As he neared the end of his life, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, a composer active in Paris from ca. 1670 to 1704, wrote:
I am he who was born long ago and was widely known in this century, but now I am naked and nothing, dust in a tomb, at an end, and food for worms. … I was a musician, considered good by the good musicians, and ignorant by the ignorant ones. And since those who scorned me were more numerous than those who praised me, music brought me small honor and great burdens. And just as I at birth brought nothing into this world, thus when I died I took nothing away.
Although most likely a work of satire (at the time, Charpentier was the master of music at the gothic chapel Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, the second-highest post in French religious music), Charpentier’s recognition paled, and pales, in comparison to his contemporaries Jean Baptiste Lully and Michel Richard de Lelande. Yet anyone who has heard his opera
Medée knows Charpentier to be one of the finest French composers of all time. His music is grounded firmly in the 17th century, and Charpentier passed into obscurity shortly after his death. Ever since the late 19th century, revivals of Charpentier’s music have come by fits and starts.
Magnificat
In this context, Warren Stewart’s crack period-instrument consort Magnificat resurrected a set of Charpentier petit motets in Sunday afternoon’s concert at the beautifully restored St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, San Francisco. Given that Charpentier composed more than 400 motets (this just the motets), there is a wealth of music to be aired. Magnificat revived a set of motets from one manuscript collection for the feast days in the Epiphany season (the period in the church calendar between Christmas and the appearance of the Wise Men, established later at Jan. 6). Music scholar John Powell prepared the performing editions and provided detailed, if a bit inaccessible, program notes.
A Perfect Match
Magnificat is known for its work performing 17th-century Italian music, but the performers here proved ideal for the music of Charpentier. Much reference is made to the “Italianism” of Charpentier’s music going against the formal French Academic style of Lully, and music scholars link this to Charpentier’s years of study in Italy, probably with composer Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674). Although this may be true, I simply find Charpentier’s music to be expressive and highly suited to Magnificat’s diminutive performing forces.
Sopranos Laura Heimes and Jennifer Ellis-Kampani blended exquisitely, and their voices were ideal for this music. Bass Peter Becker also produced a rich tone, but sometimes projected a buffo character not quite matching the sacred music. All the singers employed Frenchifed Latin. The instrumental support (Joliane von Einem and Rob Diggins, violins; Warren Stewart, cello; and Hanneke van Proosdij, organ; and David Tayler, theorbo) was perfect.
The 18th-century French motet comes in two flavors: the grand motet, for large ensembles, and the petit motet, usually performed with vocal soloists, continuo, and a pair of strings or recorders. In the principal services in the Roman Catholic liturgy of the time, motets, each lasting 10 or 15 minutes, would be sung between breaks in the service or even in the middle of a sermon. In this period, more familiar Mass sections — the Gloria, the canticles, and so on — usually were left to chant, or even organ “versets” (short pieces that actually supplanted the spoken text of the service). Consequently, motets and sacred dramas (a form of mini-oratorio) form the largest body of church music from Baroque France. All of the motets in this concert were designed for different feast days spaced roughly a week apart.
The danger of such an approach is that by performing a series of similar pieces never meant to be performed together, the program can become monotonous. Stewart wisely interspersed the motets with small instrumental fantasies, versets, and sinfonias by French composers from the 1650s to 1690s, including works by Henry du Monte, Marin Marais, Louis Couperin, and Nicholas Lebègue. Regrettably, with the possible exception of the beautiful Alma Redemptoris Mater for two sopranos and continuo, none of Charpentier’s works unearthed in this program are for the ages, and the insertions sometimes had the effect of outshining the Epiphany motets.
Nonetheless, Sunday’s program provided the audience with pretty music performed at the highest level while advancing music scholarship. Events like these are important because every so often they unearth a masterpiece. In April, Magnificat performs an entire opera by Alessandro Stradella. Maybe there’s a masterwork in the hopper.
