The Baroque Music Center of Versailles resurrects seventeenth century devices | EUROtoday
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“Rlook how stunning they’re! » With the eyes of a young younger father, Nicolas Bucher contemplates the eight oboes assembled on an workplace desk, on the bottom ground of the Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs, the headquarters of the Versailles Baroque Music Center (CMBV). For this set of devices to exist, which appear to have come straight from the seventeenthe century (whereas they have been accomplished in 2024), it took years of labor and an obsession: to revive sounds that had disappeared for 250 years, to revive historical music in all its forgotten colours.
“In the great period of rediscovery of baroque music,” says the previous director of the CMBV (who not too long ago grew to become director of the Geneva Chamber Orchestra), “the question quickly arises: do we have the right instruments for the right repertoire? We play music that is two and a half centuries old on instruments whose technical and aesthetic stabilization took place between the two wars. It’s not okay! A movement was then born which aimed to bring ancient music to life with historical instruments. At the CMBV, we began by trying to recreate the famous “Vingt- quatre Violons du roi”, whose sonorities turned out to be very completely different from the Italian violins used subsequently.
The effort to recreate these Twenty-Four Violins of King Louis XIV – an ensemble led by Lully himself – is now getting into its closing section. All that is still is to make six violin basses – a sort of violin that has now disappeared – and twenty-eight bows. Hence the launch of a participatory marketing campaign calling on the generosity of the general public with the purpose of amassing 40,000 euros by the tip of December. For the layman, the stakes are troublesome to understand… however for musicians, there is no such thing as a doubt: the sport is well worth the effort.
An archaeologist’s work
This is a singular alternative to “open a drawer and hear a soundtrack from the 17the century”, explains Thierry Bertrand, one of many luthiers who labored on what we name on the CMBV, the “oboe project”. The conductor Hervé Niquet – on the head of the Concert Spirituel for nearly 40 years, an ensemble specializing in French sacred music – judges the obvious distinction by ear: “When we have these reconstituted instruments, and we also try to follow the completely different orchestral plans of the time, the result is there: it is telluric! » he bursts into flames. For a project by 2027, the chef is currently having “four Basel drums remade, quite curious barrels with a particular skin tension”.
“I have archaeologist friends, and I like to say that this work is close to theirs,” continues Thierry Bertrand. When they arrive throughout a fraction of bone, they will decide many issues, for instance the age, intercourse and even the social background of the individual to whom this bone belonged… With an instrument, it is the identical. We begin from tangible parts, and we do detective work. » The scale of the investigation to be carried out is dizzying: to fabricate these eight modern oboes of theAtys by Lully (1676), used as some extent of reference, it was essential to seek the advice of all of the accessible literature and iconography, discover within the present instrumental inventory fashions of French manufacture, relationship from the appropriate period to the closest decade… And then, solely, get to work.
“At the time, the instruments worked by consort,” explains Neven Lesage, himself an oboist and musicologist. In different phrases, the instrument was replicated in all sizes, a bit like Russian dolls. » The costumed musicians moved among the many singers and dancers, and even grouped on a cell float in spectacular results worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster. So in Atysat 2e act, the stage is populated by Zéphyrs, who play an air for eight oboes and cromornes. Because on the time when Lully composed for the Sun King, the ensemble of winds included an entire household of oboes, notably the bass – which measured greater than two meters lengthy and the scale of a cromorne.
Visit to the museum, tomography and 3D printing
With the purpose of making a cromorne measurement as shut as attainable to what it was on the time, Thierry Bertrand went to the Music Museum in Paris to measure a interval instrument which is a part of the collections. Why not use it straight? “We are not allowed to play original instruments! suffocates Nicolas Bucher. Or, more precisely, we are allowed one minute, carefully timed. » Any old instrument kept in a museum is, moreover, a miracle: “A wooden object lying around in an attic… over the centuries, it often ends up in the chimney when you are cold! » underlines the director of the CMBV.
It is also an inert object on which time has acted, nothing to do with an instrument “which plays, and which lives”. “The instrument is in fact deformed by time, the wood has been worked, this is normal,” says Thierry Bertrand. Over time, the unique spherical, cylindrical inside had developed into an oval. » The most superior applied sciences are used: tomography – extensively utilized in archeology and which permits the equal of a scan – and 3D printing then enable the luthier to acquire a resin copy. “Once you have that, you have to make the appropriate tools called reamers… Very few have stood the test of time, but we have treatises which describe them… It takes longer to make than the instrument itself,” says Thierry Bertrand, who estimates the whole length of his work at fourteen months, “weekends included”, in tandem together with his son.
In search of forgotten sounds
Finally, the query of supplies arises: wooden, ivory (used within the seventeenthe century however banned at the moment) and the reeds to make double reeds, these strips which can be put within the mouth in order that the oboe produces sound… “We know that under the Ancien Régime, the reed was already harvested in the same place as today, in the Rhône valley, explains Neven Lesage. Except that today we harvest the reed in winter, when the plant is hardened by the cold… But the ancients harvested when the plant is full of sap, that is to say much more flexible. We are on the verge of perhaps completely rediscovering the sonic identity of the instrument,” as a result of the state of the plant determines the reed which determines the sound…
The sound! In this passionate quest on the crossroads of scientific analysis and artwork, he’s a bit just like the well-known white whale of Moby-Dick : an object of frantic pursuit, maybe unattainable. “We do not have a third-party verifier in this adventure,” underlines Nicolas Bucher. Who can inform us if the sound is certainly the identical as when it was created?Atys, For instance ? » And but, for every of the members, the emotion of listening to those resurrected devices grips the throat.
To Discover
Kangaroo of the day
Answer
“It’s taking a journey through time, discovering volumes and sounds that we were totally unaware of,” summarizes Thierry Bertrand. And Neven Lesage recounts: “ Recently, in rehearsal, I alternated between my instrument and one in every of these reconstructed oboes. The conductor reacted instantly regardless that I used to be within the seventh row… For him, the distinction was audible from the beginning. He was not knowledgeable that this instrument was in his orchestra, however he instantly felt the distinction on this sound, its relevance. » The overwhelming impact of a voice rising from the depths of time.
For extra data on the participatory marketing campaign meant to revive the Twenty-four Violins of the King: www.cmbv.fr. The violins and oboes reconstituted by the CMBV will likely be utilized in March 2026 for a live performance model of the Roland by Lully on the Royal Opera of Versailles.
https://www.lepoint.fr/culture/le-centre-de-musique-baroque-de-versailles-ressuscite-des-instruments-du-xviie-siecle-22-11-2025-2603727_3.php