Band formed in 1972 in Pasadena, CA. Today it looks likes the band is truly becoming an all-Van Halen vehicle, with Eddie's son Wolfgang (yes, named after Mozart) having joined as bassist.
And like I promised last week, now it's time for the prelude of Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Te Deum.
Charpentier was a famous French baroque composer, although not the most famous. That honor probably goes to Jean-Baptiste Lully, the Italian-born composer to the Court of Louis XIV. Until his untimely death in 1687 Lully basically held the monopoly for compositions at the Royal Court. Charpentier however had the good fortune to be in the employ of Marie of Lorraine, the Duchess of Guise, who was a powerful patron and under whose protection he composed, over a period spanning 17 years, a great number of vocal works, among them Psalm settings, hymns, a Magnificat setting, motets, oratorios, and a mass and a Dies Irae for the funeral of the duchess's nephew Louis Joseph, Duke of Guise. Slowly however he gravitated towards and under Louis XIV's aegis, first as a composer for the King's son, the Dauphin, and then finally as a maitre de musique at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, a royal appointment he held from 1698 until his death in 1704.
In between his service to the Duchess de Guise and his final post at the Sainte-Chapelle, from late 1687 to early 1698, he was also maitre de musique for the Jesuit Church of Saint-Louis in Paris, and it was during this period that he composed his grand polyphonic motet Te Deum (H. 146) in D major. The work is written for a group of soloists, a choir, and an instrumental accompaniment. The piece you just heard is only the prelude, and technically it's known as a rondeau.
Slaap wel.
MFBB.
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