The Bells of St. Genevieve of Paris (Sonnerie de Sainte Genevieve du Monte de Paris)

Composer: MARAIS, Marin
  • This piece comes from Marias’ La gamme et autres morceaux de symphonie (1723) for violin, viol and harpsichord. Sonnerie is the third piece in the collection.1
  • Listen for: the centerpiece of this work is not the violin (melody part) but the virtuosic part for the viol (Marais’ own instrument)2
  • Listen for: the viol part imitating the sound of church bells.
  • I think this is the church referred to. This ancient abbey church was associated with St. Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, and was a center of learning in the Middle Ages. The church was torn down in 1744 by Louis XIV and a new church built above the crypt. During the French Revolution that building was secularized and became the Panthéon.

Sources

  1. “Sonnerie de Sainte Genevieve du Mont de Paris (Marias, Marin), IMSLP, accessed November 13, 2019, https://imslp.org/wiki/Sonnerie_de_Sainte_Genevieve_du_Mont_de_Paris_(Marais%2C_Marin). 
  2. Mary Cyr, Style and Performance for Bowed String Instruments in French Baroque Music (Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2012), 159.

Cut IDs

12403