Jarry Potter

This is a sort of self-portrait of the Great Organ of the Royal Chapel of Versailles, delivering all its aspects, enhanced by the choice of a repertoire emblematic of the baroque era: the major classic French organ works (Couperin, Marchand, de Grigny, Corrette) composed to glorify the very specific aesthetics of instruments like that of Louis XIV's Chapel; but also to reveal its other sound riches, transcriptions of chefs d'oeuvres, from Le Sommeil d'Atys by Lully, to the contredanses of Rameau's Boréades. To add a new dimension to the organ's sound universe and to enhance its orchestral qualities, modern editing and "re-recording" processes were gently used to serve the superposition of musical voices, as if invisible hands filled in for the organist in certain works, which are true Proust's "madeleines" for Gaétan Jarry. He goes all out to play the instrument of Versailles "for the Glory of God and the King"!

It was on July 18, 1668 that Moliere successfully performed George Dandin ou le mari confundu, a play mixed with a sung pastoral, for "Le Grand Divertissement Royal de Versailles" offered by Louis XIV to his Court, as a celebration of the Peace of Aachen. This amusing story of a rich peasant who purchases a young noble girl includes interludes set to the splendid music of Lully. The same year sees the promising meeting between Lully and Quinault: together they write for King La Grotte de Versailles, in which Louis is glorified, and dances in person the role of a nymph. These two works, symbolic of the creative vigor of the early days of Versailles, and of the artistic appetite of a thirty-year-old Sovereign, are brought back to life thanks to Gaetan Jarry and Marguerite Louise, with incomparable taste: tambourines, flutes and musettes are part of the festivities and the trumpets proclaim the glory of Louis. Here we have a scintillating echo of the sumptuous festivities given at Versailles by Louis XIV!

Master of 18th-century French opera, Rameau wrote for the stage for three decades (1733-1764). His thirty or so operatic works give considerable space to the haute-contre voice, the quintessence of most of the title roles: Platée, Dardanus, Hippolyte, Pygmalion… Mathias Vidal, a brilliant representative of this haute-contre tessitura, is one of its foremost specialists. Having sung the majority of Rameau’s operas on stage, he is an obvious paradigm for their characters. Together with Gaétan Jarry, he has conceived a programme of the most dazzling and expressive arias, to which have been added scenes accompanied by a chorus.

In 1733, Pergolesi created La Serva padrona in Naples, which won over Paris in 1752, becoming the symbol of Italian music. Quickly played in French as La Servante Maitresse, it inspired Rousseau for his Devin du Village, a parody of which was created under the title Les Amours de Bastien et Bastienne. Mozart discovered it in 1768 and composed his Bastien und Bastienne in German for the private theatre of the magician Mesmer. These two masterpieces bound through style and history come to life with colourful plots: lightness, falsehoods and what is comic create delightfully bubbly situations for the tyrannical servant and naive shepherds, from which Pergolesi and Mozart derived the best musical effects. Adele Carlier, David Tricou and Marc Scoffoni, with the Opera Royal Orchestra and Gaetan Jarry, carry this torch of emotion and comedy, so emblematic of the 18th century.

Although celebrated for opera and harpsichord in his fifties, Rameau had formerly been first and foremost a master of sacred music. These works, composed between 1712 and 1721 when he was in his thirties, are marvels of balance, fully bearing the seeds of the splendor that Rameau would later display on the Parisian opera scene. In the French tradition of Lully and Lalande, which places the sacred text at the heart of a sumptuous musical performance, this complete set of Rameau's Motets is performed with jubilation and grace by the soloists, the choir and the Marguerite Louise Orchestra under the inspired direction of Gaétan Jarry.

D’Alfred Jarry, on ne retient souvent de nos jours que le scandaleux Ubu Roi. Cela revient cependant à passer sous silence la singulière expérimentation, placée sous le signe de l’enfance, dans laquelle l’existence de l’écrivain s’est peu à peu abimée. Au creux de sa voix lézardée se devine un désir éperdu de mettre en mots les forces de déflagration propres à la vie, qui corrompent inéluctablement notre conscience individuée et que nos nobles philosophies s’efforcent en vain de compenser. …