Maîtres

An extraordinary enterprise … As an experience of the sounds and styles of French organ culture this boxed set, it seems to me, is indispensable … the body of music is mostly, here, not created but simply made alive by the apt choice of instruments … it is a resource to which to return with delight.

A sophisticated composer, Brossard also left his mark thanks to the extraordinary collection of music manuscripts he amassed over the course of his life. Preserved for posterity when he catalogued and handed it over to the royal library in 1724, the compendium contains an impressive number of musical gems like the Requiem by Bouteiller, which Brossard counted among the best Mass settings in his possession. Focusing on the work of these French masters, Paul Agnew has fashioned a program exploring the role of cathedral and chapel choirs during the reign of Louis XIV.

This collection of baroque hurdy-gurdy music represents, in a way, that instrument's comeback after a century of neglect and scorn (although, one presumes, that back then the scorn was at least being heaped upon the actual hurdy-gurdy, and not the glorified music box that has usurped its name in the current popular imagination). In the medieval period, the hurdy-gurdy was depicted as being played by angels as the appropriate accompaniment to the singing of the Psalms. However, its association with peasants (not to mention the limited range of the instrument in the pre-baroque era) tainted its musical reputation considerably. Relegated to an attention-getting device of blind beggars, the hurdy-gurdy was a solidly lower class instrument.