Programme
Usquequo Domine, grand motet
Messe à deux chœurs et deux orchestres
Henry Desmarest (1661-1741)
As part of the Printemps des Maîtrises festival and on the occasion of a double anniversary – the thirtieth anniversary of the Cathédrale de Metz choir school and the fortieth anniversary of the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles –, CMBV choir Les Pages et Les Chantres are invited to celebrate Henry Desmarest, a composer who made Lorraine his home. Accompanied by the Luxembourg orchestra La Chapelle Saint-Marc, they will perform two major works from his sacred repertoire: the grand motet Usquequo Domine and the Messe à deux chœurs et deux orchestres.
Baroque and romantic, such was the life of Henry Desmarest. Born in Paris in 1661, he first served as a Page of the Chapelle royale and sang in the choirs of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s tragédies lyriques. Too young to take part in the famous 1683 competition, he nevertheless composed for the Chapelle royale by becoming the ghostwriter of the sous-maître Nicolas Goupillet. Enamoured of a nineteen-year-old noblewoman, he was pursued by her father. Forced into exile, he travelled to the Spanish Netherlands and then Spain, while in France he was sentenced to be hanged in effigy on the Place de Grève. In 1707, he joined the court of Duke Leopold I of Lorraine as superintendent of music. He died in Lunéville in 1741.
Henry Desmarest left behind a corpus of nineteen grands motets, including the deeply moving Usquequo Domine. His Messe à deux chœurs et deux orchestres, the only example in France for this particular ensemble, is undoubtedly his masterpiece. Both imposing and majestic, it demonstrates remarkable mastery of polyphony, while allowing for moments of great expressive intensity, notably in a deeply affecting Crucifixus.
