Jean-Paul Montagnier

Chanter Dieu en la Chapelle Royale : Le grand motet et ses supports littéraires

Psalms were central to the 17th- and 18th-century French piety, and were therefore very often set to music. As appendices 1 and 2 show, nearly 1005 «grands motets» are based on Davids poems. In his Spectacle des beaux-arts, however, Jacques Lacombe stated that «all the psalms are not equally suit for music ; and those which were so, had been chosen and very well» rendered : thus, twenty of them were never used by grand-motet composers, whereas 37 were set at least ten times. Five main reasons for such a selection can be identified. First, the «royal encomium» : a large number of psalms, indeed, contain royal metaphors which perfectly fitted Louiss official eulogy. Second, the «petition» : several composers, among whom Henry Desmarest, Henry Madin and Antoine Blanchard set selected psalms in order to obtain favours from the King. Third, several of Davids poems were particularly suitable for descriptive music, and their setting as grand motet appears to have been encouraged by Louis XIV himself as early as 1683. Fourth, the liturgy obviously imposed the choice of several psalms, such as those for Vespers ; still, royal «sous-maitres» did not seem to have paid much attention to it. Fifth, the 1683, 1768 and 1769-1770 national competitions respectively organised by Louis XIV and Dauvergne (the director of the «Concert-Spirituel») required musicians to work on psalms 31, 45 and 136, i.e., on lively and dramatic words. (Of course, there is no impenetrable barrier between these reasons). As a conclusion, an examination of the Chapelle Royale repertoire suggests that «grands motets» may have not been sung daily in front of the King, but may have given place at times to plainchants and «faux-bourdons».

Catholic church music in France

From the time of Francis I and the Concordat of Bologna (1516) onwards, the Church of France continuously defended its independence from the Holy See, notably by reducing papal interferences in temporal matters. Thanks to his Declaration of the Clergy of France (1682), in which the privileges of the Gallican Church were officially codified, Jacques Benigne Bossuet (1627–1704) succeeded in widening the prerogatives of the French king, and even managed to protect him against excommunication. But the Gallican Church intended by Louis XIV did not survive the revolutionary storm, being completely destroyed by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in July 1790. Two years later (21 September 1792) the Musique of the Chapelle Royale, reorganized in 1683, was suppressed alongside the abolishment of the Absolute Monarchy. Between 1682–3 and 1790–2 French religious music underwent profound changes, while remaining firmly anchored in established traditions. In matters of fashion and taste, the Court of Versailles, and then Paris, set the requisite tone and attracted the best musicians. Numerous provincial maitres de musique , whose duties included composing and conducting motets as well as training pueri chori (boy choristers), were vicariants (itinerant musicians) who criss-crossed the country to secure a position at a major maitrise (choir school). From there, some even tried to reach the capital in order to make a name for themselves at the Concert Spirituel (where motets were regularly performed), and in the case of the most gifted to enter the Chapelle Royale.

Le Te Deum de Jacques Morel et le Concert spirituel d'Alexandre de Villeneuve comme exemples de divertissements sacres

In his « Discours sur la musique dEglise » (1706), Lecerf de La Vieville stated that the « music intended for gods, that he [Lully] put onto his theatre [stage], like sacrifices and invocations, shows us some admirableexamples of the exact observance of our rules. Let them be obeyed in the motets of our churches [... they] will make Christians pray excellently, » thus inciting composers to model their motets on Lullys operatic divertissements. In 1757, Jacques Lacombe further added that French « should be employed » in motets sung at the Concert Spirituel, because « listeners could follow the subject of the poem with ease and judge more clearly the appropriateness of the expression that the musician gave to the words, » as if the well-known operatic topoi used in grands motets since La Vievilles time-such as Jean-Joseph Cassanea de Mondonvilles Venite exultemus-were not sufficient enough to make the words understood to those ignorant of Latin. Lacombes criticism may even have urged Mondonville to write what have been thus far thought to be the first « motets francais » (i.e., oratorios sung in French): Les Israelites a la Montagne dOreb (1758) and Les Fureures de Saul (1759). This story however needs revision in the light of Jacques Morels 1706 setting of a French translation of the Te Deum, and of the I e r Concert spirituel (1727) that Alexandre de Villeneuve composed on Simon-Joseph Pellegrins French paraphrase of Psalm 96. In both cases, the French verses can easily be compared to contemporaneous dramatic libretti calling for the usual operatic features, thus strongly suggesting that the two musicians and their poets devised their motets as genuine sacred divertissements akin to the French oratorios of a later period.

The problems of “reduced scores” and performing forces at the Chapelle Royale of Versailles during the tenure of Henry Madin (1738–1748)

Abstract In spite of extensive research, the performing forces required daily at the Chapelle Royale can only be surmised. This article delves into this important issue by examining the still underappreciated lists of parts to be copied found in nineteen out of the thirty volumes of grands motets Henry Madin (1698–1748) composed for the kings Chapelle. A comparison between these lists and the extant separate parts shows that in most cases the total number of parts to be copied and the actual total number of surviving parts are identical. Thus, it can be ascertained that the great majority of the still existing material is complete, and that the scores were beyond any doubt performed as they are copied, i.e. with a three‐ (or even two‐) part orchestra and a five‐part choir. Madins motets, therefore, prove to be an excellent starting point in order to reconstruct the necessary forces to perform them—and comparable ones—during his tenure at the Chapelle (1738–1748). Since choristers and soloists performed ...