Pierre Gaultier de Marseille (1642-1696)
Symphonies divisées par suites de tons
Cohaere Ensemble
rec. 2025, Espace culturel C. J. Bonnet, Jujurieux, France 
Reviewed as a download
Ambronay AMY317 [70]

During the Baroque period, Paris and Versailles were the centres of music in France. Most of the music that is performed today was written by composers who lived and worked there. Only now and then do we get the opportunity to hear music that was written and performed elsewhere. One of the composers who worked outside the main centres was Pierre Gaultier, better known with his nickname ‘de Marseille’. Several composers with the name of Gaultier (or Gautier) are known, such as Ennemond and Denis, who were prominent lutenists. Whether Gaultier de Marseille was related to them is not known; at least, the biographical data given in New Grove and the booklet to the present disc don’t mention it.

He was born in La Ciotat, a town that today is part of the department Marseille. It seems that he studied in Paris. In 1682 he acted as organist and teacher of keyboard and composition in Marseille. However, his entire career turned around opera. In 1684 he received permission from Jean-Baptiste Lully to establish an academy of music in Marseille; it was the first time that an opera house was allowed to be established in the provinces. In 1685 it opened with a performance of Gaultier’s opera Le triomphe de la paix, for which he had written the libretto himself. It was a success, and in the next season Gaultier performed several of Lully’s operas and in 1687 another opera of his own pen. Both operas by Gaultier have been lost. He not only performed operas in Marseille, but also in Avignon. There, he was imprisoned for debt and forced to sell all the company properties. The reason for his financial troubles seems to have been that he wanted to pay his singers properly.

After being released from prison, he made a new start in Lyon, where he acted as conductor of operas for the company founded by the dancer Jean-Pierre Legnay. The company was dissolved in 1692, and Gaultier returned to Marseille, where his brother had become director of the academy of music. They performed operas in Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Toulon, Avignon and Arles. In December 1696 they were in Montpellier, and when they returned to Marseille, by sea for financial reasons, their ship was lost in a storm.

As mentioned, the operas of Gaultier’s pen are lost. According to Sébastien de Brossard, composer and lexicographer, he composed in the style of Lully, which is no surprise, given the fact that he frequently performed the latter’s operas. His extant oeuvre is very small, including some instrumental pieces and ten airs. The main collection of music is the one that is the subject of the present disc.

The Symphonies divisées par suites de tons were published in 1707 by Christophe Ballard. This is notable for several reasons. The fact that they were published in 1707, eleven years after the composer’s death, indicates that Gaultier was better-known than one would expect of a composer who worked all his life far away from Paris. Apparently, he was also held in high esteem, as the preface by the publisher says that he assembled these pieces on public request. Moreover, Ballard was the main music printer at the time, and it is telling that he published these pieces.

The scoring of these suites raises questions. The printed edition mentions flutes and violins, which indicates that they can be played on two flutes or on two violins. Given the common practice of the day, there is no objection against mixing these combinations, as is the case here: flute and violin. However, the question is which instrument is meant by the flute. Here the transverse flute is played, but at the time of publication such an instrument was usually called a flûte allemande. In the 17th century the recorder was a more common instrument. The heydays of the transverse flute came after the turn of the century. It seems likely that Gaultier had the recorder in mind rather than the transverse flute. However, the latter was played in his days, and given the year of publication, the use of a transverse flute instead seems a legitimate option. More problematic, from a historical angle, is the use of a cello. This ‘Italian’ instrument was not used in Gaultier’s time and it took some time before it established itself in France.

The collection consists of nine suites of different length. The shortest takes about four minutes, the longest a little over thirteen minutes. They consist of dances and character pieces, such as Les Plaisirs, La Tendresse and Les Regrets. Some titles are known from opera, such as Sommeil, and pieces like Air des Paysans and Marches des Babets clearly refer to opera as well. One wonders whether some of these pieces may have been originally part of Gaultier’s lost operas.

One of the suites has a biographical character. The Suite en C sol ut Bémol & Bécarre opens with a prélude, entitled Les Prisons. Gaultier added a note, saying that he had written this piece in prison in Avignon. It is dominated by descending figures. Obviously fixed elements in French music, such as a chaconne and a passacaille, could not be missed. There is a reference to Paris (L’embarras de Paris), and an imitation of a carillon through repeated figures was also popular at the time. The Air des paysans refers to the countryside and includes a drone in the bass.

It is easy to understand why music lovers requested these pieces to be printed. They are very entertaining, and there is much variety, as I have tried to describe. This is not the first recording: in 1998 Auvidis released the interpretations by Hugo Reyne and his ensemble La Simphonie du Marais, with (tenor) recorders in alternation with violins. I have not heard it, and therefore can’t compare the two recordings. Given the differences in line-up, they are alternatives rather than competitors.

This recording is the debut of the Cohaere Ensemble from Poland, consisting of Marta Gawlas (transverse flute), Marta Korbel (violin), Monika Hartmann (cello) and Natalia Olczak (harpsichord). I am quite happy with it, and they give a good account of themselves. They have caught the spirit of this music very well, and the effects used in the character pieces come off perfectly. Bold playing in the more extraverted pieces alternates with subtlety in the slow items. In short, this is a disc that each lover of baroque music will enjoy. I hope to hear more from this ensemble in the years to come.

Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen
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Contents
Suite en G ré sol Bémol
Suite en G ré sol Bémol
Suite en C sol ut
Suite en G ré sol Bécarre
Suite en C sol ut Bémol
Suite en C sol ut Bémol & Bécarre
Suite en F ut fa
Suite en D la ré Bémol & Bécarre
Suite en D la ré

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