Mont: Motet Super Flumina Babylonis - Psalm 136

2010

“Henry Du Mont has long been credited as one of the creators, alongside Lully, of the grandmotet, the opulent style of church composition for soloists, choir and orchestra associated with Louis XIV's chapel at Versailles. The Pierre Robert Ensemble take a different view. Noting that Du Mont's 20 Motets pour la Chapelle du Roy, printed two years after his death in 1684, contain the kind of clumsy viola parts reconcilable with the work of a publisher's hack, they propose that such 'posthumous tawdry' can be dispensed with to reveal the originals as more intimate works for five solo singers, two violins and continuo, probably written for pre-Versailles times at the Louvre palace. It's in this form that they present three of the motets here, emphasising their argument by adding the semi-dramatic Dialogus de anima, scored for the same line-up.
When performed and recorded as beautifully and sensitively as they are here, Du Mont's plangent harmonies and dissonances reach into the listener's heart with sensuous clarity. These are near-perfect performances by an ensemble ideal for such ravishing music, and who, in Marcel Beekman, have an haute-contre of striking quality.
Frédéric Desenclos's tidy organ solos break up the programme nicely, but the motets are the stars.”