The Centre de musique baroque de Versailles has a dual mission - to promote 17th and 18th century French music and to research into historically informed performance. It is currently embarking on a vast project to manufacture double-reed type instruments.
Because the CMBV is primarily a pool of resources for French baroque musicians, and because string instruments play a core role in performances, the CMBV has pursued the project it initiated in 2008 with the Vingt-quatre Violons du roi by including since 2018 the family of double-reed instruments (the oboe and bassoon). On this year’s agenda is a research project with the Sorbonne and the Philharmonie de Paris music museum and commissions of professional and practice instruments (a programme devised in association with oboists and bassoonists).
This project shows only one aspect of the use of CMBV resources by its partners. Vingt-quatre Violons du roi replica violins are often used in France and abroad (loaned to the Teatro Colon academy in Buenos Aires for a performance of Lully’s Armide; to the Paris CRR for a performance of Ariane et Bacchus; to the Limoges CRR to perform extracts from Michel de La Barre’s Vénitienne; and to students of the Académie Versailles in July 2020). The CMBV’s collection of baroque stage décor (surely the finest in France) will be used in two Château de Versailles Spectacles stage productions (Richard Cœur de Lion and Scylla et Glaucus) and in a new performance of Atys en folie at the Pontoise baroque festival.
Provision of material is obviously only the tip of the iceberg, as the CMBV is involved in a host of academic partnerships with musicians specialising in 17th and 18th century French music. Musicologists at the CMBV address enquiries from musicians on a daily basis and offer advice about programming, sources, instrumentation, etc.
The CMBV has commissioned reproduction period oboes for the occasion (instrument makers : Henri Gohin, Thierry Bertrand, Olivier Clémence et Alberto Ponchio).
With the scientific partnership of IreMus
Many thanks to major CMBV sponsor Romain Durand - instruments Durand Milanolo