Tea at Trianon: Music for the Last Queen

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, October 16, 2017

Music for the Last Queen

From NPR News in Milwaukee:

Ensemble founder and harpsichordist Jory Vinikour says the language of the program is not accidental. "Although I think many Americans imagine Marie Antoinette as only being extraordinary, frivolous, or associating her with the phrase, 'Let them eat cake'...(She) was very very cultivated, and upon her arrival to the French court in 1770 she immediately became very passionate about music," he explains.

Antoinette studied several instruments such as the harpsichord, fortepiano, and harp, as well as sang and composed music. "A real music lover would know that under her reign, certain composers who remain famous today, like Gluck, were much supported by her," he says. Which is why, Vinikour says, his colleague Philippe LeRoy, co-founder and director of programming for Great Lakes Baroque, wanted to explore the great composers of this period. (Read more.)