Composer of the Week: Desmarets and Boismortier

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Composer of the Week

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An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Desmarets and Boismortier: Only the Best

Only the Best

Desmarets and Boismortier

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Desmarets and Boismortier, Only the Best

Donald Macleod recounts how Desmarets saved his career, and Boismortier writes a hit opera

Donald Macleod recounts how Desmarets saved his career while living in exile, and back in Paris, Boismortier finally conquers the Paris Opera with his work Daphnis et Chloé.

Donald Macleod recounts how Desmarets saves his career while living in exile, and back in Paris, Boismortier finally conquers the Paris opera with his opera Daphnis et Chloe.

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.

Once again proving he has his finger on the pulse, Boismortier chooses a subject to please Louis XVth's favourite mistress Madame de Pompadour, while Desmarets finds work in Madrid, only to be thwarted by the advent of war. 


Boismortier: Daphnis et Chloé (Act 3)
Cantatille – Vole amour vole 
Gaëlle Méchaly, soprano, Chloé
Le Concert Spirituel 
Hervé Niquet, director 

Boismortier: Daphnis et Chloé  (Act 2, Sc 3, excerpt) 
Rassemblons nous .... Vents orageux
Gaëlle Méchaly, soprano, Chloé
François-Nicolas Geslot, high tenor, Daphnis 
Marie-Louise Duthoit, soprano, La Matelote
Le Concert Spirituel 
Hervé Niquet, director 

Desmarets: Domine ne furore 
Sophie Daneman, soprano 
Rebecca Ockenden, soprano 
Paul Agnew, tenor
Laurent Slaars, baritone
Arnaud Marzorati, bass
Les Arts Florissants
William Christie, director 

Boismortier: Concerto for 5 flutes in A minor, Op 15/2  
Barthold Kuijken
Danielle Etienne
Frank Theuns 
Mark Hantaï
Serge Saitta 

Desmarets: Circé
Sommeil -  Ah! Que le sommeil est charmant 
A Nocte Temporis 
Reinoud Van Mechelen, tenor and director 

Producer: Johannah Smith for BBC Wales

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod surveys two composers of the French baroque, Desmarets and Boismortier.

Donald Macleod surveys two lesser-known composers of the French baroque, Henri Desmarets (1661-1741) and Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755).

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