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Web Projects by John S.
Powell
john-powell@utulsa.edu
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- Vita
with hyperlinks to pdfs of published articles
- book:
Music and Theatre in
France, 1600-1680 (Oxford University Press, 2000)
- selected multimedia presentations
- "Music and French Baroque Gesture" (Paper given at the 15th Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music, University of Southampton, 11-15 July 2012.
- "Italian Elements in the Comédies-Ballets of Molière and Lully"
(Paper given at the 19th International Congress of the International
Musicological Society, Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome 1-7 July
2012).
- Henry Gissey's Costumes for Psyché (1671)
(Paper given for the symposium “Fashioning Opera and Musical Theatre”
at the Fondazione Georgio Cini, Venice, 29 March to 1 April 2012).
- Lucien Durosoir: La guerre comme rupture de la carrière et l'axe de vie (Paper given for the symposium "Un compositeur moderne né romantique: Lucien Durosoir" at the Palazzetto Bru Zane, Venice, 19-20 February 2011).
- Debussy, Watteau, et la Fete Galante (Lecture-Recital given for the conference Watteau et la Danse at the
Universite de Valenciennes, France, on 8-9 December 2010).
-
Music,
Gesture, and Tragic Declamation in the Scene of the Dancing Demons from
Thomas Corneille's Machine Play Circé (1675) (Paper given for the
symposium Gesture on the French Stage, 1675-1800 at the Festival Oudemuziek
Utrecht on 27 July 2010).
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The Metamorphosis of Psyché (Paper given for the conference
Opera and Politics in the Ancien Régime at the
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library on 27
February 2009).
- website:
Music and
Theater in France in the Seventeenth Century
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an ongoing project that makes available a select group of 17th-century
French plays in facsimile together with the music that accompanied the
first performance and subsequent performances.
- website:
Petits motets
for the Season of Epiphany, by Charpentier (In Circumcisione Domini [Jan. 1st], Pour le Jour de Ste Geneviefve [Jan. 3rd], Pour la Feste de l'Epiphanie [Jan. 6], In Festo Purificationis [Feb. 2nd]); plus, as a prelude to Epiphany, Charpentier's Christmas cantata In Nativitatem DNJC
- Pastoral operas by Charpentier:
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La Descente d'Orphée aux enfers
-
a chamber opera in a performing edition prepared for performance by the
Catacoustic Consort, dir. by Annalisa Pappano; this site includes
a progressive-downloading video in QuickTime format of the September 2003
performance.
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Les Arts Florissants
- another lovely work...but this edition
still needs to be proofread, so let me know if you want to use it
and I'll check it over
-
Il faut rire et chanter: Dispute de bergers
-
La Couronne de
fleurs
- La Couronne de fleurs is
an adaptation of the original Prologue to Le Malade imaginaire
(1673), which Charpentier arranged for the singers of Mlle de Guise in the
mid-1680s. In fact, of the 19 movements only 2 are borrowed (and are
extensively recomposed); the rest of the opera is entirely original (though
the text is wholly by Molière).
This is a terrific, very musical work that deserves to be performed.
-
Les Plaisirs de
Versailles
- La
Petite Pastorale
- Another gem, also composed for
the Guise singers and, like La Couronne des fleurs, is also based on
the theme of the singing contest. It too borrows a number from the
original Prologue to Le Malade imaginaire, and incorporates three of
Charpentier's chansons. One of the numbers is lost; for this I
have substituted a lovely air from Les Fous divertissants.
- Actéon
- A miniature tragédie en musique, and
quite possibly Charpentier's finest piece of musical theater
- Actéon changé en biche
- A reworking of the above opera, but with some
revisions...the most important being that Acteon is written for a
soprano.
- La Feste de Ruel
- A
lovely pastorale composed for the Duc de Richelieu, who wished to honor
Louis XIV with an equestrian statue in his gardens at Rueil;
unfortunately the King bailed, and it seems that Charpentier's music
was never performed. 'Tis a pity, because it's a nice piece.
- Le Reniement de St Pierre
- an absolutely gorgeous oratorio on St. Peter's threefold denial of Jesus, with harmonies to die for (no pun intended)
- Psyché
-
Charpentier's Grand Office des Morts
-
Charpentier's Grand Office des Morts, a performing edition of
Charpentier's early, double choir Mass for the dead (Messe pour les
Trépassés), together with a related psalm setting of the De Profundis,
the Dies Irae, and a Motet pour les Trépassés (with text taken
from the Office of the Dead); this edition is being used by Les Arts Florissants for performance and recording in 2004.
-
Canticum canticorum
- petits motets by
Bouzignac, Charpentier,
Carissimi, Nivers, Dumont, Henry, and Campra based on
texts from the Song of Songs
- Concert pour Quatre Parties de Violes
-
Beatus vir
- a setting by Charpentier of Psalm
1, which would go nicely on a double bill with Monteverdi's setting of the
same psalm
-
Trio de Monsieur Charpentier
-
Airs de differents compositeurs (1678)
- an
unusual
and unique collection of French, English, Italian, and Spanish airs
composed by leading composers of the mid-17th Century, and now owned by
the Westminster Abbey Chapter Library.
The composers include Michel Lambert, Honoré d'Ambruis, Michel Farinel,
Sébastien Le Camus, Robert Cambert, Jean Sicard, Michel-Richard de
Lalande, Jacques Paisible, Charles Hurel, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Luigi
Rossi, and William Turner.
As the
collection includes only vocal parts without accompaniment, I have
sought out and transcribed concordant sources for many of the airs.
Among other curiosities, this anthology includes the earliest work by
Lalande (a drinking song) and an early source for Io's lament from
Lully’s opera Isis.
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Copyists' Hands
- another ongoing project that provides samples of the handwriting of
various late 17th-century and early 18th-century French copyists; it isolates
various characteristic features of these hands (clef formation, notes, flags,
beams, and script) to aid in identifying the copyists of other French
manuscript
- Hésione
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