Sacred Music - From The Middle Ages To The 20th Century [CD 7]

CD 7

GRAND MOTET
HENRY DUMONT (1610-1684)
01. Memorare [08:43]
Jean-BAptiste Lully (1632-1687)
02. Dies Irae [18:52]
Solistes, Choeur et Orchestre de La Chapelle Royale
Dir. Philippe Herreweghe
Michel-Richard Delalande (1657-1726)
Super flumina Babilonis (1687)
03. I - Simphonie - Super flumina [03:59]
04. II - In Salicibus [02:35]
05. III - Quia illic interrogaverunt nos [00:40]
06. IV - Hymnum cantate nobis [02:32]
07. V - Si oblitus fuero tui [01:30]
08. VI - Adhaereat lingua mea [02:44]
09. VII - Memore esto, Domine [01:10]
10. VIII - Filia Babilonis misera [soli] [01:19]
11. IX - Filia Babilonis misera [choeur] [01:29]
Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704)
Te Deum H.146
12. I - Prelude [01:53]
13. II - Te Deum laudamus [01:04]
14. III - Te aeternum Patrem [03:59]
15. IV - Per te orbem terrarum [03:22]
16. V - Tu devicto mortis arculeo [01:52]
17. VI - Te ergo quaesumus [02:25]
18. VII - Aertuna fac cum sanctis tuis [02:22]
19. VIII - Dignare Domine [01:58]
20. IX - Fiat misericordia tua Domine [01:43]
21. X - In te Domine speravi [02:34]
Les Arts Florissants, dir. William Christie
PETIT MOTET
JEAN-BAPTISTE LULLY (1632-1687)
22. Ave coeli [03:40]
Michel-Richard Delalande (1657-1726)
23. Miserator et misercors [06:44]
Les Arts Florissants, dir. William Christie

THE GRAND MOTET

The grand motet was originally a highly complex mosaic of solo sections of varying length (the ‘recits’) contrasted with
choral sections assigned either to the ‘grand choeur’ of the full complement of singers or to the ‘petit choeur’ made up of a
small group of soloists; the use of these two choirs permits polychoral effects of the kind inherited from neighbouring Italy.
A five-part string orchestra with the addition of wind instruments doubling the top and bottom lines (dessus and basse)
introduced the motet proper with a fairly extended instrumental movement (the ‘symphonie’), and played the ritornellos and
accompaniments. This prototype was perfected simultaneously by Lully and Dumont in the early days of the reorganisation
of Louis XIV’s Chapelle Royale. Both the Dies irae of the former composer, which quotes the Gregorian prose almost note for
note at its opening (in final farewell to Queen Marie-Therese), and the Memorare and the Super flumina Babylonis of the
latter divide the liturgical text into brief solo and choral sections, an effective way of ‘following’ each of the verses as closely as
possible and a handy technical device for building up large-scale pieces. Charpentier adopted the same architecture founded
on contrast in his Te Deum (composed around 1690) and his Motet pour l’Offertoire de la Messe Rouge, a Mass celebrated
at the opening of a new session of the Parliament of Paris when all its members wore their scarlet robes.

This mould was broken with Delalande because of the new possibilities of development offered by the tonal system, namely
the use of harmonic progressions (a discovery often associated with Corelli and Vivaldi) which make it possible to prolong
melodic formulas and thereby to project the music over the long term with a minimum of thematic material. Starting from
the premise of the through-composed grand motet, Delalande invented the motet in independent numbers (generally one
movement to each verse of the psalm), comparable to the cantatas of J. S. Bach. – J.-P. M.

Dumont’s output is remarkable for the union he managed to achieve between tradition and innovation, retaining the best of
what had come down to him from the great polyphonic tradition of the Chapelle Royale. On the other hand, even if he was not
the first to write a recitative motet with basso continuo, he did invest the genre, newly arrived in France, with an expressive
quality which made him a precursor.

His grands motets follow a scheme which, without being uniform, recurs from one motet to another and here too creates
the impression of a remarkable equilibrium. All the forms with which Dumont experimented in his preceding works – recit,
dialogue, double chorus – are combined here in perfectly controlled total entities. The ease with which the composer passes


striking.

In the Memorare Dumont displays a more ‘pointillist’ character to his art, with the long recits striving to express every detail
of the successive images of a text which is less classical than the large-scale Psalms of David, more Baroque and rhetorical.
‘Ad te curro’ and ‘ad te venio’ suggest images of movement and haste, ‘gemens peccator’ a dejected lamentation, and ‘noli
verba despicere’ a supplication.

Solid, clear-cut, direct, Lully’s Dies Irae of 1674 is notable for its great dramatic power. It is true that Thomas of Celano’s
poem seems to call for Baroque emphasis in every verse. But Lully was a dramatist, one of the most skilled masters of
theatrical effects in seventeenth-century European music. The Dies Irae is based on the plainchant melody (here provided
with a leading note) which is suddenly cut off by the terrifying ‘quantus tremor’, the pathetic ‘mors stupebit’ in the bass, the
dramatic choral interjections on ‘Rex tremendae majestatis’, all of them ‘episodes’ created by a sacred tragedian. As for the
five-part ‘Lacrimosa’, these few bars probably constitute one of the most moving passages Lully left us, for, although he does
not stint on the violence of his effects, he never overdoes it. The ‘Pie Jesu’ alone is repeated twice by the soloists, then by an
extended chorus which by itself gives the lie to those who claim that Lully knew no counterpoint, those who say he had no
heart, and those who conclude that he had no genius. – P. Be.

Delalande’s Super flumina Babilonis (1687, Psalm 137) expresses the exiled Jews’ cry of distress from the rivers of Babylon
(a reference to the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes?). Four movements for full choir are the focus, from the doleful
99-bar opening in C minor to the 43-bar finale. Expressive settings of the text occur in the second section as the three-voice
ensemble hangs on the phrase ‘suspendimus organa’, or in the fourth movement in C major as the baritone and choir rejoice
at ‘Hymnum cantate nobis’. – B. C.

Of the four extant settings of the Te Deum by Charpentier, the most celebrated is unquestionably that in D major, H146,
thanks to the television producers who chose its prelude as the theme music for Eurovision in the early 1950s. This decision,
improbable enough on the face of it (they should logically have opted for an excerpt from Vivaldi’s already ultra-famous Four
Seasons), can doubtless be traced back to the publication in 1943 of an edition by Guy Lambert and its recording in 1953
by Louis Martini conducting the Chorale des Jeunesses Musicales de France and the Orchestre de Chambre des Concerts
Pasdeloup.

Although Charpentier was born in Paris and his Parisian career is fairly well documented, we know almost nothing of the
genesis and first performances of his Te Deum in D major. Its composition seems to date from the early 1690s. It may
perhaps have been written to accompany the celebrations commemorating the military victory of Steinkirk (3 August 1692)
at which the Duke of Luxembourg crushed King William III of England. It may also be surmised that Charpentier’s score was
commissioned by the Jesuits of the church of St Louis, for whom he had been working since 1687: the autograph manuscript
mentions the name of the bass Pierre Beaupuy, who before singing for the Jesuits had served as musicien ordinaire at the
Hotel de Guise, where he made our composer’s acquaintance.

The Te Deum in D major, a ‘joyous and very warlike’ key according to the composer, is Charpentier’s only setting to call for
trumpets and kettledrums, as does its counterpart by Jean-Baptiste Lully. The (all too) famous Prelude en rondeaux is followed
by a mosaic of more or less contrasting musical sections grouped into eight movements, in which eight soloists and four-part


of the hymn, it is worth noting that the word ‘Patrem’ (is this the Pater divinitatis or the Pater patri.?) is underlined by the
chorus, while the words ‘omnis terra veneratur’, uttered unanimously, are prolonged by a conjunct descent of the orchestra,
as if all the earth were bowing down before the Most High and/or the Most Christian Sovereign. In contrast with these brilliant
sections, to which we should add the ‘Judex crederis’, Charpentier contrives some very fine passages of supplication, delicate and
introverted, such as the magnificent ‘Te ergo qu.sumus’ in E minor and the trio ‘Fiat misericordia tua’. – J.-P. M.

THE PETIT MOTET

With his Cantica Sacra of 1652 Henry Dumont inaugurated a new genre which, under the auspices of Louis XIV, was to
remain much in vogue until the middle of the eighteenth century. These ‘little motets’ were originally sung by the ‘Musique
de la Chapelle’ in the course of Mass (during the Elevation), between a grand motet and the Domine salvum fac Regem with
which each celebration ended. Around 1700, at the instigation of Philippe II d’Orleans and his musicians (Bernier, Campra,
Morin), the genre became a kind of ‘religious cantata’ with arias and recitatives privileging the Italian style. On account of
its modest dimensions and the fact that it called for no more than a few singers and instrumentalists with the indispensable
continuo, the petit motet constituted an ideal repertory for churches and religious communities (like Saint-Cyr), for offices of
Vespers, processions, and concerts both private and public (such as the Concert Spirituel in Paris).

Delalande’s petits motets are far less known than their larger-scale counterparts, precisely because most of them are
‘artificial’, or, to put it more clearly, because they were based on the very recits of the grands motets that enchanted all Paris.
Apart from the Miserere a voix seule, they are no more than arrangements of grands motets which have been adapted for
soprano, continuo, and organ ritornellos (reductions of the orchestral ritornellos) which are sometimes written out in full.
Miserator et misericors combines two psalms, dividing each of the pieces into two contrasting parts – both in character and
in style. The prayer begins with two sections in contrasting tempos (‘lentement’ in A minor and ‘leger et gracieux’ in A major)
to words from Psalm 144 and continues in A major with an aria (‘gayement’) in two sections that are themselves divided by
two short passages (‘lentement’) from Psalm 67. – J.-P. M.

Lully’s petits motets occupy a rather special place in the Florentine’s output. Unlike the grands motets, of which we possess
several contemporary accounts, no chroniclers or letter-writers left a record of the impression made on them by these works.

One essential aspect of these compositions is their obvious Italianism. Here Lully’s writing plunges its roots into the tradition
of Carissimi, whose other French representative is, of course, Charpentier. Thus we find the two rivals reconciled in a very
special musical genre.

What are the features Lully has retained of Carissimi’s style? In the first place, the vocal and instrumental forces: three voices
accompanied by a simple basso continuo. Only two motets also have a ritournelle (i.e. introduction) for violin and continuo.
Most of these motets are written for three high voices, which lends credence to the theory of their original destination, a female
convent, as mentioned in Philidor’s catalogue of 1729. It indicates the convent of the Filles de l’Assomption on rue Saint-
Honore, founded in 1622. This convent was well known for the quality of the voices of the nuns and attracted large audiences,
especially for the Offices of Tenebrae in Holy Week.

Lully’s style in these works is extremely fluent, for he handles the three parts in a constant play of imitation with canons at the
fifth or at the octave. But he also knows when to insert a long solo passage or to lend the piece a more urgent forward drive
by means of a homophonic, syllabic section.


mood he has chosen.

These small-scale pieces are not isolated curiosities in French religious music of the period: the petits motets and ‘elevations’
(a term that indicates their place at the Elevation in the liturgy of the Mass) of Dumont, Robert, and Danielis are other
examples of the genre. Nonetheless, for the easy competence of the writing and the gracious emotion it radiates, this small
body of works by Lully deserves a place in our memory of seventeenth-century France. – C. M.