Chanter Dieu en la Chapelle Royale

Psalms were central to the 17th- and 18th-century French piety, and were therefore very often set to music. As appendices 1 and 2 show, nearly 1005 «grands motets» are based on David's poems. In his Spectacle des beaux-arts, however, Jacques Lacombe stated that «all the psalms are not equally suit for music ; and those which were so, had been chosen and very well» rendered : thus, twenty of them were never used by grand-motet composers, whereas 37 were set at least ten times. Five main reasons for such a selection can be identified. First, the «royal encomium» : a large number of psalms, indeed, contain royal metaphors which perfectly fitted Louis's official eulogy. Second, the «petition» : several composers, among whom Henry Desmarest, Henry Madin and Antoine Blanchard set selected psalms in order to obtain favours from the King. Third, several of David's poems were particularly suitable for descriptive music, and their setting as grand motet appears to have been encouraged by Louis XIV himself as early as 1683. Fourth, the liturgy obviously imposed the choice of several psalms, such as those for Vespers ; still, royal «sous-maitres» did not seem to have paid much attention to it. Fifth, the 1683, 1768 and 1769-1770 national competitions respectively organised by Louis XIV and Dauvergne (the director of the «Concert-Spirituel») required musicians to work on psalms 31, 45 and 136, i.e., on lively and dramatic words. (Of course, there is no impenetrable barrier between these reasons). As a conclusion, an examination of the Chapelle Royale repertoire suggests that «grands motets» may have not been sung daily in front of the King, but may have given place at times to plainchants and «faux-bourdons»

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  Open Access•Thierry Favier•Mélanges de l École française de…•2021

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