Brossard Petits Motets. Grigny Organ Works
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Sébastien de Brossard, Nicolas de Grigny
Label: Astrée
Magazine Review Date: 11/1998
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 74
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: E8636
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Prodromus musicalis seu Cantica sacra, Movement: Ave viviens hostia (SdB23) |
Sébastien de Brossard, Composer
Frédéric Desenclos, Organ Isabelle Desrochers, Soprano Sébastien de Brossard, Composer |
Prodromus musicalis seu Cantica sacra, Movement: O quam dulce (SdB24) |
Sébastien de Brossard, Composer
Frédéric Desenclos, Organ Isabelle Desrochers, Soprano Sébastien de Brossard, Composer |
Prodromus musicalis seu Cantica sacra, Movement: O vos aetherei (SdB26) |
Sébastien de Brossard, Composer
Frédéric Desenclos, Organ Isabelle Desrochers, Soprano Sébastien de Brossard, Composer |
Prodromus musicalis seu Cantica sacra, Movement: Festivi martyres (SdB27) |
Sébastien de Brossard, Composer
Frédéric Desenclos, Organ Isabelle Desrochers, Soprano Sébastien de Brossard, Composer |
Organ Works Book 1 (Premier livre d'orgue), Movement: ~ |
Nicolas de Grigny, Composer
Frédéric Desenclos, Organ Nicolas de Grigny, Composer |
Author: Lindsay Kemp
There have been a number of recordings of the music of Sebastien de Brossard recently, not least because the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles made him its featured composer in 1995. Most have shown this Strasbourg- and later Meaux-based musician to have been more than the provincial lexicographer he is principally remembered as, indeed as being an attractive composer who contributed much to the growing Italianization of French music around 1700. This recording seems to have made it into the world under its own steam, which is perhaps why it feels able to intersperse these multi-sectional petits motets – full of French grace and affecting melody, yet Italianate in their florid vocal lines (especially in the closing amens and alleluias) – with groups of sturdy liturgical organ pieces by another provincial composer of around the same time, the short-lived organist of Rheims Cathedral, Nicolas de Grigny. Each of these groups consists of a setting of a Latin hymn followed by a fugue and other pieces more or less related to it, and all are taken from Grigny’s one and only published organ book, a volume that was good enough for Bach to copy out for his own use.
The organ employed is the new one installed at the church of St Pierre in Caen last year, a grand-sounding but incisive instrument which is also used to accompany the Brossard. First impressions that it will prove rather cumbersome for this job are soon dispelled as one begins to relish the sheer range of colourings Frederic Desenclos brings to his otherwise simple accompaniments. Next to this Isabelle Desrochers’s soprano can sound rather monochrome, but her bell-like tone is enriched by a typically French dark tinge, her intonation is secure and she is well able to cope with Brossard’s more elaborate technical demands. A pleasant and slightly different disc, then, in which none of the music is allowed to outstay its welcome, and which shows that, even in the Sun King’s France, there was musical life away from Paris and the court.'
The organ employed is the new one installed at the church of St Pierre in Caen last year, a grand-sounding but incisive instrument which is also used to accompany the Brossard. First impressions that it will prove rather cumbersome for this job are soon dispelled as one begins to relish the sheer range of colourings Frederic Desenclos brings to his otherwise simple accompaniments. Next to this Isabelle Desrochers’s soprano can sound rather monochrome, but her bell-like tone is enriched by a typically French dark tinge, her intonation is secure and she is well able to cope with Brossard’s more elaborate technical demands. A pleasant and slightly different disc, then, in which none of the music is allowed to outstay its welcome, and which shows that, even in the Sun King’s France, there was musical life away from Paris and the court.'
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