Le Poème Harmonique / Vincent Dumestre

• Classical Music

Probably France’s largest 17th century festival comes to life again here: the wedding between the »Sun King« Louis XIV and the Spanish princess Marie-Thérèse ended the long-standing hostility of both countries in 1660 and was fittingly ostentatiously celebrated, firstly on the Spanish border, then in Paris. Thereby, a large-scale musical setting befitting their social status from sacred works via fanfares to dance and opera should also be included.

Vincent Dumestre, with his period performance orchestra Le Poème Harmonique and the Choeur de la Compagnie La Tempête, has put together a splendid panorama of French baroque music, which transforms the entire Elbphilharmonie Grand Hall into a royal ballroom. The proverbial timpani and trumpets sound, there is a lot of music by Jean-Baptiste Lully – Louis XIV’s favourite composer – and by Francesco Cavalli, who travelled from Italy to Paris for the wedding specifically for performances of his operas.

This programme incidentally evolved from Dumestre and his ensembles for the Palace of Versailles, which the Sun King had built as an overflowing, sumptuous structure – also to make space for the theatre, ballet and opera performances he so loved. Today, the stars of the early music scene take golden hammers into their hands here and sound repertoire gems of the 16th to 18th century.

PERFORMERS

Le Poème Harmonique ensemble

Ana Quintans soprano

Isabelle Druet mezzo-soprano

Paco Garcia tenor

Serge Goubioud tenor

Viktor Shapovalov baritone

Vincent Dumestre director

PROGRAM

»Les noces royales de Louis XIV«

Works by Jean-Baptiste Lully, Salomone Rossi, Francesco Cavalli and others