Messe de Minuit pour Noël by M.-A. Charpentier (1643–1704)

How is it that a composer who had collaborated with the great Molière and conducted the orchestra for a performance of one of his classic plays in front of Louis XIV and the court at Versailles could complain of having received “small honour”? In fact, this was about the only honour Charpentier received from the French music establishment in his lifetime, though he was considered by knowledgeable musicians to be the most learned composer in France.

The explanation is that Charpentier posed a threat to the prestige of the most powerful musician in France at that time, Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687). Lully had become a favorite of Louis XIV who granted to him whatever he wanted. To preserve his status, the unscrupulous Lully had the Italian musicians at court dismissed, excepting himself, of course: Lully was born Giovanni Battista di Lulli in Florence, but had changed his name and become a naturalized French citizen in 1661 when Louis had ascended the throne. Lully then began to promote his “authentic” French music and denigrate Italian music, in order to ensure that his prestige would never be threatened by competition from Italy, which was then the centre of the development of what we now call Baroque music.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier had been born and raised in Paris and lived all but three years of his life in Paris, but those three years had been spent in Rome as the pupil of the Italian master Giacomo Carissimi. When Charpentier returned to France, Lully realized how much of a threat Charpentier posed to his pre-eminence and Lully’s cohorts attacked him unrelentingly as a “learned Italian,” who would be unable to compose authentic French music.

In 1672, Lully, concerned about the rising interest in Italian opera, demanded and received from Louis the exclusive right to compose music for stage works in France. In fact, it was forbidden even to stage a performance of any work with music without permission in writing from Lully. In this, Lully had gone too far. Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name of Molière, found himself unable to mount his own plays without Lully’s permission. Molière, also a favorite of Louis, appealed to the King and had this clause deleted from the edict. Later, Lully received the exclusive right to publish his music and the works for which they had been composed; Molière was now forbidden to use material from his own plays such as Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, for which Lully had composed incidental music.

After these incidents, Molière was unwilling to collaborate further with Lully. He turned to Charpentier, who was recommended to Molière by Charpentier’s patroness, the redoubtable Mlle de Guise, one of the richest noblewomen in France. The most notable product of this collaboration was Le Malade Imaginaire, which was performed at the Palais-Royale theatre in February 1673. An invitation to perform the play at the court in Versailles was expected, but never came, no doubt because of Lully’s influence. Finally, in August of 1674, the play was performed at Versailles after King Louis returned from a military victory; it is this performance that is depicted in the print reproduced above. But by now Molière had died and Lully took control of French theatre.

Lully himself died in 1687 (of gangrene after hitting his toe with his conducting baton) but Charpentier had tired of such political machinations and, instead of trying for a position at court, became maître de musique at the church of Saint Louis in Paris, where, for Christmas 1694, he composed what has become his most popular work, the Messe de Minuit pour Noël. Charpentier based the work on well-known French Christmas carols. Remarkably, for a “learned” musician, he resisted the temptation to over-orchestrate the carols and even the new music composed for the more serious sections of the Mass blends in seamlessly. Perhaps he was trying to prove something to Lully’s spirit.