In the 2015/16 season, the Purcell Choir and Orfeo Orchestra pay special attention to the works of Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville (1711-1772), probably the most significant French composer of the 18th century alongside Rameau and Leclair. Beginning his career as a brilliant violinist and concertmaster, Mondonville enjoyed his first major successes as a composer at the end of the 1730s in the grand motet genre - the form of motet involving a large orchestral accompaniment and extensive... solo vocal parts. A renowned chamber musician, he grew increasingly successful from the 1740s onwards as an opera composer and was an active participant in the Concert Spirituel series in Paris from 1748, becoming its director from 1755 to 1762. In the second half of the 18th century he enjoyed huge popularity as a composer: at events of the Concert Spirituel (until 1791), a total of 39 of his works were performed on some 510 occasions, and his grands motets were among the most frequently performed compositions on French soil in the period.
At this evening's concert - which, to the best of our knowledge, features works being performed together for the first time exclusively in Hungary - we will perform four of these grands motets with the collaboration of an outstanding international cast of soloists (and will also make a recording of the event). Following the famous psalmodic setting that provides the title of the concert, the programme presents three works which have sunk almost completely into oblivion since the 18th century. It is likely that the last, Cantate Domino, is being heard here for the first time anywhere in the world since the 1790s.
Our cooperating partner is the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for the wide-ranging assistance we have received in the extraordinarily exciting field of the French Baroque repertoire. The next, very important stage in our cooperation will be the modern-day world première performance and recording of Mondonville's first opera (Isbé, 1742), here in the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall in March 2016. (György Vashegyi)

A joint production of the Orfeo Music Foundation and the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles