Composer: Luigi Cherubini, Charles-Henri Plantade
Performer: Le Concert Spirituel
Conductor: Hervé Niquet
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Alpha
Catalogue: ALPHA251
Release: 2016
Size: 1.19 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Cherubini: Requiem en Do Mineur à la mémoire de Louis XVI
01. I. Introitus and Kyrie
02. II. Graduale
03. III. Sequentia (Dies Irae)
04. IV. Offertorium
05. V. Sanctus, Benedictus
06. VI. Pie Jesu
07. VII. Agnus Dei et Communio
Plantade: Messe des morts en Ré Mineur à la mémoire de Marie-Antoinette
08. I. Introit
09. II. Kyrie
10. III. Graduel
11. IV. Prose (Dies Irae)
12. V. Offertoire
13. VI. Sanctus
14. VII. Pie Jesu
15. VIII. Agnus Dei
In 1817, two years after the restoration of the monarchy by Louis XVIII, the French court attended a performance of Cherubini’s Requiem in memory of Louis XVI; a few years later, in 1823, the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Marie-Antoinette provided the occasion for giving Charles-Henri Plantade’s Messe des morts in her memory. Berlioz had just arrived in Paris, and Napoleon had recently died in exile on the island of Saint Helena. In 2015, the two works were presented in a single concert at Versailles Palace. While Cherubini’s Requiem, scored for mixed choir and orchestra, but without soloists, is well known, Charles-Henri Plantade’s setting, which shares the same formal characteristics, is a complete discovery. It provides a striking transitional stage between the models of the Ancien Régime and early Romanticism, and displays a wealth of invention reminiscent of Méhul, Cherubini and even Rossini. This is the first recording of the work, which was revived on the initiative of the Palazzetto Bru Zane. A noted specialist in French music and large-scale sacred forms, Hervé Niquet brings out the full strength of these two works, recorded in the Chapelle Royale at Versailles, which further enrich the Alpha/Château de Versailles collection.