Chabanceau de La Barre: To be happy in love

The literary salons of Paris were places where the refined art of conversation was experimented with, expressing an idealized vision of love and a highly poetic portrayal of aristocratic society. The women who founded these salons thus created a poetic style, with inevitably plaintive accents. "The true character of lovers is composed of tenderness and simplicity," according to Abbé Charles Cotin—and music was used as a medium to express every nuance of amorous feelings, which many poets of the style galant sought to depict with great care. Popular composers set these galant verses to music in the form of 'airs sérieux,' which dominated all secular French music during the reign of Louis XIV. The present album contains (as world premiere recordings) airs sérieux by Joseph Chabanceau de La Barre, a scion of one of the most respected French musical families of the 17th century.