In the Style of the Masters

The entire baroque period delighted in “parodying” and drawing inspiration from the music of the Masters, to whose style this programme is dedicated : Vivaldi and Rameau are the symbols of this, but their style, too, was much-copied.

In the final third of the 18th century, an unknown composer created a Requiem Mass after Rameau’s opera Castor et Pollux. “Que tout gémisse” became the beginning of the Introït, “Séjour de l’éternelle paix” the Hostias, and “Tristes apprêts” took on the words “Requiem æternam”. Far more than a simple exercise in style, this score testifies to the esteem in which one of Rameau’s masterpieces was held. It takes the practice of “parody” or contrafactum – one that dates back to the Middle Ages and consists of adding new words to existing music – to the extreme.

The composer Michel Corrette used the same process, taking advantage of the vogue for Italian music and adapting the words of Psalm 148 in Vivaldi’s Spring concerto. He was a worthy epigone of the Red Priest, who himself reused the incipit of his famous Four Seasons in his own opera, Dorilla in Tempe.

Telemann, meanwhile, drank in French music and championed Castor and Pollux in his correspondence : he had no doubt heard Rameau’s work during his trip to Paris, where he played his grand motet in the French style, Deus Judicium, perhaps with the secret hope of obtaining a position at the French Court ? In any case, the stellar German musician’s tribute to French genius is undeniable !

Valentin Tournet celebrates astonishing rediscoveries in this “original” programme, In the Style of the Masters.

Co-produced by the Royal Opera / Château de Versailles Spectacles and La Chapelle Harmonique.

This program will be recorded on a CD to be released on the Château de Versailles Spectacles label.

• Anonyme (XVIIIe siècle)
  Messe de Requiem sur des thèmes de Castor et Pollux
• Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
  Deus Judicium (1738)
• Michel Corrette (1707-1795)
  Laudate Dominum (1766) sur le Printemps d’A. Vivaldi

Marie Théoleyre Dessus 1
Jehanne Amzal Dessus 2
David Tricou High-contre
Victor Sicard Bass

Chœur et Orchestre de la Chapelle Harmonique

Valentin Tournet, direction