Charpentier, M-A: Concert pour quatre parties de violes H. 545

An invitation to experience music played in the court of Versailles – for Louis XIV and his successors. An imaginary story gives it its framework: A young provincial beauty comes to the court, is presented to the King and becomes his favourite, falls into disgrace through the intrigues of her rivals, but finally retrieves her honour.

In general this CD follows the hypothetical idea that music is the mirror of daily life – and even of the Baroque concept of always looking for a hidden sense beneath the surface of a work of art.

Whilst Italian composers had taken up the ‘modern’ form of the sonata and adapted it to the violin at the beginning of the 17th century, French composers remained faithful to the principles of polyphonic music with their fantaisies that were still intended for ensembles of viols; the role of the violin in France at that time was still limited to providing music for dancing. Such knowledge of polyphony was demanded not only from composers of vocal music but also from organists, one of whom was Louis Couperin and who was also dessus de viole de la chambre du Roi. Our recording comes to a fitting conclusion with the last French work to be written for ensemble of viols: Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Concert à quatre parties de violes.