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23 May 25 | Events
In Conversation with Edward Higginbottom
Ahead of A Grand Celebration of Le Concert Spirituel at the Sheldonian Theatre on 13 June, we sat down with conductor Edward Higginbottom to explore the origins of one of Europe’s earliest public concert series, and its legacy. From the distinctive sound of period instruments to the interpretive choices behind historically informed performances, Edward Higginbottom’s reflections on Le Concert Spirituel offer a fascinating glimpse into a musical world that still echoes in our own.
Could you tell us about Le Concert Spirituel, and how it began?
Edward Higginbottom: Le Concert Spirituel is a concert organisation in Paris, begun in 1725, by Anne Danican Philidor. And, you might ask, why ‘spirituel’? Because Philidor always had a grand motet Psalm setting in the programme. And why was that? These concerts always took place on a Christian feast day, so Christmas, Easter, Ascension. There were quite a number of them, in the year maybe 20, or 25.
And why on those occasions? Because the opera was shut. If you were a music lover in Paris in those days, there was nowhere else to go. If the opera was shut, what could you do about your music consumption? Philidor had the idea of offering these concerts, which would recognise the Christian nature of the day, but also offer a wide range of other sorts of music. This was an organisation that put on concerts, over 1000 of them, throughout more or less the whole of the 18th century, and was a crucial feature of public music making in Paris, and indeed in Europe, of the day.
What role did it play in shaping the idea of a ‘public concert’?
EH: We’re very used to public concerts in our own day. We see them advertised, we buy a ticket, and we go. In the 18th century, early on, there was no such thing, until Philidor came along and said, “we’ve got this concert, this programme of music, you can come if you pay adequately, and hear our best performers”, so that was quite a novelty.
It had been going on [before 1725] in aristocratic homes, in the homes of the wealthy. Privately, it had been going on at court. But as a public subscription event, it wasn’t really a part of the social life, the musical life in Paris, until this point, so it’s really significant. It marks a moment when the public concert became a thing, and you could book and go, and enjoy, or hiss or boo, whichever you liked! It was about the public consumption of music for the first time on a significant level.
And what sort of music would a listener have heard at a Concert Spirituel performance? Was there a standard programme?
EH: The type of music you would hear at the Concert Spirituel comprised, always, a grand motet, a large-scale cantata setting of about 20-25 minutes, which would be a psalm setting. That was the significant nod to the Christian feast day – that was always part and parcel of the event, because quite often, you’d have been to church in the morning for mass and would go to the concert in the afternoon. So, there would be a big choral item, orchestral and choral music, and then there’d be some instrumental music.
At the very first concert there was [Arcangelo] Corelli, and his Christmas concerto was played. And that sort of music, Italian-based concerto music, became a mainstay of the programme planning. A lot of concerto composers are represented in the programmes. The symphony also crept in. There weren’t really any symphonies in 1725, which we’d recognise these days as symphonies. But bit by bit, this genre, a very public genre, took hold and found a place in the Concert Spirituel, so very important instrumental genres were represented in the programme.
And then you might have rather small-scale things. One of the things we’re performing on the 13th of June is a very small-scale cantata by [Louis-Nicolas] Clérambault. That’s unusual in respect of it reducing to just five performers, from a big orchestra and chorus. That doesn’t often happen in modern concerts, because you tend to stay with the group that’s installed on the stage. But they had a lot of variety, solo items, larger items, and then these full-scale symphonic items. So it’s a real melee of music, a lot of different stuff, and increasingly, putting an accent on the instrumental.
In what other ways would the experience of attending a Concert Spirituel performance differ from we’re familiar with now?
EH: I think the public was much pickier than we expect concert audiences to be today! For instance, when Mozart composed his symphony for the Concert Spirituel, which we know now as the Paris symphony, which we are going to play [on 13 June], in 1778, at the first performance, the slow movement was not much appreciated. In fact, it was criticised in the press as being overly complex. The second performance was a chance that Mozart then had to do something about that. So, he composed another slow movement, which was duly played on the second performance, and applauded more warmly by the press and public. The response from the public was in a manner that was more unbuttoned, and [the public] would say what it thought. When we do our concert on the 13th of June, we’re going to play both of these slow movements, and we’re going to ask the audience to indicate which they preferred. We’ll have a couple of urns where you’ll be able to drop a token to let us know which movement you preferred.
Another difference was the diversity of repertory. There’d be small scale, there’d be choral, there’d be instrumental, there’d be people who were valued for their prowess as soloists – concerto soloists and vocal soloists. That rich mixture of everything you could possibly hear musically, chamber music up to the grand scale, would be present at these events.
Could we talk about the instruments themselves? What sets ‘period performance’ apart, and how does it shape the way we experience 18th-century music today?
EH: Quite often people ask what it is about period ensembles, or period performance, that’s different. The primary difference is the instruments used. These are instruments which are either 18th century instruments, or copies of 18th century instruments, and they’re not the same [as instruments today]. The violins have less of an angle on the fingerboard, they don’t have a chinrest, they have gut strings, the bows are not shaped in the same way. The sound you get from them is definitely different.
The woodwind instruments, the flutes and the oboes, are differently constructed and have fewer keys and a different timbre. The brass instruments are natural and have no pistons. It’s quite a different sound world. It requires proficiency on those instruments. Then there is a way of performing the music, which bit by bit you can forget. Of course, in their day, you wouldn’t think at all that what you’re doing could be part of the currency of the time. But if you perform 18th century music now, you have to look carefully at the evidence concerning how it was performed. There’s a lot of evidence, including treatises on performance, on various ways of playing your instrument, and various ways of construing the notation.
The notation tended to be quite economical. You’d certainly have the notes, their values and their pitches, but dynamics – a few, not many. Crescendo, diminuendo marks – not many of those either. Phrasing – not at all, really, some bow marks. There’s a lot you have to see underneath that notation, or behind it, to get the best out of this music, so that is what we are doing when we play period instruments and perform in a period style.
A Grand Celebration of Le Concert Spirituel takes place on 13 June at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford. Join us for an evocative evening of music that reimagines one of Europe’s most influential early concert series.
23 May 25