ABSTRACT
Under Louis XIV, music at the French court was controlled by large, very hierarchical organizations to which every musician, whether singer, instrumentalist or composer, dreamed of belonging. To Marc-Antoine Charpentier, the king’s decision in 1683 to reorganize the musical leadership of the royal chapel at Versailles must have seemed a golden opportunity. Charpentier was one of 16 composers to go through to the second stage of this contest, and must have had every intention of securing a much-coveted court post. The most direct link in the Melanges autographes between Charpentier and the court takes the form of his divertissement Les plaisirs de Versailles, composed for the firstjours d’appartement in November 1682. Charpentier, the inventory of Charpentier’s manuscripts prepared in 1726 in advance of their sale to the royal library, link two further works explicitly with Versailles. Charpentier’s original version of the Exaudiat, and presumably the one heard in 1681, was for four-part chorus (dessus, haute-contre, taille, basse), soloists and continuo.
