Olivier Gadal

Even in a field crowded with first-rate composers, Marc-Antoine Charpentier held his own in eliciting the royal favor of Louis XIV. After listening to this superlative disc collecting Charpentier's works dedicated to St. Louis, one understands why. As performed in the chapel of Versailles by Olivier Schneebeli leading Les Pagies and Les Chantes in compelling performances, this disc demonstrates Charpentier's greatest strengths as a composer, the combination of might and majesty with just a touch of sentimentality that appealed to the sovereign's elevated emotions. The boys of Les Pagies are sprightly and delightful. The men of Les Chantes are robust and wonderful.

Jacques Champion de Chambonnières (1601/2-1672) is generally regarded as the founder of the French harpsichord school. There have been a few fine anthologies of his works on CD, including those from Françoise Lengellé, Karen Flint and, best of them all I believe, a fabulous disc by Skip Sempé. However, this present two-CD set from Olivier Baumont is the first to bring us all the music from the composer's two Livres de Pièces de Clavessin, together with a generous helping of his manuscript pieces. And it adds up to a fabulous collection of works.

Les Pages and les Chantres celebrate 20 years of the teaching and musical direction of Olivier Schneebeli. He has brought together children's and adult voices in new ways to celebrate the traditions of the Royal Chapel of Versailles, a vital component in the French repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries. This exceptional box invites the listener on a journey through the masterpieces of sacred composers from the reign of Henry IV and highlights the birth of the musical genre emblematic of the Chapel Royal: the grand motet.

Alberto Rosado showcases some of the most significant modern composers in this well-considered programme. Inevitably he’s up against fierce competition, not least Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s recordings of both Ligeti’s Ricercata (included on the disc which received Gramophone’s Contemporary Award in 1997) and the complete Vingt Regards.

Michel Corrette was a French organist and composer with a long and prolific career. The two works here were composed 47 years apart, and the earlier Nouveau Livre de Noëls is not even an especially early work of this little-known composer. Despite the time difference, they don't differ sharply in style. The Messe pour le temps de Noël, composed in 1788, shows few traces of Classical-period opera or even of the late Baroque Italian vocal style, even though Corrette wrote a pedagogical work instructing his readers in the fine points of Italian music. The French style was simply extraordinarily persistent.