The two books of volume 4 of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s petits motets have just been published by the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles. They contain 38 works for 3 voices and instruments, edited by Shirley Thompson.

This first book (a) includes 25 motets composed between 1676 and 1692 for 3 voices, including at least two dessus (children, sopranists or women).

Shirley Thompson closely studies the question of the use of texts, such as the motet Læta sileant organa for example, on a poem by Pierre Portes, for a funeral service in memory of Queen Marie-Thérèse. She also endeavours to put into perspective and apply the large quantity of recent research on Charpentier’s work. Performers will find in the introduction a complete synthesis that will allow them to put into practice an informed interpretation: notation of the figures for the positions of the right hand, doubling of the instruments on the organ, flute making, ornamentation, tempi, all completed by a bibliography, very useful for performance.

Shirley Thompson is Vice-President of the Royal Birmingham Conservatory. After her doctoral thesis, The Autograph Manuscripts of Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Clues to Performance (University of Hull, 1998), she published numerous scientific essays on Charpentier’s music. Her book, New Perspectives on Marc-Antoine Charpentier (Farnham, Ashgate, 2010), was republished in 2016. She has prepared numerous editions of Charpentier’s works for both performance and publication.