Docere, delectare, movere : Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Jesuit Spirituality

Throughout his life Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) seems to have been deeply affected by Jesuit teachings, particularly their emphasis on sensual stimulation and rhetoric.¹ He had ideal credentials as a Jesuit composer, and by the late 1680s had become maître de musique at the principal Jesuit church of St Louis in Paris, a position described by Brossard as 'the most brilliant of appointments'.² At St Louis Charpentier benefited from the Jesuits' liberal, even worldly, approach to the arts and religious education; indeed, he thrived under this regime. His approach to composition, whether through his own choice or under the influence of his employers, embodies the Jesuits' view of the arts, and is relatively free from the artistic constraints imposed on musicians by Louis XIV and Jean-Baptiste Lully. Certainly, a substantial proportion of his music was written to be performed in Jesuit circles.

Our knowledge of the provenance of Charpentier's music is based almost exclusively on the autograph manuscripts of music known as the Mélanges autographes.³ The manuscripts, organized into two series of facsimiles or gatherings (referred to by Charpentier as cahiers) which were compiled chronologically and concurrently, are the principal means by which works can be linked to the various musical establishments with which he was associated during his composing career. Of the 134 extant cahiers, 30 are written exclusively on Jesuit paper.⁴ Many of the works in the cahiers identify singers from the Opéra as soloists whowere known to have been hired by the Jesuits to sing at liturgical celebrations such as Vespers, thus strengthening the association between these compositions and the church of St Louis (see below).⁵ Some works, through their choice of text, can also be linked directly to the Jesuits.⁶

The music copied by Charpentier onto Jesuit paper includes examples of a wide range of genres and styles: litanies (probably written for use by the congrégations mariales),⁷ Magnificats, psalms, motets, antiphons, sequences, hymns, leçons et répons de ténèbres, Masses, Te Deum and Domine salvum settings, and instrumental pieces (such as overtures foruse at the consecration of a bishop).⁸ As well asincluding examples of a wide range of genres, Charpentier left settings for a range of scorings, from solo voices and continuo (with a preference for men's voices) to works for soloists, double choir and double orchestra. Stylistic analysis (particularly regarding thescoring and melodic writing) indicates that Charpentier's large-scale works were written for two different choirs—the first comprised the regular