French anthologies

Abstract

The tercentenary of Charpentier's death was marked in 2004 by a rich crop of commemorative events, nowhere more so than in his native France. A lavish series entitled ‘Journées Marc-Antoine Charpentier à la cour de France’ took place under the aegis of the Centre de la Musique Baroque de Versailles, and it is from this series that the two DVDs in my current batch originate. Both are recordings of concerts given in Louis XIV's chapel at the Versailles château. The present chapel was completed six years after the death of Charpentier, who in any case had little to do with Versailles, but its warm acoustic proves ideal for his sacred music. This is apparent in an attractive DVD anthology entitled Le tombeau de Marc-Antoine Charpentier (Armide arm005, issued 2005, 75'), performed by Il Seminario Musicale directed by Gérard Lesne, who present eight works for a variety of solo groupings with or without obbligato instruments. The most extended of these are the Miserere (h173), an affecting setting for three voices and continuo, and the Epitaphium Carpentarii (h474), in which Charpentier's ghost makes his extraordinary confession that composing for a largely uncomprehending public had brought him ‘small honour and great burdens’.