The Attributes of Music

Two paintings, The Attributes of civilian music and The Attribute of Military music (1767) by Jean-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) were recently given to the Louvre.

The paintings were supraporti ordered for the château de Bellevue in Meudon. Bellevue was given by Louis XV to his mistress Madame de Pompadour. She died in 1764, leaving the chateau to her brother, Abel François Poisson de Vandières, Marquis de Marigny (1727-1781).

Provenience : Coll. Eudoxe Marcille up to 1890, kept by his descendants until 2010.
RF2010-12 et RF2010-13.

These two paintings are companion pieces to The Attributes of music (INV.3200) and The attributes of the arts (INV.3199) (1765) already part of the Louvre collection.

Grands Motets for Louis XIV

Grands Motets pour Louis XIV
by Le Chœur de Chambre de Namur and Les Agrémens under Guy Van Waas.

The concert will take place at the Chapelle Royale de Versailles on Sunday November 28 2010 - 5:30pm (French time) and will be broadcast live on Arte Live Web

Cherubini's Requiem for Louis XVI

Cherubini's Requiem for Louis XVI will be given on January 21st, 2011, at the Chapelle Royale de Versailles. Louis XVI was executed on January 21st, 1793.

I think it's the first time that such a commemoration is held in Versailles. Maybe it's a test. Two centuries later, Louis XVI is still part of the big taboos in France. In 1993, some people wanted to celebrate the bicentennial of his death by putting candles on the Place de la Concorde where he was guillotined, but the city of Paris didn't allow it. The Archbishop of Paris refused Notre-Dame for a requiem. Celebrations were allowed but only in discreet places so they could pass unnoticed.

---
Luigi Cherubini : Requiem à la mémoire de Louis XVI (Requiem n°1 en ut mineur, pour chœur mixte et orchestre, 1816).
Chœur Accentus - Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen Haute-Normandie
Direction Hervé Niquet

Château de Versailles

Rameau Redux - Opera Français de New York

RAMEAU REDUX
November 10, 2010 - 7:30pm
Lycée Français de New York (LFNY)
505 East 75th Street, New York City

Rameau Redux juxtaposes the brilliant early cantatas of Jean-Philippe Rameau with the playful philosophical dialogues of Denis Diderot's Neveu de Rameau.

Harpsichord : Avi STEIN
Basse-taille : Douglas WILLIAMS
Haute-contre : Zachary WILDER

Actor : Mario BRASSARD

The acclaimed American harpsichordist, Avi Stein, leads a baroque ensemble featuring the gifted young singers Douglas Williams and Zachary Wilder in their OFNY debuts. This original concept production also features the acclaimed Canadian actor, Mario Brassard, as "Rameau's Nephew". Conceived and staged by our co-artistic directors, Jean-Philippe Clarac and Olivier Deloeuil, with lighting design by Rick Martin.

1 PERFORMANCE ONLY !
FOR TICKETS - CALL 212-632-5565 !

OFNY
Opera Français de New York

Bellérophon

Lully's opera Bellérophon was revived this year in the occasion of the Festival de Beaune. It had been created in 1679 in Paris (Palais Royal) and hadn't been performed since the XVIIIth century.
Some audio samples of the opera (the prologue and the beginning of the second act) are on display here (at the end of the article).

Althought it was not Lully's first opera, it was the first of Lully's opera scores to be printed.
A copy of the original edition by Christophe Ballard can be found at the UNT Digital library.
(The UNT Digital Library is a great ressource for anyone interested in the history of music).

Louis Quatorze - Louis XIV

Louis XIV is the theme of the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht 2010 which is starting today...

"Ten days of French Baroque music in Utrecht's concert halls and churches. Dozens of concerts, lectures, workshops and a symposium* place a spotlight on the Grand Siècle"...

* a three-day symposium titled French Baroque Gesture 1675-1800, with Graham Sadler speaking on a subject dear to my heart : "Reconstructing the union of music, movement and gesture in the ballets figurés of two Rameau-Cahusac operas"...

---

Update :

Reviews of the concerts on Johan Van Veen's excellent Musica Dei Donum.

Château de Versailles, Three Centuries of Music

The new issue of Classica puts the focus on the musical history of the chateau de Versailles. The main article, "A l'écoute de Versailles" (Listening to Versailles), by Philippe Venturini, takes the readers on a musical tour in chateau de Versailles, describing the habits and tastes of the royal residents, and where, in the chateau, the various concerts and musical events took place along the years.
---
"Visite guidée.Versailles.Trois siècles de Musique", Classica, n°123, June 2010.

(The older issues of many French magazines are now available for download from a website called Relay.com. Here is the Classica page. It's a payed service. As I never tried it, I can't tell whether it's OK, safe, etc. I'm just passing on the information. )

Arts Flo Media - Bookmark it !

Les Arts Florissants, who played a leading part in the rediscovery and the revival of baroque music and who are celebrating their 30th anniversary this year, have decided to put their archives on line.
The launch of their multimedia web site, Arts Flo Media, is planned for January 2010. The site will provide various documents, like videos, unpublished scores, pictures, and even live concerts and performances.

---
LAF's current web site : Les Arts Florissants
(Talking about archives, Harmonia Mundi has just reissued LAF's historical recording of Lully's Atys.)

Centre de Musique Romantique - Venice

Time abducting theTruth
by Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734),
Palazetto Zane

Situated in Venice, Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de musique romantique française was created by the Bru Foundation with the object of promoting international recognition of the French musical repertoire of the nineteenth century - more precisely of the repertoire of the long Romantic period ranging from 1780 to 1920.
As well as being a lively workplace and a venue for artistic events, it will provide documentary resources and facilities for teaching and research and will also publish or sponsor the publication of scores and essays.
The inauguration will take place on October 3, 2009, date of opening of the 2009/2010 musical Season.

CHMTL

The Center for the History of Music Theory and Literature (CHMTL - Indiana University) provides a wealth of theoretical writings covering the whole history of music.

A special section, Traités français sur la musique, is dedicated to the treatises written in French. Other sections gather text written in Latin, Italian and English.

----

The picture is a detail of a wallpaper found on gallica. Simon, 1799.

International Seminar of Early Music in Wallonia

International Seminar of Early Music in Wallonia

On a Schizophrenic Production

A post inspired by two critics of the performances of Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine (January 2009) performed by Jean-Christophe Spinosi & Ensemble Mattheus, and staged by Oleg Kulik, a contemporary artist .

On the one hand, Art Actuel, a magazine dedicated to contemporary art :
We are honoured to have attended, at the Châtelet theatre, the performance of the Vespro della Beata Virgine (sic !), by Claudio Monteverdi, with visual concept, staging, lightshow and costumes designed by our friend Oleg Kulik who managed to turn the musical and choral work of the Italian master into a wonderful "experience on the space liturgy".

On the other hand, Classica Répertoire, a magazine dedicated to classical music :
The Châtelet had turned into a 80's nightclub... The stellar liturgy Oleg Kulik wanted for the Vespro aimed at being scandalous, it was only old fashioned with its raelian costumes and its laser ray. Total show of ridiculing Spinosi & ali.

---
The art critic went to the Châtelet to enjoy Kulik's show, probably not knowing who Monteverdi is and not caring about him, and the musical critic went there to enjoy Monteverdi's music, surely ignoring who Kulik is and not giving a damn about conceptual art experiments.

On an artistical point of view, the description of the staging sounded appealing. It included the use of huge mirrors reflecting the public on the stage and the orchestra in the theatre, and the projection of pictures and colours on the ceiling and walls to build up a cathedral of sounds and colours.
On a musical point of view, the mention that the conducter would face the public, and the orchestra would stay on stage behind him, didn't seem very clever, even if the conductor was supposed to see the orchestra in a mirror placed behind the public. Still on the musical side, there was the killing detail : Kulik had decided to add extra sounds, like alarms, horns and various noises, in order to create the illusion of being in an open space in the middle of the city. "A stroke of genius !", exclaimed the contemporary art fan. "A pain in the neck", sighted the Monteverdi fan. Horns in the Vespro, that's great only when you don't care about Monteverdi's music.

Kulik did what most of the stage directors do nowadays : he used the concert to promote his own work and ideas.
After reading the excellent critic (in French) here. It seems to me clear that Kulik commited a double sacrilege : a musical one, for ruining Monteverdi's music with with the extra noises, and a religious one, by turning that very high and sacred moment of the christian liturgy into a dionysian ritual.

I see the ancient music as a peaceful and preserved continent, and I'm always sorry when the hords of contemporary art fighters bring to it their violence and destruction. Kulik staging Monteverdi, it's Alaric and the Goths invading Rome.

The Imaginative World of Ariosto

Engraving by Larmessin after Nicolas Lancret

The Imaginative World of Ariosto
(Arioste imaginaire, Arioste imaginé)
February 26 to May 18, 2009
Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Ariosto first published his Orlando Furioso in Ferrara in 1516, and the epic poem, telling the adventures of Orlando, quickly became an extraordinary source of inspiration for the arts and literature. The exhibition, featuring works from the Renaissance to the 19th century proposes a reflection on the mutual influences of images and text in artistic and literary creation.

Ariosto's work also influenced a lot the 17th &18th-century operatic world. The character and adventures of Orlando inspired various libretti, and composers like Vivaldi (Orlando Finto Pazzo and then Orlando Furioso), Scarlatti, Händel, Lully (Roland). Orlando Furioso's secondary characters became the central characters of some operas : Alcina (Albinoni, Händel), Ginevra principessa di Scozia/Ariodante (Perti, Pollarolo, Sarro, Händel, Wagenseil). Even Rameau's Les Paladins, based on tale by La Fontaine finds its origins in Orlando Furioso (canto 43). For that reason, the exhibition is completed with a musical program.

Concerts
Extracts from :
Händel, Orlando, Alcina, Ariodante
Lully, Roland Furieux,
Vivaldi, Orlando Furioso
Solistes de l'Atelier lyrique de l'Opéra national de Paris :
Les Paladins & Jérôme Correas
Auditorium du Louvre - March 4, 2009
Théâtre de Suresnes Jean Vilar - March 6, 2009
More about the concerts


Filmed operas
Alcina, by Georg Friedrich Händel
Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Raymond Leppard,
Chorale Elisabeth Brasseur - Catherine Brilli,
Cast :Ann Murray, Valerie Masterson, Christiane Eda Pierre, Theresa Berganza, Philip Landridge.
Ina/Antenne 2, 1978, 124 min.
Introduction speech on the theme Ariosto and the baroque opera.
March14, 2009 - 3:00 pm

Orlando Furioso, by Antonio Vivaldi
Orchestre de l’Opéra de San Francisco - Randall Behr,
Cast : Marilyn Horne, Kathleen Kuhlmann, Susan Patterson, Jeffrey Gall, Sandra Walker.
Réal : Brian Large, prod : Arthaus, 1989, 147 min.
March 14, 2009 - 7:00 pm

Les Paladins, by Jean-Philippe Rameau
Les Arts florissants - William Christie,
Opus Arte, 2005, 140 min.
March15, 2009 - 3:00 pm

Symposium in Basel

Musique et Instruments de musique de la Grande Ecurie & des Gardes Suisses à la Cour de France sous Louis XIV et Louis XV

March 18 - 19, 2009
Musik Museum,
Basle, Im Lohnhof 9, Roter Saal
Languages : French / German

***

Chefs du projet : Thomas Drescher, Thilo Hirsch
Partenaires : Martin Kirnbauer (Musée de la Musique, Bâle), Florence Gétreau (Paris-IRPMF)
Conferenciers : Katharina Andres (Bâle), Boaz Berney (Jaffa), Jürg Buchwalder (Bâle), Walter Büchler (Bâle), Sarah van Cornewal (Bâle), Olivier Cottet (Le Bois des prés), Jean Duron (Paris), Thilo Hirsch (Bâle), Johanne Maitre (Guebwiller), Anne Piejus (Paris), Vincent Robin (Saint Denis)

***

Concert
March 19, 2009 - 8:15 pm
Leonhardskirche, Basle

Musique de la Grande Ecurie & des Gardes Suisses
Works by J.-B. Lully, A. Philidor, L. Couperin, M.P. Montéclair, J.-B. Prin, . Corrette btw others.

Ensemble arcimboldo, Basle
Ensemble des trompettes de la SCB
Direction : Thilo Hirsch

***

Details and information :
PDF Français - PDF German

scb-basel - rimab - musikmuseum

Orphée

Last week-end, I attended a performance of Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice by Jérôme Correas and Les Paladins at the Château de Boucard, a Renaissance to XVIIth century building. There is no most wonderful experience than enjoying all the refinements of classical music in such a bucolic place.

The contrast between this picture and the one below is... baroque,
and summarises well the experience.

Given the size of the room and the tiny stage it was impossible to have a whole orchestra, so we had a transcription for chamber orchestra prepared by Jérôme Correas. That's the magic of the festivals, some artists come and perform and the year after they are back with some incredible concerts.
I was very curious about the experience, for I had attended the full performance by Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre when they recorded it, and I was wondering how a chamber version, with 7 musicians instead of 35 and a small choir, would sound.

It worked rather well. Jérôme's version really gave us the feeling we were back in a 18th-century salon, listening to a private performance of the opera. The transcriptions were a very common way to enjoy the great works at that time, and they still are ! I had never thought I would hear Orphée call Eurydice in the middle of the Berry fields.
The performers were good and Jérôme Correas' direction very precise and lively.

Jean-François Lombard was Orphée

and Kareen Durand, Eurydice

Gluck's music is thrilling, especially in the tragic scenes but, as I spent part of July listening to Monteverdi's Orfeo, I found the decline in the operatic and artistical taste between Monterverdi and Gluck striking. When the version given by Monteverdi and his librettist Alessandro Striggio is strong with a genuine sense of sacred which can compare with the greek myths, the Gluck/Calzabigi's one is soppy and indulges in an easy sentimentality (happy end, happy arias and dances) that weakens the work.

Gluck was opening the door to the 19th century opera and its strange mixtures of beauty and vulgar.