2023-09-25 17:53:12
It’s irrepressible: as soon as the visitor enters the Sainte-Chapelle, without even realizing it, he looks up. “The height and elevation of the vaults are such that one cannot help it”, notes conductor Sébastien Daucé. The building, built in the middle of the 13th century at the request of Saint-Louis to house the relics of Christ’s passion – including the crown of thorns (1) and a fragment of the true Cross – has become familiar to him ever since. that he chose it as the setting for a new festival.
The founder and host of the Correspondances ensemble is offering, from Tuesday September 26 to Thursday September 28, three evenings entirely devoted to the music of Marc-Antoine Charpentier, he who was master of the Sainte-Chapelle between 1698 and his death in 1704. “At that time, it was, with the royal chapel of Versailles and Notre-Dame, one of the three main centers of musical life. When Charpentier arrived there, she had eight children, a notable number compared to that (four or five singers) of other churches, to which should be added the adult cantors and the organ.», specifies Sébastien Daucé. During solemn ceremonies, up to 30 performers could gather there. Voices but also, from the 1680s, instruments in order to respond to the evolving tastes of Louis XIV.
A Te Deum passed down to posterity
Well known as the theme song for Eurovision since 1953, Charpentier’s famous Te Deum is on the program for the first concert, “accompanied by other pieces very likely written for the Sainte-Chapelle”continues Sébastien Daucé, while emphasizing the countless unknowns that persist around the composer’s biography. “We will thus interpret the magnificent and sumptuous Mass Assumpta est Mariaundoubtedly linked to the ceremonies of Parliament.» Let us not forget, in fact, that the two institutions were intimately linked, symbolizing the fusion between the spiritual and temporal powers of the kingdom and its capital. Like Jerusalem or Rome…
An acoustic challenge
But how does this single nave, almost 43 meters high, with a width of only 17 meters and a length of 36 meters, “sound”? “The marble floor and, even more so, the immense and sublime stained glass windows raise questions in terms of acoustics, recognizes Sébastien Daucé. But the 260 listeners that the place can accommodate should provide the necessary “mellowness”. It is also up to us to test the best possible arrangement of the musicians in the church, facing the public…»
The host of Correspondances dreamed of placing “high above the entrance” the choir of AngelsEpitaph – on the bill for the third concert – where Charpentier himself appears on stage like a ghost rising from the grave. But he will follow to the letter the instructions of the Center of National Monuments on which the Sainte-Chapelle depends. “If the project is successful and sustainable, he hopes, we will be able to imagine other devices, while scrupulously respecting the monument. » The capacity limited for safety reasons to 300 people promotes proximity and shared emotion between artists and audience.
Carpenter author of his own epitaph
Sébastien Daucé admits to being particularly fascinated by this astonishing Epitaph in Latin for which Charpentier wrote the music but also the text. We discover a slightly bitter man there “undoubtedly envious of the Versailles triumphs of the powerful Lully. More nastily, he bluntly ridiculed his predecessor at Sainte-Chapelle, a certain François Chaperon whom he considered to be fairly mediocre! » To this work in the form of a twilight autobiography, Correspondances will associate “among the composer’s most beautiful creations, whether commissioned by the Jesuits or by the Guise family to which he was long attached.”
Until the Revolution, the Sainte-Chapelle remained a center of devotion and music, defended by remarkable artists such as Nicolas Bernier (1664 or 65-1734), immediate successor of Charpentier and son-in-law of the famous gambist Marin Marais… “The building just asks to be brought back to life with the sound of the works that vibrated there during its splendor”, pleads Sébastien Daucé. He already imagines the fading light, filtered by the stained glass windows, caressing spectators and performers with its soft rays.
———-
Three days with Carpenter
From September 26 to 28, The Musical Hours of the Sainte-Chapelleco-produced by the Correspondances ensemble and the Center des monuments nationaux (CMN), offer three meetings with the music of Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The 3rd and final concert is recorded by France Musique for broadcast on October 10.
Sébastien Daucé and his ensemble have recorded numerous discs dedicated to Charpentier under the label Harmony of the World. Among them, the Midnight MassTHE Litany of the Virginthe Christmas pastoralthe Mass for four choirsTHE Sacred stories, The Descent of Orpheus into Hell…
The Holy Chapel can be visited from 9 p.m. to 7 p.m. from April 1 to September 30, then from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. between October 1 and March 31. The high attendance makes it preferable to online booking.
#Paris #SainteChapelle #illuminated #music