Three from 17th Century France

Unsuccessful in gaining a position at Louis XIV’s court, or in establishing a career at the Paris Opéra (in part due to the machinations of his powerful rival Jean-Baptiste Lully), Charpentier did acquire across his lifetime several major posts and commissions in Paris. In turn, this afforded him numerous opportunities to compose in a diverse range of genres and styles (refining his Franco-Italian stylistic plurality) and for a range of performing forces. Thus, today we are left with the largest body of seventeenth-century French music by one composer, consisting almost entirely of autograph manuscripts. These are further unique on account of the detail they contain on matters of performance. Numerous annotations made by the composer demonstrate both a creative and diverse approach to the practice of performing.

Litanies in honour of the Blessed Virgin (known as Litanies of Loreto) became increasingly popular throughout the Counter-Reformation and onwards as the Catholic Church continued its quest to directly connect Mary with scripture and Church tradition. Of Charpentier’s nine settings of this text, the only one not written for the Jesuits is the Litanies de la vierge, H83, on this recording. On returning to Paris from Rome in the early 1670s, Charpentier took up a position as composer-in-residence for the powerful and pious Mademoiselle de Guise, a patron whose date of birth fell on the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, and who in her own youth made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Loreto. It was for her that these Litanies (H83 in the thematic catalogue) were written, with performing forces drawn from the ensemble of domestiques in her service. Numbering around fifteen performers by the mid-1680s, this ensemble is known to have included the composer himself as in thirteen works (including H83) the annotations ‘Charp’ and ‘moy icy’ appear adjacent to the haute-contre part (a type of high tenor/alto unique to French music of this period). The talent of these musicians was widely acclaimed, and the Mercure galant once described her ensemble as ‘so fine that we may say that those of several great monarchs cannot compare with it’.

Having such talent at his disposal was not lost on Charpentier, as seen in the scoring of H83 which differs markedly from the standard five-part scoring established at Louis XIV’s court and Chapelle Royale. Written for six mixed voices (three female and three male), along with two treble instruments and continuo, the piece exploits the possibilities of combining and contrasting these two symmetrical groups with the full choir—for example, the male trio at the text ‘Mater Christi’ against the female trio at ‘Salus infirmorum’. These groups are juxtaposed with complex contrapuntal writing involving all six voice parts, such as at the first iteration of the text ‘ora pro nobis’, the request for Mary to hear the penitent’s prayer, which recurs in a variety of guises throughout the work.

Charpentier’s ten settings of the Magnificat contain one extraordinary version: the Magnificat à 3, H73, presented here. Scored for a trio of male voices, again including the characteristically French haute-contre, plus two treble instruments and continuo, it is an unusual combination, but one Charpentier often uses. The composer’s mastery of mid-century Italian style and technique is revealed in the work’s melodic and harmonic construction. Two such Italianisms include the use of instrumental ritornelli at the end of each verse and extended melismas such as on ‘Et exsultavit spiritus’ representing the notion of rejoicing and exaltation.

Perhaps most remarkable is the use of a descending four-note ostinato, G-F-E flat-D, in the bass part throughout this work. Moreover, the skilful way in which phrases in the vocal and instrumental parts both coincide and overlap with each repetition of this ostinato is reminiscent of the duet ‘Pur ti miro’ in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea. As well as providing melodic and harmonic structure, this specific four-note pattern (a descending minor tetrachord) may also have had semiotic significance. Widely acknowledged as representing both lament and romantic love in secular music, the tetrachord is also thought by Lois Rosow to signify ‘the full range of passions associated with a love of Jesus and the Church in the Jesuit-dominated religious culture of seventeenth-century France’; the latter a religious order with whom Charpentier maintained a lifelong connection.

Independent instrumental works composed with either a para-liturgical or ceremonial function are rare in French music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Charpentier’s manuscripts, however, do contain several examples, with the Ouverture pour le sacre d’un évêque, H536, perhaps the grandest in terms of scoring and compositional techniques. Whilst the title indicates the type of occasion for which the work was composed (the consecration of a Bishop) there is some circumstantial evidence to suggest that this work may have been performed at the Jesuit Collège Louis-le-Grand on 9 December 1695 as part of the celebrations for the enthronement of Louis-Antoine, Cardinal de Noailles, the new Archbishop of Paris. The work comprises two very distinct and contrasting sections: the first in dotted, duple rhythms, the second in triple metre. Imitative counterpoint is particularly prominent at the opening of the second section as the individual soloists enter. Such textures and techniques are clearly reminiscent of the French ouverture, itself associated with sentiments of grandeur.

Equally lavish is the scoring for four-part strings, a continuo part for organ and lower strings, and the tantalizing possibility of two flutes or recorders, as indicated by the annotation ‘s’il y en a’ (‘if there are any’). While Charpentier is often specific in the scoring he desires, this annotation and the addition to the title of ‘et hautbois’ (possibly added later on account of a difference in ink colour) suggest this work was originally scored for four-part strings alone and likely to have been for a previous consecration ceremony. However, we might speculate that in the 1690s Charpentier added woodwinds for de Noailles’ consecration where, for a ceremony of such prestige, more and varied types of instruments may well have been available at the Jesuit Collège.

Musical settings for the services of Tenebrae (referring to the darkness that ensues from the gradual extinguishing of candles during the service) exist as far back as the fifteenth century. Taking as their basis texts from the Old Testament ‘Lamentations of Jeremiah’ (a poem written on an acrostic of the Hebrew letters of the alphabet) and a plainchant melody known as the ‘tonus lamentationis’, these musical accompaniments to the Passiontide liturgy became popular with many composers including Palestrina, who wrote five books of them from 1564 onwards. Although Tenebrae is no longer a standard part of today’s liturgy, in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century France a flowering of this genre occurred under composers such François Couperin and Sébastien de Brossard. It is from Charpentier, however, that we have the largest number of settings: a total of fifty-three pieces.

Ordinarily, Leçons de ténèbres are the Offices of Matins for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday (with three leçons sung each day). Traditionally, the first leçon would be sung at daybreak, as the term Matins implies, but in Charpentier’s day ténèbres services were celebrated the evening before; hence the leçon for Thursday is entitled ‘Mercredi’. These later leçonsdiffer in several respects to those Charpentier wrote in the 1670s: an assured stylistic plurality between Italian chromaticism and French air de cour writing styles (a hybrid of aria and recitative) occurs alongside a firm union between textual meaning and musical content (word painting), with a juxtaposition of assured counterpoint against syllabic declamation.

Both the first and third leçons are scored for solo bass voice, woodwinds, strings and continuo group. In addition to the stylistic features already highlighted, these works afford a more prominent role to the instruments, despite acknowledged clerical ordinances imposing reductions in the use of instruments during Lent. Charpentier’s concern for both timbre and dramatic intensification may be seen where he demands reductions in the dynamic level (and possibly the use of mutes), as indicated by the term ‘sourdines’, along with specified silences, such as that for ‘un grand silence’ which occurs ahead of the section ‘Quomodo sedet sola civitas’ (‘How desolate lies the city’). Here we can assume that the acoustic of the church would have played an effective role in prolonging the final notes of the preceding fully scored section that ends with the sung Hebraic letter ‘Aleph’, as well as providing a poignant introduction to the text that follows.

Melismatic writing and bold chromaticism feature prominently in the Seconde leçon. Whilst this is one means of drawing the listeners’ attention to key parts of the text, Charpentier also constructs a dialogue between the vocal and instrumental resources that has a by-product of creating form and structure. Scored for solo haute-contre and continuo group, the instrumental bass line not only has a defined melodic shape but often imitates the haute-contre line or repeats various of its accompanying figurations in order to emphasize individual words and phrases—for example, in the passage ‘conversa est retrorsum’ (‘and turns away her face’) where the repeat of the accompaniment contains more chromatic harmonies.

While Charpentier had his detractors, he also had in equal number supporters for whom both his Italianisms and his technical skill (particularly his colourful harmonic language) were what defined his ingenuity. Perhaps, then, the final word should come from Charpentier’s contemporary and lifelong supporter, the composer and lexicographer Sébastien de Brossard: ‘It is his youthful experience in Italy that a few extreme French purists, or those jealous of the excellence of his music, have seized upon quite inappropriately when criticizing his Italian taste; for it can be said without flattering him that he made use only of the good.’MARC-ANTOINE CHARPENTIER 

Lecons de tenebres, Litanies & Magnificat

Stephane Degout, Samuel Boden, Arcangelo Jonathan Cohen

Litanies de la vierge H83 [16'44] 
ANNA DENNIS soprano, ZOË BROOKSHAW soprano, ANNA HARVEY mezzo-soprano SAMUEL BODEN tenor, THOMAS WALKER tenor, ASHLEY RICHES bass 
1 Kyrie eleison [5'15] 
2 Speculum iustitiae [2'47] 
3 Salus infirmorum [5'01] 
4 Agnus Dei [3'41]
5 Magnificat à 3 H73 [9'26] 

SAMUEL BODEN tenor, THOMAS WALKER tenor, ASHLEY RICHES bass
6 Ouverture pour le sacre d’un évêque H536 [4'26]

Première leçon de ténèbres du Mercredi saint H120 [10'40] 
STÉPHANE DEGOUT baritone 
7 Prelude [0'54] 
8 Incipit lamentatio [0'57] 
9 Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo [1'07]
10 Plorans ploravit [2'00] 
11 Migravit Juda [1'26] 
12 Viae Sion lugent [1'53] 
13 Facti sunt hostes [1'06] 
14 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere [1'17]

Seconde leçon de ténèbres du Mercredi saint H138 [13'05] 
SAMUEL BODEN tenor 
15 Vau. Et egressus est a filia [2'54] 
16 Zain. Recordata est Jerusalem [3'09] 
17 Peccatum peccavit Jerusalem [2'43] 
18 Teth. Sordes eius in pedibus eius [2'46] 
19 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere [1'33]

Troisième leçon de ténèbres du Mercredi saint H123 [18'55] 
STÉPHANE DEGOUT baritone 
20 Prelude [1'26] 
21 Jod [0'21] 
22 Manum suam misit [2'32]
23 Omnis populus [1'59] 
24 Lamed [1'01]
25 O vos omnes [2'08]
26 Mem [1'03] 
27 De excelso misit ignem [2'26] 
28 Nun [1'13] 

29 Vigilavit iugum [1'57] 

30 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere [2'49] Lecons de tenebres, Litanies & Magnificat