Recreating the magic of France

A team of musicians is seeking to revive the long-forgotten baroque music of France.

In the very building where the French Revolution took shape, a team of officials, researchers, editors and musicians are seeking to revive the long-forgotten baroque music of monarchist France.

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"I say this without any nostalgia for the ancien regime," said Herve Burckel de Tell, who became director of the Baroque Music Center of Versailles earlier this year. "I am very republican."

But he regretted that the French revolution, like the one in Russia, set out to destroy every vestige of the past, throwing out much that was good.

The churches suffered enormously and even Versailles' rich architectural heritage was neglected until comparatively recently.

But nothing was so decisively forgotten as the music written for the Sun King Louis XIV, who reigned from 1643 to 1715, and his successors at the court here, Burckel de Tell said in an interview.

Because France is a literary nation, the republic "recovered the literary theatrical heritage, which was more critical of the ancien regime than the music."

Republican rulers saw no reason to perform operas that had no other function than the glory of the king, Burckel de Tell said.

It is because of modern revivals by conductors such as William Christie, Jean-Claude Malgloire, Jordi Savall and Philippe Herreweghe that the music of the French baroque has become increasingly popular with modern audiences, even if it is less-well known than contemporary compositions from Italy, Germany and England.

"There is some contradiction between the fame of Versailles and the lesser fame of the arts that developed at the court," Burckel de Tell added.

"Versailles was a theater. Louis XIV constructed his chateau around the music, the festivities and the ballet. When you look at the history of Versailles, it is a history first of all of the pleasures of the king."

It is in the Hotel des Menus-Plaisirs, where the king's cultural pleasures were once organized, that a team of more than 50 musicologists and other experts is refurbishing the musical legacy of Versailles. The Estates-General, the assembly of nobles, clergy and commoners, that shortly preceded the revolution, met here in one of the large halls where the sets for the court operas were stored.

The fame of some of the composers of the Versailles court -- such as Jean-Philippe Rameau, Jean-Baptiste Lully or Marc-Antoine Charpentier -- has succeeded them. But Burckel de Tell said the age produced dozens of brilliant composers who remain unknown largely because their music has never been published.

Because their music was written for the king's ears alone, rather than for the broad public, it remained in manuscript form and left forgotten on library shelves.

One of the functions of the Baroque Music Center is to edit and produce definitive editions of the manuscript works. Another is to research performance, singing, instrumental, declamatory and dance techniques of the period and help train young professional performers.

Because the period of baroque music spans two centuries stretching into the pre-Romantic age, the field for research is vast.

The center does not have an orchestra of its own, but helps form musicians who play with some of the best-known baroque orchestras in Europe. "We do not want to compete with the orchestras, but to help them," Burckel de Tell said.

One of the main functions of the center is to organize the series of operas and concerts that takes place from September to December every year, and is usually sold out 100 percent.

Burckel de Tell, who came to Versailles from the Orchestre de Paris, said he hopes to expand the baroque program by having a spring season as from next year and creating international partnerships for joint productions.

At the same time, he would like to give back to Versailles some of its royal heritage, by aiming performances at young people and by staging popular "baroque fairs" on the square in front of the chateau, bringing together instrument makers, publishers, musicians, artists.

Burckel de Tell said the center for baroque music was founded in 1987 on a simple premise -- reviving the heritage of a court that in many other ways served as the model for other royal courts in Europe.

Sitting in front of a large bust of Rameau, Burckel de Tell said, "this is a unique structure, which brings together musicological researchers, editors, teachers and programmers. We are not just a research center, a publishing house, a school or a festival organizer. We are all these things at the same time."

He said there is an almost daily debate at the center about reconciling authenticity with the expectations of a modern public.

Burckel de Tell says he is convinced the center will have an increasingly important role to play both in the life of Versailles and on the international music scene because of the rising public interest in baroque music as evidenced by the popularity of operas and concerts and the sales of record albums.