You might think of Henry du Mont, whose music is represented on this gorgeously recorded Harmonia Mundi release, as a kind of sacred counterpart to Jean-Baptiste Lully. Both served Louis XVI for many years and supplied music for the machinery of the Sun King's court. For several reasons, Lully is a fixture of music and du Mont is unknown. One is that du Mont's music has come down to the present in a fragmentary form, with the all-important instrumental parts, in which the concept of a string- (and soon wind-) accompanied ...
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You might think of Henry du Mont, whose music is represented on this gorgeously recorded Harmonia Mundi release, as a kind of sacred counterpart to Jean-Baptiste Lully. Both served Louis XVI for many years and supplied music for the machinery of the Sun King's court. For several reasons, Lully is a fixture of music and du Mont is unknown. One is that du Mont's music has come down to the present in a fragmentary form, with the all-important instrumental parts, in which the concept of a string- (and soon wind-) accompanied motet rapidly developed under du Mont's care, in especially bad shape. What is recorded here are reconstructions by the present conductor Sébastien Daucé; the booklet describes them as experimental, but in terms of sheer musicality they work beautifully. The album title Motets & Élévations is a bit confusing; "élévations" are themselves motets, to be used at the elevation of the Host during Mass. These feature reduced scoring, but all the music, even the "grands motets," has a...
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