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Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) is nowadays recognized as one of the outstanding composers of the French Baroque. After three years studying in Rome in the late 1660s, he returned to Paris where he worked for a variety of patrons and performing groups. Principal among these were the Guise princesses, Marie de Lorraine and Isabelle d’Orléans, the fashionable Jesuit church of Saint-Louis, and the prestigious Sainte-Chapelle. Charpentier’s surviving output of some 550 works reflects this diverse activity, and includes incidental music for the Comèdie-Française, motets for the Dauphin’s chapel, oratorio-like works for various venues, a sacred opera for the Collège Louis-le-Grand, and a full-scale opera Médée for the Paris Opéra.
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