Henri Ledroit F. Couperin: Motets (1985)

Certains s'étonneront de voir la note maximale décernée à un enregistrement où certains solistes accusent de sérieuses faiblesses, Ian Honeyman en particulier. Pourtant, il y a quelque chose de magique dans cette interprétation des petits motets de Couperin. D'abord, Henri Ledroit y est superlatif et signe sans doute l'un de ses meilleurs disques où l'on s'émerveille sur la clarté du timbre, la justesse dans l'aigu, la grâce dans le phrasé, la douceur de l'émission.

Après avoir été organiste de l’église Saint-Paul à Paris, le Liégeois Henry Du Mont devient maître de chapelle de Louis XIV. Dès la publication de son premier recueil de motets en 1652, les Cantica Sacra, il s’impose comme l’un des créateurs du motet français et compose les premiers motets à voix seule, genre qui se développera durant les générations suivantes. Cet enregistrement est complété par quelques motets de Léonard Hodemont, maître de chapelle de la cathédrale Saint-Lambert de Liège.

The Ricercar Consort is a Belgian instrumental ensemble founded in 1980 together with the Ricercar record label of Jérôme Lejeune.The founding members were violinist François Fernandez, organist Bernard Foccroulle, and viola da gamba player Philippe Pierlot. The initial repertoire was focussed on the German Baroque, and the Consort was closely identified with the series Deutsche Barock Kantaten. In recordings and concerts the Consort was joined by baroque specialist singers including; Greta De Reyghere, Agnès Mellon, countertenors Henri Ledroit and James Bowman, tenor Guy de Mey and bass Max van Egmond, as well as the cornett player Jean Tubéry.

The large motet 'à la française' is a quite distinctive affair that has nothing in common with the more traditional notion that a composer like Bach, for instance, had of the genre. If a comparison must be made, we will find that the French motet is more like an extended cantata consisting of a succession of choruses and arias accompanied by the orchestra, with the absence of recitative constituting an important difference.

Before you play the first track of this disc, make sure you're in quiet surroundings and ready to listen closely. You'll hear a pure yet sensuous soprano voice slip gently out of the silence and sing a melody that manages to be haunting and virtuosic at the same time–only to be followed by a similar voice doing the same thing. The two voices coil around each other (with some gleaming suspensions) for a full minute before instruments join them. And that's just the beginning of this marvelous disc of motets by François Couperin, a composer better known for his keyboard and chamber music. Most of these pieces were written to accompany the Elevation of the Host (the most solemn moment of the Roman Catholic liturgy), so you won't hear much exuberance.

Born in Venice, Sartorio composed 14 operas. He often made the long journey from Hanover, where he held the post of Maestro di Capella to the Duke of Brunswick, to compose and present new operas in his native city and recruit musicians for the German court. He is credited with introducing Italian opera to the Hanover court in 1672. Sartorio finally returned to Venice to be Maestro at St Mark’s where he composed sacred music, albeit not as much as the renowned Coffi might have been expected of him in that position.

François Couperin’s period of pre-eminence falls neatly between those of Lully and Rameau, whose rising reputations have rather overshadowed his in recent years. Yet Couperin produced some splendid music: for example, the elegant Nouveaux concerts, written for chamber concerts at the French court and published in 1724 under the title Les goûts réunis (referring to their mixture of French and Italian styles). This reissue comprises eight of the ten Nouveaux concerts in accomplished period performances from 1972 and 1974. While the leisurely tempi and restrained playing now give the recording a somewhat dated air, the music largely retains its capacity to charm.

Versailles: its court, its atmosphere and its music… So many splendours emblematic of a monument with an incomparably rich history. The works associated with the palace have travelled down the centuries and today represent a precious part of our heritage. In this ten-CD set, Alpha retraces the musical life of the unique and luminous universe of Versailles. Le Poème Harmonique, Café Zimmermann, Capriccio Stravagante and many others invite themselves into the company of Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Jean-Henry d’Anglebert and share with us for a few hours the sumptuous concerts that made Versailles a place like no other.