Marc-Antoine Charpentier: David & Jonathas – Olivier Schneebeli

In 1688, the Jesuit college Louis-le-Grand staged David et Jonathas, a lyrical tragedy written by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Intended for the school’s students and interspersed with the Latin tragedy Saul, it depicted the fratricidal friendship of David and Jonathas, at the mercy of an implacable fate and a cruel struggle for power.

In this unique composition, Charpentier achieves both an expressive peak and an aesthetic counter-model to the Lullist archetype: no praise for the king in the prologue or machinery, few recitatives or divertissements. Instead, all the space is left to the drama and psychology of the characters, with a harmonic refinement supporting and magnifying a poignant expressivity, of which the aria ‘A-t-on jamais souffert plus rude peine’ is perhaps one of the high points.

Charpentier and his David et Jonathas are emblematic of the mission of the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, which strives to bring to light composers and works that have fallen into oblivion.

This, Olivier Schneebeli’s latest recording, is notable for its exclusive use of children’s and men’s voices – the soloists, almost all graduates of the Maîtrise and now among the most brilliant singers of their generations.  Natacha Boucher’s Jonathas stands out, strikingly innocent and deeply sincere, as close as possible to Charpentier’s original version.