Cohaere Ensemble
Ambronay AMY 317
69:27
Few composers fell victim more comprehensively to the hazards of a musical career than the late-17th-century composer Pierre Gaultier de Marseille, whose attempts to put his native city on the international musical map led to penury, imprisonment, and ultimately death by drowning as he attempted to escape his creditors. He composed operas in the style of Lully, which although successful when presented in the opera house he had built in Marseille, left him penniless. These Symphonies, beautifully played by the Polish Cohaere Ensemble on Baroque flutes, violin, cello and harpsichord/organ, are tuneful and elegant but also display an inventiveness which set them apart from the standard repertoire of the second half of the 17th century in France. Many of them bear ‘character’ titles, including a set marking his melancholy stay in debtors’ prison. Whether this individual style is due to regional difference or simply Gaultier’s inspired imagination is not clear, but the Cohaere Ensemble recognised something special in his music several years ago and have been championing his work ever since. Such technically accomplished and musically authoritative accounts can only help belatedly to establish the reputation of a composer who clearly deserves more attention.
D. James Ross