Giovanni Rovetta: Messe pour la Naissance de Louis XIV
Sheet Music

SKU: NX.ALPHA965

By Benjamin Chenier and Galilei Consort. By Giovanni Rovetta. Country of Origin: Austria. Classical. CD (1 disc). Published by Alpha (NX.ALPHA965).

In 1638 Louis-Dieudonne, destined to become King of France under the name of Louis XIV, was born. Louis XIII instructed his ambassadors to celebrate the event with pomp and circumstance, sparing no expense. In Venice, four days of festivities were organized in honor of the French Dauphin, culminating in the performance of a solemn mass specially composed by Giovanni Rovetta at the San Giorgio Maggiore. Giovanni Rovetta served as Monteverdi's deputy maestro di cappella at San Marco, and eventually succeded him in 1644, becoming one of Venice's leading musicians. The mass was never sung again after its first performance. In 2015, Benjamin Chenier reconstructed the work to celebrate the tercentenary of the death of Louis XIV. The grandiose Venetian work displays all of the splendor appropriate to the spirit of La Serenissima Repubblica. The Galilei Consort, founded by the violinist Benjamin Chenier, is principally dedicated to the reconstruction of musical practices and works of seventeenth-century Italy. Such practices emerged from the humanist movement, and are personified by Vincenzo Galilei, father of the famous Galileo, who advocated a return to the Green conception of music with primary impoprtance accorded to the meaning of the text.