Pour être heureux en amour

Description

In the middle of the 17th century, Parisian literary and social salons were places for experimenting with a refined art of conversation through which an idealized vision of love and a poetized depiction of aristocratic society were expressed. Salonnières like Catherine de Rambouillet and Madeleine de Scudéry significantly influenced high society culture and the literary movement of preciosity, inaugurating a poetry whose necessarily plaintive accents were meant to lead salon lovers along the winding paths of the "land of Tenderness." "The tender and the plaintive is the true character of those who love," said Abbé Charles Cotin. In this refined culture, music served as a medium to well "express" all the nuances of romantic sentiment that many gallant poets endeavored to paint. The most fashionable musicians then took their verses to set them to song in the form of serious airs, a genre that dominated French secular music during most of the reign of Louis XIV.
This album, a world premiere on record, is dedicated to the serious airs of Joseph Chabanceau de La Barre, a member of one of the most prestigious lineages of French musicians of the 17th century.