Sacred Music from the Era of Louis XIII

Abstract

SACRED MUSIC FROM THE ERA OF LOUIS XIII Gantez. Missa Lae tamini. Serie proposee par Michel Cuvelier. (Cahiers de musique. Patrimoine musical bourguignon.) (Patrimoine musical francais. Collection choeur.) Versailles: Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, 2009. [Notes biographiques, etc., p. [3-5]; score, p. 7-26. ISMN M560161709, ISBN-13/EAN 9790560161709, pub. no. CAH 170. euro12] Artus Aux-Cousteaux. Magnificat primi toni (1641); Magnificat secundi toni (1641); Magnificat tertii toni (1641); Magnificat quarti toni (1641); Magnificat quinti toni (1641); Magnificat sexti toni (1641); Magnificat septimi toni (1641); Magnificat octavi toni (1641). Edition proposee par Gerard Geay. Restitution du plain-chant: Jean-Yves Hameline. 8 volumes. (Patrimoine musical francais. Collection choeur.) Versailles: Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, 2009. [Notes biographiques, etc., p. [3-6]; scores, p. 7-12 or 13. ISMN M560161815, ISBN-13/EAN 9790560161815, pub. no. CAH 181 (primi toni); ISMN M560161822, ISBN-13/EAN 0790560161822, pub. no. CAH 182 (secundi toni); ISMN M560161839, ISBN-13/EAN 9790560161839, pub. no. CAH 183 (tertii toni); ISMN M560161846, ISBN-13/EAN 9790560161846, pub. no. CAH 184 (quarti toni); ISMN M560161853, ISBN-13/EAN 0790560161853, pub. no. CAH 185 (quinti toni); ISMN M560161860, ISBN-13/EAN 0790560161860, pub. no. CAH 186 (sexti toni); ISMN M560161877, ISBN-13/EAN 0790560161877, pub. no. CAH 187 (septimi toni); ISMN M560161884, ISBN-13/EAN 0790560161884, pub. no. CAH 188 (octavi toni). Each volume euro9.50] This group of publications by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles (CMBV) contributes both to the study and to the performance of sacred music from the time of Louis XIII, a period for which sacred music has not received much scholarly attention until recently. The year 2009 brought two important additions to the collection that is published under the CMBV's Cahiers de musique series, including Gantez's (1607-ca. 1668) Missa Lae tamini, and a cycle of Magnificats on the eight Psalm tones by Artus Aux- Cousteaux (ca. 1590-ca. 1654) issued in eight separate volumes. These scores complement earlier publications of works of Antoine Boesset (1586-1643), and Guillaume Bouzignac (ca. 1587-after 1642) in the CMBV Cahiers de musique series, as well as a newly issued large collection of Boesset's sacred works edited by Peter Bennett and published by A-R Editions (Sacred Music, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 164-65 [Middle - ton, WI: A-R Editions, 2010]) all adding substantially to the modest list of modern editions available to the scholar and musician for French sacred music from the early seventeenth century. The nine scores under consideration here contain music for four unaccompanied voices, offering a rich new body of unexplored choral music for collegiate choirs. Gantez is known to us primarily through his 1643 book L'entretien des mu - siciens (The care of musicians), a delightfully entertaining and informative collection of letters that sheds light on the customs and practices of musicians associated with the maItrises (choir schools) of seventeenth-century France. Recent research has established for the first time Gantez's birth in Marseille in 1607 (Florence Chappee, Annibal Gantez, auteur de L'entretien des musiciens (1643), in MaItrises & chapelles aux XVIIe & XVIIIe siecles: Des institutions musicales au service de dieu, ed. Bernard Dompnier, 271-89, Collection Histoires croisees [Clermont- Ferrand: Presses Uni versitaires Blaise- Pascal, 2003]), and also has given evidence that he served at least seventeen maItrises during his peripatetic career, several of them for more than one period of employment. Gantez worked as far south as Toulon and as far north as Le Havre, and served St. Paul and St. Innocents in Paris in the three years before his move to Auxerre in 1643 where he published his book. No manuscripts of this composer have survived, but in 1642 Ballard published two of Gantez's masses, one of which was the Missa Lae tamini (Mass of Rejoicing). …