Le Poème Harmonique — Music for a Young King

Music for a Young King

A debut Victoria performance by one of the most celebrated and recorded Early Baroque ensembles in France. Royal and popular music from the early reign of Louis XIV, before Versailles.

Music for a Young King explores popular and royal music before Versailles, with excerpts from the very first operas given in France by Lully and Cavalli, “pieces de salon” (Marais, Moulinié), drinking songs and the popular tunes hummed throughout Paris, performed in succession on this lively and exhilarating musical journey. After exploring the 17th century through the intimacy of courtly tunes, and more recently through the great royal panoramas of Lully and Delalande, the Poème Harmonique invites you to enter a living palace, the Louvre, at a time when popular music was omnipresent, and the nobility and the people sang in chorus, from the streets to the court.

Programme:

Jean-Baptiste Lully
Plainte de Vénus sur la mort d’Adonis

Michel-Richard de Lalande
Musette
Marche des Bergers
Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Air sur les Stances du Cid
Etienne Moulinié
L’auzel que sul boyssou
Anonyme
Le bossu maumariée
Anonyme
Quand je menais les chevaux boire

Francesco Cavalli
Sinfonia, L’Egisto
Sinfonia, Ercole amante

Marco Uccellini

Sinfonia A gran battaglia

Aria sopra la Bergamasca

Francesco Cavalli

Dell’antro magico, Il Giasone
Luci mie, Xerse
Giovanni Battisa Buonamente

Aria di Fiorenza
Francesco Cavalli
E vuol dunque, from the opera Ercole amante
Piangete occhi dolenti, from the opera L’Egisto

Musicians:

Le Poème Harmonique

Anaïs Bertrand, alto
Vincent Dumestre, theorbo and artistic direction

Fiona-Émilie Poupard, Louise Ayrton, violins
Lucas Peres, Viola da gamba
Simon Guidicelli, doublebass
Camille Delaforge, harpsichord and organ