大象传媒

Today's programme sees the Acad茅mie Royale de Musique giving up control of the Concert Spirituel and placing it back in private hands: those of the violinist Gabriel Capperan and the composer Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer, whose widow took his place when Royer died a few years later. Two of the most striking musical arrivals of this period (1748-62) were foreign: Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and Johann Stamitz. Pergolesi didn't arrive in person - he'd been dead since 1736 - but his Stabat Mater made a tremendous impact at its first performance at the Concert Spirituel in 1753, going on to become the single most played work of the series; it clocked up more than 80 performances in 37 years. Stamitz spent a year in Paris, from 1754-5. He was evidently well thought of and well-connected, since he joined Parisian society at the very top, lodging with the appropriately named Alexandre-Jean-Joseph Le Riche de La Pouplini猫re - an enormously wealthy tax collector who had the money and inclination to become a serious patron of the Arts. No less than Rameau spent 22 years in his household, as director of his private orchestra, an arrangement that came to an end in 1753. Rameau's name crops up with surprising infrequency in the programme listings of the Concert Spirituel. His grand motet In Convertendo is a rare exception; it was poorly received, and it may have been that reception that encouraged him to revise it into the magnificent work we know today.