Under the direction of Baroque specialist David Bates, La Nuova Musica joined forces with the German a capella ensemble Voktett Hannover to reveal two sides of French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Sacred and secular offerings from the late 17th century illustrated the composer’s synthesis of French sensibility and Italian passion, its blend generated from an extended visit to Rome in the late 1660s when he studied with Giocomo Carissimi.
Returning to Paris the next decade, Charpentier enjoyed a succession of choice appointments, (though never finding a plum court job with the ‘Sun King’), producing music in every genre for some of the most influential patrons and fashionable establishments including that of the Hôtel de Guise whose owner, Mademoiselle de Guise, was the first cousin of Louis IV. Overshadowed by the older Jean-Baptiste Lully, two centuries of neglect followed. Fortunately for us, Charpentier’s music eventually was unearthed by the pioneering American-born conductor William Christie whose recordings with Les Artes Florissants from the 1980s brought the composer belated recognition. Thanks to Christie’s efforts, works such as the Passiontide motet Le Reniement de Saint Pierre and his Messe de Minuit pour Noël have become better known, but the Te Deum found international renown thanks in part to its partial use as the soundtrack for the Eurovision Song Contest. It was also the very first work by Charpentier to appear on record (Erato, 1953).
At Wigmore Hall no fewer than 34 listed singers and instrumentalists filled the stage, with five soloists finding just enough room to perform at the front. The Te Deum’s military overtones were immediately apparent with festive trumpets and drums bringing clamorous excitement. A bevy of string and woodwind players also brought individual and collective colouring to a work supposedly written to mark a decisive victory in modern day Belgium during part of the Nine Years’ War. With his customary bounce, Bates shaped the work’s ‘joyful and very warlike’ sonorities with scrupulous care, revealing the work’s inner detail, and relishing those glorious cadential mannerisms so typical of French music during the Grand Siècle. Distinctive timbres came from solo voices – Anna Dennis and Miriam Allen (sopranos), William Wright (haut-contre), Simon Wall (tenor) and Jimmy Holliday (bass) – whose individual colouring brought ardent expression to the text’s veneration of the Almighty. Yet, given the numbers on stage, nothing was overcooked, Bates’ forces were splendidly controlled and animated by some well-judged tempi.
Charpentier’s theatrical instincts, evident in his Te Deum, are at their most conspicuous in his stage works, of which Médée is his operatic jewel in the crown. Much less often performed is the chamber opera La descente d’Orphée aux enfers, a work conceived for domestic performance at the palatial home of his Parisian patron Mademoiselle de Guise. Its performance here was notable for excellent contributions from Nick Pritchard’s grieving Orpheus, where there was no doubting his love for Eurydice, handsomely sung by Anna Dennis. Her scream from the deadly snake bite resounded round the hall and brought to an abrupt end her nuptial bliss. A gratifying chorus of nymphs and shepherds were nicely contrasted by a trio of furies, but it was Jimmy Holliday’s characterful Pluto, initially authoritative, then sympathetic to Orpheus’s pleas, that produced some of the evening’s most dramatic singing. Energetic interludes gave the reduced instrumental ensemble a chance to show off some nimble playing under Bates’s invigorating direction. Oddly enough, it was the final bars of Act Two when the furies bewailed the departure of Eurydice from Hades that created the most exquisite send off. Two cellos, viola da gamba and bassoon, held the audience in thrall for their brief lamenting, and furnished a telling silence at the close. In short; an evening of stylish performances.
David Truslove
Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Te Deum, H146; La descente d’Orphée aux enfers, H488
La Nuova Musica, Voktett Hannover, David Bates
Wigmore Hall, London, 18 February 2025
Photo: © Nadja Mahjoub (Voktett Hannover)