincent Languet, who made numerous commissions to Vivaldi in the 1720s? Perhaps as a magnificent gift to a visiting French music lover... Or perhaps François-Etienne, Duke of Lorraine and Bar? A fine music lover and musician, who in 1745 became Emperor Francis I of Austria, gave early protection to Vivaldi, who introduced himself in 1731 as “maestro di cappella di S.A.R. il Serenissimo Sig. Duca di Lorena”. The Paris Concertos would then have passed through the Luneville Court, which was very musical? The mystery is there, but these works influenced Parisian musical life. Stefan Plewniak's raging violin gives them back their full glory in this virtuoso interpretation by the Orchestre de l'Opera Royal de Versailles!

Rameau’s key forgotten comédie-lyrique is brought back to life: in 1760, at the age of 77, Les Paladins would be his last work performed in public. Inspired by the triumph of his other comedy, Platée, Rameau adds emphasis and excess, makes the orchestra gleam and the singers leap, with sharp turns in the comic tone and magnificent sentimental passages. Set in the fantastical Middle Ages, here is a comedy of characters brilliantly treated as caricatures: the beautiful Argie prisoner of the monstrous Orcan, the Paladin Atis reeing his bride, the Fairy Manto unleashing demons and furies, and transfiguring the castle with a dance of Pagodas and a Chinese entertainment! Valentin Tournet brings his magnificent soloists and the Chapelle Harmonique to life in this latest Rameau jewel!

In 1670, Molière and Lully presented to the King Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, a sumptuous Comédie-Ballet performed by Molière's Troupe, with musicians conducted by Lully, ballets by Pierre Beauchamp, scenery by Carlo Vigarani and Turkish costumes by the Chevalier d'Arvieux. The work was inspired by the ambassador Soliman Musta Aga-Feraga, whom Louis XIV had just kept waiting for long weeks before receiving him, provoking his exasperation which amused the King and the courtiers’ sneer, the whole of Paris mocking the outlandish mores of the envoys of the Great Turk. The idea came to Molière of a plot based on fake Turks, ridiculing a Bourgeois aspiring to nobility: thus, a masterpiece was born, with the dazzling Cérémonie Turque, and at the end a sumptuous Ballet des Nations. The magnificent music of this pillar of French theatre is recorded here in its entirety for the first time by Vincent Dumestre: Glory be to Lully and to Molière!

This is a compendium of festive rarities in the ‘Grand Siècle’ of the French organ: their authors have almost been forgotten, secular and the sacred mix with dance rhythms, and half of these works have been written more for a concert than the Service! These precious scores have been waiting like guilty pleasures buried in the secret drawers of our lives, hidden behind the French organ grand masters’ sumptuously bound volumes… Lucile Dollat breathes life into Piroye’s L’Allegresse, L’Immortelle and La Béatitude, the brilliant D’Agincour Suites and Balbastre’s sparkling Concerto again, with the contribution of percussionist Michael Metzler, who is more inventive than ever in Raison’s Le Vive le Roy des Parisiens (Long live the King of Parisians)! The Great Organ in the Royal Chapel of Versailles gives a majestic voice to these collector’s gems, unearthed with great enthusiasm by a young organist with determined play.

Review

This is the seventh disc on the Château de Versailles Spectacles label, devoted to organ music performed at the organ of the Chapelle Royale in Versailles, which dates from 1711. It is pretty much the ideal instrument, both for the liturgical and the more secular works. Lucile Dollat is a young organist who has won several prizes and is giving concerts across Europe. I had not heard her before, and I am impressed by her style of playing.

--MusicWeb International (Johan van Veen)

Jewels of the 17th century, the Tours and Deslauriers manuscripts form a corpus of three hundred works born in the fervour of the provinces of the Kingdom. This journey to the very heart of French cathedrals reveals the striking theatricality of sacred stories, ranging from fascinating anonymous pieces to flashes of genius by Bouzignac and Moulini�. Under the direction of Fabien Armengaud, the Pages and Chantres of the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles make these scores blossom into a garden of delights, like a bouquet of myrrh.