La Messagère
Works by Demachy, Hersant, Marais, Sainte-Colombe et al
Lucile Boulanger (bass de viole)
Alpha Classics ALPHA1070 77:32 mins
Through her inspired selection and compelling interpretation of repertoire spanning 400 years, Lucile Boulanger’s album La Messagère presents a sonic history of the viole de gambe in France. The rich gut-string sonority of Boulanger’s bass viol, by the Belgian maker François Bodart (after Joachim Tielke, Hamburg, 1699), transforms staples of the repertoire by Jean de Sainte-Colombe and Marin Marais, as well as music by their contemporaries Sieur de Machy and Nicholas Hotman and 21st-century works.
The opening D minor suite from Sainte-Colombe’s Tournus manuscript is enhanced by Boulanger’s imaginative and fluid use of tempo rubato. Among six works by Marais, Boulanger performs five from his first book without basso continuo, as per the 1686 publication. Her enriched textures reveal anew this well-known music. To craft a suite in G minor Boulanger bookends Marais with three movements by de Machy, highlighting an affinity in their treatment of the viol.
Boulanger’s textural sensitivity and imagination again feature in her interpretation of music by Hotman. Provoking and stimulating the way we listen to the older music, individual movements of Philippe Hersant’s 2008 suite L’Ombre d’un Doute are sprinkled throughout. Amidst 21st-century works written for Boulanger, Claire-Mélanie Sinnhuber’s La Dame d’onze heures idiomatically traverses a breadth of extraordinary timbres and textures, and ebullient virtuosity abounds in the album’s most recent work, La Fugitive, composed by Gérard Pesson in 2024.
This album stands as a testament to the way 21st-century historical performance can often be a consummate synthesis of innovation and heritage. It also confirms her well-deserved reputation as a leading exponent of the viol, whose persuasive interpretations never fail to inspire and impress. Ingrid Pearson