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Donald Macleod charts Desmarets’s fall from grace and Boismortier tries his hand at sacred music by writing a grand motet.

Born a generation apart, Boismortier and Desmarets are perhaps lesser known figures of the French baroque, but together they provide a fascinating picture of life and music-making in the reigns of the Sun King and Louis XV after him.

Boismortier’s success came from what seems to be a natural ability to keep his finger on the pulse: his music followed all the latest trends and styles. He made a small fortune supplying music to the amateur market. They were works that fall cleverly under the fingers, and he advanced his profits by publishing them for any number of different combinations of instruments. That’s not to say he didn’t dip his toe into deeper waters: he wrote cantatas, motets and stage works, of which the comic opera about Don Quixote is probably the best known. After a golden career in 1753 at the age of 63, Boismortier retired to enjoy life on a beautiful estate 45 minutes outside Paris.

That kind of material comfort was not to be Henri Desmarets’s destiny. Born in 1661, he started out as a page at the Sun King’s court. What was shaping up to be a promising career fell off the tracks after he eloped with one of his pupils. Her furious father got an order for his arrest, arranged for him to be attacked in the street, and dragged him through the courts. The furore finally ended when the couple fled into exile. In his absence Desmarets was condemned to death. He eventually settled at the Court of Lorraine. There’s little doubt his fall from grace had a detrimental effect on his reputation. His operas and masses show him to be a talented and innovative composer. He was one of the very first composers known to have written for double choir and orchestra.

Boismortier advances his lucrative publishing outlet, and a major drama which leads to scandal and exile, inspires Desmarets to write an opera about love.

Desmarets: Les amours de Momus (opera-ballet)
Lieux charmants
A Nocte Temporis
Reinoud Van Mechelen, tenor & director

Desmarets: Usquequo Domino (Psalm XII) (excerpt)
Les Arts Florissants
William Christie, director

Desmarets: Vénus et Adonis (Act 3 Sc 3, excerpt)
Sarabande Heureux amans ..... Connois le prix
Karine Deshayes, mezzo soprano, Vénus
Sébastian Droy, tenor, Adonis
Chorus of the National Opera of Lorraine
Les Talens Lyriques
Christophe Rousset, director

Desmarets: Vénus et Adonis (Act 5, sc 5 to 8, excerpt)
Passacaille .... Que toute la terre gémisse
Karine Deshayes, mezzo soprano, Vénus
Anna-Maria Panzarella, soprano, Cidippe
Chorus of the National Opera of Lorraine
Les Talens Lyriques
Christophe Rousset, director

Boismortier: : Exaudiat te Dominus (Psalm 19)
Kevin Mallon, violin
Marcos Loureiro de Sa, baritone
Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, tenor
Peter Harvey, baritone
Véronique Gens, soprano
Le Concert Spirituel
Hervé Niquet, director