Marc-Antoine Charpentier : Beata est Maria

CD Marc-Antoine Charpentier : Beata est Maria Les Passions : Orchestre Baroque de Montauban

As a rival of Lully, Charpentier principally composed religious music (for the Jesuits, then for Sainte-Chapelle, where he was a music teacher), and theatrical music, most notably for Molière’s comedies and his successors in the "Comédie-Française."
A gentle meslange of timbres, three male voices surrounded by an instrumental ensemble led by Jean-Marc Andrieu's delicate recorder, lends these motets a most characteristic colour, filled with mysticism, expression and depth. Far from the pomp of court, Marc-Antoine Charpentier's style stands out for his time. Imbued with Italianism, it plays with contrasting timbres and keys to endow it with meaning – a true transcription of the soul's passions.
Let us quote Catherine Cessac: "Charpentier's aesthetics remain first and foremost those of expression and emotion, based on contrast, the fragmentation of the musical discourse with the goal of coming as close as possible to the affects (or passions) suggested by the text."