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GRAMOPHONE (01/2016)
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L'Encelade
ECL1403



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Reviewer: Richard Lawrence

The title of this disc is ‘Motets pour une princesse’. The lady in question was Marie de Lorraine, the Duchesse de Guise. After Charpentier had returned in 1670 from Rome, where he had studied with Carissimi, he entered her employ as composer and singer. Mademoiselle de Guise, as she was known, was a powerful aristocrat who had a large musical establishment; Charpentier remained in her service as maître de musique till her death in 1688.
Mlle de Guise was pious as well as rich, and most of Charpentier’s petits motets were no doubt written for her establishment. All but one of the six here are for three voices, two treble instruments and continuo; Gaétan Jarry includes flutes as well as violins. Flutes are actually prescribed for the opening Ave verum, composed ‘for a streetaltar’. Domine Dominus noster is a setting of Psalm 8 (‘O Lord our Governor’). The violins both engage in dialogue with the voices and connect the verses. At the section ‘Minuisti eum paulo’ (‘Thou makest him lower than the angels’) a soprano solo is followed by the bass. There is nothing that one can seriously fault, but David Witczak is careful, verging on dull in these: Charpentier’s joyful writing deserves more determined, forthright singing. The other bass is no better in Quam dilecta (‘O how amiable are thy dwellings’); they sound more lively when singing together in the four-voice Usquequo Domine (‘How long wilt thou forget me’).

The two sopranos and the instrumentalists are fine; if the overall impression is one of blandness, it’s partly due to Charpentier’s chains of Italianate thirds. The vocal pieces are interspersed with movements from the Boyvin suite. The booklet-note is informative but poorly translated; the identity of the sultry, Bardotesque figure on the cover is not revealed.

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