Jean Gilles (1668-1705)
- Te Deum (1697)
Performers: Edith Selig (1929-2020, soprano); Jean-Jacques Lesueur
(tenor); Pierre Germain (baritone); Georges Abdoun (bass); Chorale des
Jeunesses Musicales de France; Orchestre De L'Association Dеs Concеrts
Pаsdеloup; Louis Martini (1912-2000, conductor)
Engraving: Anoniem - Plattegrond van Toulouse (c.1690)
Further info: Jean Gilles (1668-1705) - Laudate nomen Domini
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French composer. The son of an illiterate labourer, he enrolled on 6 May
1679 in the choir school of the Cathedral of St Sauveur at
Aix-en-Provence. His teacher was Guillaume Poitevin, who also taught a
number of Provence’s other most reputable composers, including Campra
and Blanchard. In 1687 he left the boys’ choir but continued in the
service of the cathedral. On 5 November 1688, at Poitevin’s request, he
shared the positions of sous-maître and organist with another student,
Jacques Cabassol. Poitevin retired on 4 May 1693 and he succeeded him as
maître de musique. But despite an increase in his salary and several
remunerative privileges his action in April 1695 in leaving without
notice to become maître de musique of Agde Cathedral indicates that he
was dissatisfied with his lot at Aix. He soon attracted the attention of
the Bishop of Rieux, who wanted him to succeed Campra as maître de
musique of the Cathedral of St Etienne at Toulouse, although the
position had recently been given to Michel Farinel. Farinel, for unknown
reasons, left Toulouse in November 1697, and on 18 December 1697
Gilles, who was in Toulouse at the time, was appointed to direct the
choir school. In 1701 the Duke of Burgundy and the duc de Berry,
grandsons of Louis XIV, visited Toulouse with great ceremony. With the
attention this event brought him, Gilles’s reputation grew, and in July
1701 he was offered the directorship of the choir school at Notre Dame
des Doms, Avignon. Evidently he agreed to accept, and Rameau was
appointed to deputize until he arrived, but although Gilles may have
spent a short time at Avignon he never left his post at Toulouse. He
renewed his contract there for four years on 3 December 1701 and the
chapter records show that he was still there when he died.
In the 18th century Gilles’s Messe des morts became one of the most
famous works in all France. According to M.A. Laugier's Sentiment d’un
harmoniphile (1756), ‘Today there is seldom a funeral service with music
without a performance of Gilles’s mass’. It was performed at services
for Rameau in 1764 and for Louis XV ten years later. It was praised by
many critics, including Mattheson, who called it ‘one of the most
beautiful of musical works’. With the motets of Lalande, Gilles’s
Requiem and the motets Diligam te and Beatus quem elegisti remained
popular at the Concert Spirituel during the first three-quarters of the
18th century. Diligam te remained in the repertory of the royal chapel
at Versailles until the fall of the monarchy in 1792. Gilles’s motets
are constructed on the same principles as Lalande’s, that is in the form
of the Versailles grand motet. Like Lalande’s, his orchestra is
relatively independent of the chorus. His harmony is less dissonant than
Lalande’s. His fast movements often suggest dance rhythms, with
frequent use of hemiola in those in triple time. His motets show his
early maturity, and his earliest surviving works demonstrate exceptional
expression and pathos, particularly the Lamentations, which constitute
one of the few choral settings for Holy Week by a French composer. The
choral writing in Gilles’s later works shows a convincing balance
between polyphony and homophonic declamation. His well crafted and
expressive fugal choruses usually contribute substantially to the
overall structure of his works. In the Messe des morts, for example,
after a pattern alternating polyphony with homophonic, dance-like
textures, the fugal ‘Requiem aeternam’ crowns a polyphonic development
that has been unfolding throughout the work. In the Te Deum (1697) two
choral fugues (‘Te per orbem’ and ‘Aeterna fac’) frame an arresting
trio, ‘Tu devicto mortis’ for three basses-tailles, which forms the
centre of a completely symmetrical 11-movement structure.
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