Versailles: its court, its atmosphere and its music… So many splendours emblematic of a monument with an incomparably rich history. The works associated with the palace have travelled down the centuries and today represent a precious part of our heritage. In this ten-CD set, Alpha retraces the musical life of the unique and luminous universe of Versailles. Le Poème Harmonique, Café Zimmermann, Capriccio Stravagante and many others invite themselves into the company of Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Jean-Henry d’Anglebert and share with us for a few hours the sumptuous concerts that made Versailles a place like no other.

It was 1988, and at that time the vast majority of Charpentier’s works were still accessible only via the original sources, so we had to rely on microfilms of the composer’s complete works collected in the twenty-eight manuscript volumes known as “Meslanges”. Poring over the manuscript pages on the screen of our microfilm reader, I studied and selected the works for the programme on the basis of the original texts.

"Poro, re dell'Indie" (HWV 28) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. The Italian-language libretto was adapted from Alessandro nell'Indie by Metastasio, and based on Alexander the Great's encounter with King Porus in 326 BC. The libretto had already been set to music by Leonardo Vinci in 1729 and by Antonio Vivaldi among others and was used as the text for more than sixty operas throughout the 18th century. The opera was first given at the King's Theatre in London on 2 February 1731 and on 15 further occasions. A run of 16 performances was a mark of success for the time as is the fact that the work was revived on 23 December 1731, and again in a revised form on 8 December 1736. It was also given in Hamburg and Brunswick.

The edition for this premiere recording has been made by Karl Böhmer, who has provided an informative introductory essay, and Oliver Mattern. Gérard Lesne has made something of a speciality of Scarlatti’s music and his lively direction of Sedecia benefits from his fluent handling of dramatic and stylistic aspects of the work… A splendid achievement.

Handel's stay in Italy between the years 1706 and 1710 resulted in a time of intense creative activity, and he quite naturally gravitated towards the cantata.

Depuis plus d'une décennie, Gérard Lesne poursuit un splendide travail de redécouverte du répertoire baroque sacré, qu'il chante avec sa voix merveilleuse de haute- contre, accompagné de son ensemble Il Seminario Musicale. Ce disque est l'occasion de les retrouver dans de très beaux Motets de Scarlatti - Alessandro Scarlatti, le père de Domenico, l'auteur des fameuses 555 sonates pour clavier. Tout est subtilité, douceur et expression, comme toujours avec Gérard Lesne.

The services of Matins and Lauds in the Roman rite for the last three days of Holy Week, the so-called Sacred Triduum are – or were before being replaced by the vernacular liturgy – beautiful and complex. Matins for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday consist of psalms with antiphons, readings from the Lamentations of Jeremiah and versicles and responsories related to and reflecting upon the events of those days. Over the centuries they have proved fruitful inspiration for music, even in post-reformation England, where the Book of Common Prayer continued to prescribe readings from Lamentations and settings of them, often in Latin, continued to be sung in cathedrals and collegiate churches.

Born in Venice, Sartorio composed 14 operas. He often made the long journey from Hanover, where he held the post of Maestro di Capella to the Duke of Brunswick, to compose and present new operas in his native city and recruit musicians for the German court. He is credited with introducing Italian opera to the Hanover court in 1672. Sartorio finally returned to Venice to be Maestro at St Mark’s where he composed sacred music, albeit not as much as the renowned Coffi might have been expected of him in that position.

Jomelli, regarded by many of his contemporaries as the greatest opera composer of the century, sets the lamentations in a dramatic and religio-operatic style as a duet between two high voices. Gérard Lesne receives higher billing than Véronique Gens on the cover of the CD, but they both sing exquisitely well – too well, perhaps, for the music to be regarded in the light of a meditation on the Passion, but that’s the way that Jommelli writes it.

I cannot help feeling that Alessandro Stradella is possibly still one of the major unexplored talents of baroque music. I say this, not because I personally know of piles of forgotten masterpieces by him, but simply because when there is so much of his music that has not been recorded or made available in modern editions, and when what one does get to hear suggests so much talent (the powerful oratorio San Giovanni Battista, for instance), it makes you wonder just what else there might be waiting to be discovered.

The teacher who has even one pupil who becomes even more distinguished than himself is fortunate; in Purcell, Blow had one such. And when that pupil's death precedes his own he has cause for genuine grief, as Blow did. One of the songs of Purcell, here alternated with instrumental pieces by Blow, contains the line 'Nor let my homely death embroider'd be with scutcheon or with elegy', but it is one with which Blow and others could not concur. In a programmatic tour de force Blow's profoundly beautiful vocal tribute to Purcell comes at the end.

Among the dozens or perhaps hundreds of available recordings of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, a subgroup of recent ones has emphasized its very operatic style. Within this group, performers have gone in various directions, but a single one is represented here: sheer vocal beauty of a sort that just doesn't come along every day. The vocal line trumps the dramatic meaning of the text here, but the duets between soprano Véronique Gens and countertenor Gérard Lesne are so gorgeous that you just won't care.

Corelli's older Roman contemporary, Alessandro Stradella, was held in high esteem both by his contemporaries and by later generations of composers. Among his patrons in Rome were the exiled Queen Christina of Sweden and the Colonna and Pamphili families. Stradella's amorous adventures, which eventually led to his murder in Genoa at the age of 37 subsequently gave rise to a novel, an opera by Flotow, a poem, a play and a song text. Though an outstanding oratorio composer he was considered in his own lifetime foremost as a composer for the theatre and his great gifts in this direction enabled him to treat the New Testament story of the imprisonment and murder of John the Baptist with considerable dramatic force.

Après avoir été organiste de l’église Saint-Paul à Paris, le Liégeois Henry Du Mont devient maître de chapelle de Louis XIV. Dès la publication de son premier recueil de motets en 1652, les Cantica Sacra, il s’impose comme l’un des créateurs du motet français et compose les premiers motets à voix seule, genre qui se développera durant les générations suivantes. Cet enregistrement est complété par quelques motets de Léonard Hodemont, maître de chapelle de la cathédrale Saint-Lambert de Liège.

This performance can be labeled Portuguese only loosely, since many of the pieces are sung in Spanish, or taken from Spanish manuscripts, or more properly Galician than Lusitanian. But hey! Who cares? Really artful recordings of any Iberian music of the 'Golden Age' are not sprouting from the cork trees even today. Male alto Gerard Lesne has seldom recorded pre-Baroque chansons, and it's a thrill to hear what he can do with them. Track 9, for instance, the Latin cantiga "Clamabat autem mulier" by Mudarra, takes Lesne from his usual alto register down seamlessly into his tenor chest voice. Wow! Not every counter-tenor can do that and still sound musical!