The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music

Volume 29 (2023) No. 1

Music and Power at the Court of Louis XIII: Sounding the Liturgy in Early Modern France. By Peter Bennett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. [xiv, 324 pp. ISBN 978-1-108-83063-8.]

Reviewed by Deborah Kauffman^*

1.1 Sacred music at the court of Louis XIV has attracted much scholarly attention due to its relatively abundant sources and the magnificence of the motet à grand chœur, a major part of the sacred repertory at the court of the Sun King. By contrast, sacred music composed for the court of Louis XIII has received much less attention, due in part to the relative scarcity of surviving sources. Peter Bennett has filled in many of the gaps in our knowledge with this book. Bennett focuses as much on the different liturgies involving music as on the music itself, placing context front and center. His work is meticulously researched and covers a broad range of musical genres, offering new insights into the roles played by the two important musical ensembles at court, the Musique de la Chapelle and the Musique de la Chambre, and how they influenced sacred music into the eighteenth century.

1.2 Musical sources from the reign of Louis XIII are limited, with few surviving or identifiable works beyond a small number of pieces by Nicolas Formé—who succeeded Eustache du Caurroy as sous-maître of the Musique de la Chambre—and some collections of sacred music published by the Ballard firm. Other sources of sacred music survive only in fragments, which are helpful in assessing the works’ genre and function, even though the scores are irretrievable. Bennett relies on a few largely unexplored manuscripts that date from the 1620s and 1630s as the basis for his study:

• Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Vma Rés. 571 (referred to as the “Paris manuscript”)
• Tours, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 168 (the “Tours manuscript”)
• Chicago, Newberry Library, Case MS 5136, 5123 (the “Chicago/Newberry manuscript”)

The Paris manuscript contains several hundred works copied in score, most of them transmitted anonymously. Repertories contained in the manuscript can be tied to the Abbey of Montmartre, the cathedral of Notre-Dame, and the church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois. The Tours manuscript contains music composed in the southwest of France, with some eighty of the pieces concordant with works in the Paris manuscript. The manuscripts in the Newberry Library contain mostly anonymous repertoire associated with the cathedral of Saint-Sauveur in Avignon. Sources offering details of liturgical matters are more common, although not all offer any specific information about the performance of musique (i.e., polyphonic settings). Bennett uses information about liturgy to provide a context for the performance of sacred music, and he attempts to link liturgical events and texts with surviving compositions from the era.

1.3 Bennett covers a wide variety of topics and types of music, organizing his discussion primarily by circumstances of performance, such as the occasions of Louis XIII’s coronation and his royal entrées into various cities. Bennett creates continuity by framing the different liturgies and repertories within the concept of kingship, illuminating contemporary connections made between Louis XIII and the biblical King David, as reflected in texts of psalm paraphrases (in French) and settings of Latin psalms. Seven chapters cover the following topics:

• David’s Harp, Apollo’s Lyre: Psalms, Music, and Kingship in the Sixteenth Century
• Accession: The Coronation, the Holy Spirit, and the Phoenix
• The Sword of David and the Battle against Heresy
• The Penitent King
• Pillars of Justice and Piety: The Entrée, the Te Deum, and the Exaudiat te Dominum
• Plainchant and the Politics of Rhythm: The Royal Abbey of Montmartre and the Royal Congregation of the Oratory of Jesus Christ
• Succession: The Vow of 1638 and Christ the King

Even though I see the value of this organization, it results in quite a bit of repetition and the division of discussions of individual musical genres among different chapters.

1.4 Important to the discussion of sacred music is the institution of the Musique de la Chambre and its function in the liturgy at court. The significance of sacred music in the repertory of the Musique de la Chambre may be surprising, given the general view that the musicians of that ensemble would have specialized in secular music. In another important discussion, Bennett posits the origin of the use of unequal choirs in French sacred music in the joint performances given by the musicians of the Musique de la Chambre and the Musique de la Chapelle, using Nicolas Formé’s Mass Aeternae Henrici Magni as an example. Bennett offers a convincing argument for locating French composers’ use of the petit and grand chœurs in this combination of a solo ensemble (Chambre) and a full ensemble (Chapelle), rather than in imitation of Italian cori spezzati.

1.5 Descriptions of liturgy make up a significant part of the book, principally those for the coronation and the entrée royale. Both events can be divided into several sections, each with its own liturgy. Louis’s coronation took place over several days and included an entrée, the cathedral ceremonies of Vespers and confirmation, the anointing ceremony and Mass, another Vespers, and Louis’s induction into the Order of the Holy Spirit. The entrée royale took place when the king entered one of his cities and was greeted at the city gates by local officials, followed by a procession to the cathedral where a short ceremony was held. Surviving sources provide many details of the textual content of the different liturgies but rarely mention the type of music performed, let alone a specific work. The discussion of the coronation liturgy in Chapter 2 is unfortunately interrupted by several side excursions that, while allowing for fuller discussions of significant elements in the various ceremonies, disrupt the thread of the unfolding events. The chapter would have benefited greatly from the inclusion of a chart or diagram outlining the series of coronation events and their elements.

1.6 One of the drawbacks to this book is the author’s discussions of music, which are often restricted to the voice types used and the general musical texture of the work, rather than more specific matters of style. Musical examples are included, although some are presented with little to no comment, used in the general sense of “this is one type.” Several musical genres are discussed within their liturgical or performance context: settings of psalm paraphrases; Latin psalms en musique; settings of Latin texts from the Song of Songs; settings of Psalm 19, Exaudiat te Dominus and the final verse Domine salvum fac regem; the Te Deum and the “Te Deum” ceremony; plainchant; and Masses en musique.

1.7 Settings of Latin psalms en musique are discussed for the most part in Chapter 3. Court composer Eustache du Caurroy, who died the year before Louis XIII’s coronation, wrote a number of elaborate and sophisticated Latin psalm settings that were almost certainly intended to be performed at court, although where, when, and by whom is not immediately clear. Contemporary réglements for the Musique de la Chapelle suggest that its clerics were limited to singing chant and fauxbourdon during the liturgy, so Caurroy’s works would not have been appropriate for the Offices or the Mass. Bennett suggests that the likely location for performances of such sophisticated works was at the king’s lunch or dinner, which was typically held in public. Contemporary reports confirm that psalm paraphrases were sung on these occasions, possibly by the Musique de la Chapelle, whose musicians were noted as present at the king’s Sunday lunch in public (p. 116). Although contemporary reports do not confirm the performance of Latin psalm settings, Bennett suggests that du Caurroy’s works may have served as part of the complex liturgy for saying Grace at meals or for entertainment during the meal. Closely associated with non-liturgical performances by court ensembles were the psalm settings in Argus Auxcousteaux’s 1631 collection, Psalmi aliquot ad numeros musices III–V et sex vocum redacti, for which only three of the original six partbooks survive. Their non-standard versions of Vespers psalms point to their non-liturgical use. Even with only three surviving partbooks, it is clear that the compositions are beyond the abilities of amateur performers and were clearly intended for court performance. A more private performance venue was the king’s chamber, where the members of the Musique de la Chambre were expected to perform in the evenings and before the daily morning Mass. Although it can be expected that they would perform secular airs de cour in the evenings, settings of Latin psalms would have been entirely appropriate to perform in the morning before Mass.

1.8 Much of the discussion of the surviving settings of Latin psalms focuses on the possible connections between the meaning of the texts and the contemporary situation and experiences of the king and his court. Psalm 19, Exaudiat te Dominus, was particularly important to the French throne and the notion of kingship. Bennett’s discussion of this important psalm is spread across Chapters 2 and 4. He notes that the singing of Exaudiat has been viewed as a celebration of the king’s power, but he argues for a different interpretation, viewing it instead as a psalm of supplication and penitence, given aspects of its text and situations in which it was performed. By the reign of Louis XIV, the final verse of Psalm 19, Domine salvum fac regem, became the motet text most frequently set by French composers. The eight settings preserved in the Paris manuscript as part of the repertory of Louis XIII’s Musique de la Chambre are probably the earliest extant settings of that single verse. Bennett argues that both the full Exaudiat psalm and the final Domine salvum verse used by itself should be regarded as prayers for the preservation of the king.

1.9 The function and settings of the Te Deum hymn are discussed in Chapters 2 and 5, first in the context of Louis XIII’s coronation and then as a part of a “Te Deum” ceremony that has been studied by other scholars, including Kate van Orden. Despite the prominent role of the Te Deum in both the entrée and the coronation, settings en musique are rare; in its more general function, the Te Deum is recited as part of Matins, most likely in plainchant. Bennett suggests some possible settings that may have been performed at Louis XIII’s 1610 coronation but offers little musical discussion beyond the works’ scoring and the possible uses of transposition.

1.10 The “Te Deum” ceremony has been identified as comprising the recitation of the Te Deum with two psalms. Bennett shows that, by the time of Louis XIII, one of the psalms was consistently Exaudiat te Dominum. Even though the “Te Deum” ceremony was connected with celebrations of thanksgiving, such as those for royal weddings and births, Bennett argues that the liturgy and the music of both the “Te Deum” ceremony and the entrée represent an act of thanksgiving followed by prayer for the safety of king, his army, and nation. Because France was often at war or facing internal existential crises, royal occasions were both joyous and pious.

1.11 The book has a number of weaknesses, including a fairly large number of misprints: misspellings, missing words, repeated words, and some unfortunate phrasing that should have been caught in the editing process. Nevertheless, Bennett’s study provides the most detailed account of a period in French Baroque music that has been overshadowed by the reign of the Sun King. The context provided by the author for the use and performance of sacred music during the time of Louis XIII offers a fuller picture of royal ceremonies that can be used to illuminate subsequent practices during the reigns of his successors.

^[*]Deborah Kauffman (deborah.kauffman@unco.edu) is Professor of Music History and Literature at the University of Northern Colorado. She served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Musicological Research from 2001 to 2020. Dr. Kauffman’s research interests center around the sacred music of the French Baroque. She is the author of Music at the Maison de Saint-Louis at Saint-Cyr (Routledge, 2019). Her invited paper for the international colloquium “Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers (ca.1632–1714), musicien de la Réforme catholique sous le règne de Louis XIV” (CNRS, 2014) will be published in the conference report.