Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1636-1704)
Prélude en sol bémol, H 528
Misere, H 157
Recordare, Domine, H 95
Prélude pour le Domine Salvum, H 535
Nisi Dominus, H 150
Prélude devant l'ouverture, H 520
Antiphona in honoremBeate Virginis, H 25
Prélude pour le Salve Regina, H 23a
Laudate Dominum, omnes gentes, H 159
Sub tuum praesidium, H 20

Ensemble L'Apothéose

Enrico Di Felice, flûte traversière
Salvatore Saba, flûte traversière
Attilio Motzo, violon
Elsa Paglietti, violon
Giorgio Oppo, viole de gambe soprano
Maurizio Less, viole de gambe, violon
Fabio Mareddu, violoncelle
Francesco Bianco, clavecin, orgue

Ensemble Vocale Ricercare

Alessandra Saba, soprano
Caterina Calvi, contre-alto
Nicola Usula, ténor, contre-ténor
Alessandro Porcu, basse

Riccardo Leone, direction

Charpentier (Paris 1643-1704) was never court composer to Louis XIV. In 1683 he was not selected to be sous-maître of the royal chapel, and contrary to his contemporary Jean-Baptiste Lully, he neither dictated the rules in his contemporary world of opera, nor did he get involved in the political or social dynamic of Versailles, the real driving force behind French musical taste. Unlike Lully, he never enjoyed unchallenged and long-lasting fame, he was denied this by his contemporaries, and then he was rediscovered and redeemed in the 1900s. Still, the indisputable quality throughout the breadth of his work remains clear. Charpentier gave life to a luxuriant production of sacred music (more than 500 works), whose refinement of compositional language is clear as in his petites motets. The selection of pieces for voice, flute, string instrument and others proposed here by L'Apothéose and Ricercare takes the melodic refinement and harmony that typifies Charpentier's interpretation of this genre to heart and it opens with a diptych that he conceived.