On the occasion of its “Grand Concert” on Saturday evening, the Montreal Baroque Festival paid tribute to Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, the first great French composer at the time of Louis XIV. The ensemble Les Boréades skilfully acquitted itself of this task in front of a convinced but small audience.
Francis Colpron, Olivier Brault, Mélisande Corriveau and Jean-Willy Kunz, on harpsichord, contributed to a Montréal Baroque 2022 festival celebrating women composers by highlighting the production of Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665-1729).
“La petite Jacquet”, a musical prodigy, is the almost exact contemporary of François Couperin. Even though Cephalus and Procris (1694) was a semi-failure, it is nevertheless the first opera presented by a woman at the Royal Academy of Music.
Elisabeth, who married the organist Marin de La Guerre, was a pioneer in everything, composing lyrical pieces, cantatas and sonatas for violin, at a time when the viol was much more highly regarded.
Dance as a visual medium
Of this concert, the most substantial piece, Delos Island, is one of the three “Cantatas françoises profane” (sic!) whose characteristic is length. While the traditional collections traditionally grouped together six works of the same type, Jacquet de la Guerre herself wrote: “As the cantatas that I present to the public are a bit long, I thought I had to limit myself to three. ” Next to Delos Island, the collection includes Ulisse’s Sleep and Mixes. Recorded in 1999 by Isabelle Desrochers for Alpha, Ulisse’s Sleep is of slightly greater interest than The island of Delos, especially for the atmospheric and instrumental episodes. Likewise, some chamber works (for example the pieces with oboe from 1695 recorded by Musica Fiorita at Pan) surpass what we heard on Saturday, where the admirable 1er movement and the languorous Aria of the Sonata in D minor, a sonata played partly on the violin and partly on the flute (we will listen to Florence Malgoire’s CD at Ricercar to have the full violin version).
The modesty of the proportions (four instruments) did not render the relief of the extracts from the opera Cephalus and Procris. Without requiring a plethoric workforce, there is still need for a little more instrumental sound material. On the other hand, Francis Colpron and his friends brought the music of Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre to life with a few facetious digressions (Kunz-Colpron) in the Sonata in D and by animating music through dance. From this point of view, the contribution of Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière and Stéphanie Brochard is always inventive, fluid and of high quality.
With modest means, everyone therefore gave their best, accompanying in the cantata and an aria from the opera Myriam Leblanc, with a sure and well-placed voice that strives to pronounce well. There is, however, more warmth and subtle inflections in theUlisse Isabelle Desrochers’ record.
It is a pity that the beautiful work was presented to only a few dozen spectators. For this 20e anniversary of Baroque Montreal, there remains a core of devotees. We are far from the fervor and great curiosity of the beginnings. Is it a problem of location of the festival in the city? Post-COVID-19 nervousness? A missing soul? We can only hope for a return of the flame of yesteryear.