Charpentier: Les Arts Florissants

Description

When Charpentier composed Les Arts Florissants, he was in the service of the Duchess of Guise, where he benefited from the presence of a small but brilliant ensemble of musicians. Les Arts Florissants, which Charpentier describes as both an Idylle en musique and an Opéra, was written in 1685, and was therefore subject to the royal opera patent held by Lully. In other words, this patent limited the number of musicians and singers in dramatic musical works for everyone else, thus ensuring Lully's monopoly in the field of opera. Charpentier eventually outlived Lully and this prohibition, and composed his true opera, but the ingenuity with which he overcame the legal limitations that restricted Les Arts Florissants is perhaps an even greater testament to his genius. Directed by James Richman, who was made a Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1995 in recognition of his contributions to the field of music, the Dallas Bach Society has long been the Southwest's leading resource for Baroque music on original instruments.