In the splendid setting of the publications of the Palace of Versailles, this publication brings this Requiem (1697) which can be placed alongside that of André Campra (1694-1695) at the start of a line of Masses for the dead of French musical literature, a lineage which will lead to Gossec, then to Berlioz. The importance of Requiem by Toulouse Jean Gilles (1668-1705) was immediately recognized, since it is “the” Mass of the dead played for the funerals of both the sovereign Louis XV and Rameau. Ironically, it was also this work by Gilles that was played on Campra’s death, even though the latter could just as easily boast of having composed the first very great work of the genre in French music. of the Great Century. After the luminous interpretation of Requiem of Campra by Emmanuelle Haïm commented here in September, here is a version as Versailles and flowery as that of Gilles, which is completely opposed to the poignant one, black and arid, interpolated from Gregorian, by Joël Cohen at Erato.
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