Un salon de musique
Un salon de musique
Ensemble Résonances
Marin Marais (1656 - 1728) - Pièces en trio (1692)
- Passacaille en mi 03:40
Jacques-Martin Hotteterre (1674 - 1763) - 3ème sonate en trio (1712)
- Prélude. Gravement 01:59
- Fugue. Gay 01:01
- Grave. Gracieusement 01:59
- Vivement, et croches égales 01:50
Pierre Danican Philidor (1681 - c. 1731) - 3ème suite à deux dessus sans basse (1717)
- Lentement 02:53
- Fugue 01:59
- Rondeau 02:02
- Chaconne 03:32
Louis-Antoine Dornel (1685 - 1765) - 3ème sonate en trio (1713)
- Lentement 02:09
- Fugue. Gai 01:31
- Lentement et doux, croches pointées et coulées 01:57
- Chaconne gracieuse 02:58
Marin Marais - Pièces de viole en Sol majeur (Livre III, 1711)
- Prélude 02:08
- Allemande La Magnifique et double 05:07
- Courante 01:52
- Sarabande grave 03:37
- Gigue à l’Angloise 01:09
Louis-Antoine Dornel - Sonate en quatuor (Livre de Simphonies, 1709)
- Gravement. Vite 02:14
- sans indication (Vite) 01:42
- sans indication (Lentement) 01:42
- sans indication (Fugue) 02:11
Robert de Visée (c. 1650 - c. 1732) - Manuscrit Vaudry de Saizenay (1699)
- Prélude en sol majeur 01:10
- Chaconne en sol majeur 04:31
Marin Marais - Pièces en trio (1692)
- Plainte 03:28
- Passacaille en sol 06:27
Total timing 01 : 07 : 01
Un salon de musique
MUSIC MASTER. - A person like you, who lives magnificently and who has an inclination for fine things should hold a music concert here every Wednesday or every Thursday.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN. - Is that what people of high-standing do?
MUSIC MASTER. - Yes, Sir.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN. - Then I shall do it.
(Molière, The Bourgeois Gentleman)
If you believe Molière, around 1670 it was appropriate for a gentleman who is likewise a wealthy bourgeois, to have a salon de musique (or “musical gathering”). And, indeed, in the image of Philippe d’Orléans, who was a great music lover and the future regent, the nobles of the kingdom and the great Parisian bourgeois started musical gatherings in which musical creations were played.
Among the bourgeois music lovers, Pierre Crozat stands out: through this man, “the richest in Paris”, concerts were held twice a week at his Paris hotel.
At that time, the musical gatherings were also common among the musicians themselves, for example: Michel Lambert, Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, at Mademoiselle Certain… Those who loved Italian music gathered at the priest Nicolas Mathieu where it was possible to discover the religious music of the Italian masters. One could also hear the motets of Bernier, Campra, Charpentier and even sonatas from Rebel, which were the first of their kind in France.
In addition to these music rooms, musical gatherings were also held where people would congregate for the pleasure of making and hearing music that was sometimes commissioned for the occasion. Thus, in 1723, Dornel provided a collection of symphonies for the “Concert des Mélophilètes”, which was founded by Pierre Crozat himself.
It is probable that some pieces by Jacques Hotteterre were heard at one of the salons. Indeed, the foreword to the First Book of pieces for the flute (1708) states that: “These are the pieces that I had promised in the Traité de Flûte […]; but before producing them, I was glad to hear them and to consult the opinions of people capable of judging them with knowledge and without prejudice.”
Could the programme on this disc have been heard in one of these salons? Marais, Philidor, Hotteterre and De Visée were musicians at Versailles, employees at the Grande Écurie (“Great Stable”) and at the King’s Chamber, and it is pleasing to imagine that they could share a musical moment together in a more intimate setting than that of the court. The pieces presented here have mostly been composed in the same period, between 1692 and 1717.
By way of introduction and conclusion, two passacailles from Marais are extracts from the trio Pieces. These pieces for two trebles and bass are among the first to appear in France. It was a new genre that was born from Lully’s pen for the “petit coucher du Roi” (namely, the time between King Louis XIV going to bed and falling asleep). It was followed by De la Barre, Hotteterre, Philidor and Dornel among others.
Hotteterre’s sonata and the great sonata on four parts of Louis-Antoine Dornel both show the return of an Italian influence. In fact, after French music had dominated for more than a century, it was progressively liberated from dance, leaving room for instrumental expression that permitted the sonata.
Pierre Philidor’s sonata for two trebles without a bass highlights, in the recorder dialogue, the delicacy and expressiveness of ornaments, tremblements, ports de voix, flattements, coulés, tours de gosiers and other typical French embellishments.
The suite of pieces in G major for the viol by Marais opens with a prelude played on the harpsichord because, as Marais himself said in the foreword to his third book, its pieces can be played on several other instruments than the viol and “it is only about making the choice...”
Then there is an overview of the work for theorbo by Robert De Visée, the guitar teacher of Louis XIV. De Visée was very highly appreciated at Versailles where he was employed in the King’s Chamber, but he could also be heard on numerous occasions in the salons of the Prince of Conti, Madame de Maintenon, and the Duke of Bourbon...
Finally, the lament that serves as a prelude to the final passacaille, as painful as a tombeau, is highlighted by the flutes. As François Raguenet said in relation to Philidor, Hotteterre and other French flautists in his Parallels between the Italians and French, 1702: “flutes which so many of the illustrious musicians have known how to make wail so touchingly in our plaintive melodies and sigh so lovingly in our tender melodies.”
At the turn of the XVII and XVIII centuries, a new instrumental language was in the process of being born, and in France this birth takes place at the court but also in the recesses of the salons of the nobles, patrons, aficionados and intellectuals who offered a new space that was freer and more nuanced in its expression. Free of judgments from the press, and relieved of the fashions, tastes and requirements imposed by the major events in the court and theaters of the time, in the salon, musicians gave themselves to musical experimentation in an intimate dialogue between instruments and in daring harmonies...
Philippe Souchu & Ensemble Résonances
Ensemble Résonances
The Ensemble Resonances was born from the encounter of young musicians at the Lyon Conservatory, all sharing the same passion for early music. Their musical complicity as well as a common artistic sensibility have forged strong relationships over the years. After a solid training in the best European schools, the five musicians of the ensemble lead an intense musical career in numerous recognized ensembles and orchestras in France and abroad.
With two recorders (Julien Martin and Marine Sablonnière), viola da gamba (Victor Aragon), theorbo (André Henrich) and harpsichord (Esteban Gallegos), Resonances explores the wide and rich repertoire of chamber music of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Their performances were praised in numerous concerts in France and Europe. Un salon de musique, dedicated to French music of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, is their first recording.
Ensemble Résonances
Marine Sablonnière, recorder
Julien Martin, recorder
Evolène Kiener, recorder (19 à 22)
Victor Aragon, viola da gamba
André Henrich, theorbo and guitar
Esteban Gallegos, harpsichord
Instruments
Voice flute from Bressan, Ernst Meyer
Recorder alto from Denner, Ernst Meyer
Bass viola da gamba from B. Norman, Victor Aragon
Theorbo from Raillich, Hendrik Hasenfuss
French harpsichord, Bruce Kennedy
Acknowledgements
Philippe Souchu, Skip Sempé, Beth Meriam, Pablo Aragon, Sophie Joué, Olivier Fortin, Catherine Martin, Claudia Gallegos et Nicole Rouillé
Credits
Executive producer: Clothilde Chalot
Recording Producer, Balance engineer, Editor: Hannelore Guittet
Photographers: NeO Tony LEE
Recorded between the 21st and the 24th of August 2013 at Saint-Laurent’s church, in Laval-en-Brie.
