Henry Desmarest is still a scarcely recorded composer, but Les Arts Florissants’ recent account of three of his grands motets (Erato, 12/00) was for me one of the highlights of last year’s releases. Now comes a double rarity: more music by Desmarest, the talented Lully disciple who spent his last 40 years in exile after escaping a death sentence for abduction; and a large-scale Mass setting from a time when the top French composers favoured the grand motet as the principal form of sacred composition. This Mass for soloists, double choir and orchestra – thought to have been written around 1710 – survives incomplete in that most of the inner instrumental parts were missing and have had to be reconstructed for this performance, but there is certainly enough here to give a convincingly complete picture of the piece. And once again Desmarest’s handiwork looks very impressive indeed. Lasting about 55 minutes, it encompasses richly varied but always strongly written choral movements, sober orchestral symphonies and attractive vocal solos and small ensembles, the latter including a searingly expressive ‘Crucifixus’.
The performance, by a rather disparate amalgam of ensembles, successfully conveys the grandeur of the work, helped no doubt by the fact that it takes place in the Royal Chapel at Versailles. While it suffers from the usual problems of performing and recording in a resonant building – namely lack of presence or clarity and occasional difficulties of ensemble – and although the contributions of the solo ensemble are rather uneven and the Gloria and Credo intonations have a Byzantine fervour which is almost scary, in general Desmarest is very well served by this committed and sympathetic performance. The Mass is interspersed with organ pieces by Louis Marchand – played with noisy relish on the chapel’s splendid organ by Frederic Desenclos – and the addition at the end of Desmarest’s short but tuneful setting of Domine salvum fac regem, the customary way to round off a Mass in the presence of the king, adds to the imposing sense of occasion.'