Apart from Charpentier, who sang (as an haute-contre) and composed, also there were the flautist and theorist Étienne Loulié, the singer (and future engraver) Henri de Baussen, as well as Anne Jacquet (nicknamed Madamoiselle Manon), the elder sister of Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. Throughout these years, the composer was also in the service of Élisabeth d’Orléans (known as Madame de Guise), the last daughter of Gaston d’Orléans, who in 1667 had married the nephew of Marie de Lorraine, Louis-Joseph de Guise. For his two patronesses and their entourage, Charpentier also wrote many sacred works (Litanies de la Vierge for six voices and two treble viols, Bonum est confiteri Domino, Cæcilia Virgo et Martyr, etc) as well as secular (including Actéon, Les Arts florissants, La Couronne de fleurs, La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers). These divertissements, by their variety of character and inspiration, represent a very personal part of the composer’s secular output, in which he places on stage shepherds, allegories or mythological characters. Works such as Actéon or La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers are really very close to the world of opera, not only because of their themes, but also on account of their dramatic and psychological dimension, as one may hear in the lament of Acteon and the chorus of lamentation which follows, or in the death of Eurydice and the recitative of Orpheus at the entrance to the underworld. On the borderline of the sacred and the secular, the Pastorales on the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ join religious emotion and the naïve and elegant atmosphere of the world of the shepherds.
At the Court
In 1672, Molière asked that Charpentier replace Lully, with whom he had become angry, to take care of the musical part of his comédies-ballets. On 8 July, the theatre of the Royal Palace produced new versions of La Comtesse d’Escarbagnas and Le Mariage forcé with new music by Charpentier. On 30 August there followed a new production of Les Fâcheux, Charpentier’s music for which is lost, like that for Psyché, a tragédie-ballet which would be produced in 1684. On 10 February 1673, Charpentier was able to give full rein to his talents in a new piece by Molière, Le Malade imaginaire. Unfortunately, the dramatist died at the time of the fourth performance, thus putting at an end any further collaboration between the two artists. Moreover, the composer was the victim of letters of patent sent by Lully to Molière’s troupe; he was thereby obliged to revise his score for Le Malade imaginaire in order to conform to the restrictions on the number of players and singers authorized by the superintendent of the King’s music on stages other than that of the Royal Academy. Charpentier continued, however, to work for the King’s troupe, named after 1682 the Comédie française; he wrote the music for plays “with machines” (Circé, L’inconnu) whose authors were Thomas Corneille and Jean Donneau de Visé. In 1682, for the revival of Andromède by Pierre Corneille, he wrote new incidental music, the music for the previous production having been written by D’Assoucy. In spite of the increasing difficulties imposed by the all-powerful Lully, Charpentier continued his activity at the Comédie française with Les Fous divertissants (1680), La Pierre philosophale and Endimion (1681), Le Rendez-vous des Tuileries, Angélique et Médor, Vénus et Adonis (1685) and a revival of Le Malade imaginaire at Versailles in January 1686. In the comédies-ballets written in collaboration with Molière, Charpentier showed tremendous aptitude for theatre music, in the composition of dances as much as in grotesque comic scenes such as “La la la bonjour!” from Le Mariage forcé. In the works “with machines” such as Circé or Andromède, pieces of pure entertainment, the music placed after or within the spoken acts is only an “ornament”, pride of place being given to the stage design and the extraordinary machinery which brought these pieces so much success.
Even though Charpentier never had an official post at Court, he was nevertheless requested, on various occasions, to take part in royal ceremony. At the beginning of the 1680s, he was requested to write the music for the religious offices of the Dauphin. On a visit to his son, Louis XIV had the time to appreciate Charpentier’s compositions, as on the day in April 1681, when, arriving at Saint-Cloud, he “dismissed all his musicians, and wanted to hear those of the Dauphin until his return to Saint-Germain. They performed every day at Mass motets by M. Charpentier, and His Majesty wished to hear no others, whatever else was proposed to him.” The works composed for the Dauphin are essentially petits motets on texts from the psalms for two female voices and a bass, sometimes accompanied by flutes, played and sung by the King’s musicians, the Pièche brothers and sisters.
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