Agnès Mellon
Encyclopedia
Agnès Mellon is a French
soprano
specialized in the baroque
repertoire, born in 1958.
directed by William Christie
, with whom, between 1981 and 1993, she interpreted Marc-Antoine Charpentier
, Monteverdi, Luigi Rossi, Michel Lambert
, Henry Purcell
, Lully
, Michel Pignolet de Montéclair, Rameau
...
She was during the 1980s one of the pillars of that baroque ensemble, together with Guillemette Laurens
, Jill Feldman, Dominique Visse
, Etienne Lestringant, Michel Laplénie, Philippe Cantor, Gregory Reinhart
, François Fauché...
Since 1985, Agnès Mellon has also worked a lot under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe
, with La Chapelle Royale
(1985–1990) and the Collegium Vocale Gent (1990–1996), interpreting Charpentier
, Heinrich Schütz
, Monteverdi, Jean Gilles
, Bach...
At the end of the 1980s, she worked regularly with the Belgian
ensemble Ricercar Consort
, under the artistic direction of the Belgian musicologist Jérôme Lejeune.
She further worked with various conductors like Dominique Visse
, René Jacobs, Marc Minkowski
, John Eliot Gardiner
, Christophe Rousset
, Gérard Lesne
...
As from the 1990s, she dedicates herself to teaching (Yerres, Orléans, Orsay); she also participates in Master-Classes (Paris
, Montreal
, Kyoto
).
In 1997, she founded her own baroque ensemble Barcarole, whose first recording released in 2005 was highly praised.
Agnès Mellon is married with the French counter-tenor Dominique Visse
.
She is particularly brilliant in "lamentos" and funeral airs :
In 1992, she gave an exceptional interpretation of Henry Purcell
's songs, traditionally interpreted only by counter-tenors (Alfred Deller
, James Bowman...)
These recordings were all published by Harmonia Mundi France.
These recordings were all published by Harmonia Mundi France.
These recordings were all published by Ricercar.
These recordings were all published by Virgin Classics
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
specialized in the baroque
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
repertoire, born in 1958.
Biography
Agnès Mellon started her career at the beginning of the 1980s with the baroque ensemble Les Arts FlorissantsLes Arts Florissants (ensemble)
Les Arts Florissants is a Baroque musical ensemble in residence at the Théâtre de Caen in Caen, France. The organization was founded by conductor William Christie in 1979. The ensemble derives its name from the 1685 opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The organization consists of a chamber orchestra...
directed by William Christie
William Christie (musician)
William Lincoln Christie is an American-born French conductor and harpsichordist. He is noted as a specialist in baroque repertoire and as the founder of the ensemble Les Arts Florissants....
, with whom, between 1981 and 1993, she interpreted Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Marc-Antoine Charpentier, , was a French composer of the Baroque era.Exceptionally prolific and versatile, he produced compositions of the highest quality in several genres...
, Monteverdi, Luigi Rossi, Michel Lambert
Michel Lambert
Michel Lambert was a French singing master, theorbist and composer.Lambert was born at Champigny-sur-Veude, France. He received his musical education as an altar boy at the Chapel of Gaston d'Orléans. He studied also with Pierre de Nyert in Paris. Since 1636, he was known as a singing teacher...
, Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
, Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...
, Michel Pignolet de Montéclair, Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...
...
She was during the 1980s one of the pillars of that baroque ensemble, together with Guillemette Laurens
Guillemette Laurens
Guillemette Laurens is a French operatic mezzo-soprano.Guillemette trained at the Academy of Toulouse and debuted as Baba in The Rake's Progress at Salle Favart. She took part in the premiere recording of Lully's Atys conducted by William Christie. She is a highly-respected singer of Baroque...
, Jill Feldman, Dominique Visse
Dominique Visse
Dominique Visse is a French countertenor and founder of the Ensemble Clément Janequin. Visse devotes himself to performing of secular and religious music of the Renaissance. He is principally known for his interpretations of the Parisian chansons.He was a chorister in the Cathedral of Notre Dame...
, Etienne Lestringant, Michel Laplénie, Philippe Cantor, Gregory Reinhart
Gregory Reinhart
Gregory Reinhart is an American bass opera singer. He is noted for an extremely wide repertory which ranges from early music to the world premieres of several contemporary operas including Lowell Liebermann's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Philippe Manoury's K..., and Pascal Dusapin's Perelà, uomo di...
, François Fauché...
Since 1985, Agnès Mellon has also worked a lot under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe
Philippe Herreweghe
Philippe Herreweghe is a Flemish conductor.In his school years at the University of Ghent, Herreweghe combined studies in medical science and psychiatry with a musical education at the Ghent Conservatory, where Marcel Gazelle, Yehudi Menuhin's accompanist, was his piano teacher...
, with La Chapelle Royale
La Chapelle Royale
- History :La Chapelle Royale was founded in 1977 in Paris by the Belgian conductor Philippe Herreweghe. It takes its name from the Chapelle royale of the French kings....
(1985–1990) and the Collegium Vocale Gent (1990–1996), interpreting Charpentier
Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Marc-Antoine Charpentier, , was a French composer of the Baroque era.Exceptionally prolific and versatile, he produced compositions of the highest quality in several genres...
, Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Claudio Monteverdi...
, Monteverdi, Jean Gilles
Jean Gilles (Composer)
Jean Gilles was a French composer, born at Tarascon.-Biography:After receiving his musical training as a choirboy at the Cathedral of Saint-Sauveur at Aix-en-Provence, he succeeded his teacher Guillaume Poitevin as music master there...
, Bach...
At the end of the 1980s, she worked regularly with the Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
ensemble Ricercar Consort
Ricercar Consort
The Ricercar Consort is a Belgian instrumental ensemble founded in 1980 together with the record label of Jérôme Lejeune.The founding members were François Fernandez, Bernard Foccroulle, and Philippe Pierlot. The initial repertoire was focussed on the German Baroque, and the Consort was closely...
, under the artistic direction of the Belgian musicologist Jérôme Lejeune.
She further worked with various conductors like Dominique Visse
Dominique Visse
Dominique Visse is a French countertenor and founder of the Ensemble Clément Janequin. Visse devotes himself to performing of secular and religious music of the Renaissance. He is principally known for his interpretations of the Parisian chansons.He was a chorister in the Cathedral of Notre Dame...
, René Jacobs, Marc Minkowski
Marc Minkowski
Marc Minkowski is a French conductor of classical music, especially known for his interpretations of French Baroque works. His mother is American, and his father was Alexandre Minkowski, a Polish-French professor of pediatrics and one of the founders of neonatology...
, John Eliot Gardiner
John Eliot Gardiner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE FKC is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir , the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique...
, Christophe Rousset
Christophe Rousset
Christophe Rousset is a French harpsichordist and conductor, specializing in the performance of baroque music on period instruments.-Biography:...
, Gérard Lesne
Gérard Lesne
Gérard Lesne is a French countertenor. He also the founder and artistic director of the baroque music ensemble, Il Seminario Musicale...
...
As from the 1990s, she dedicates herself to teaching (Yerres, Orléans, Orsay); she also participates in Master-Classes (Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
).
In 1997, she founded her own baroque ensemble Barcarole, whose first recording released in 2005 was highly praised.
Agnès Mellon is married with the French counter-tenor Dominique Visse
Dominique Visse
Dominique Visse is a French countertenor and founder of the Ensemble Clément Janequin. Visse devotes himself to performing of secular and religious music of the Renaissance. He is principally known for his interpretations of the Parisian chansons.He was a chorister in the Cathedral of Notre Dame...
.
Remarkable interpretations
Agnès Mellon has given interpretations of an exceptional intensity.She is particularly brilliant in "lamentos" and funeral airs :
- "Lamento de la Vergine" in Luigi Rossi's Oratorio per la Settimana Santa
- Télaïre's lamento "Tristes apprêts, pâles flambeaux" in Jean-Philippe RameauJean-Philippe RameauJean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...
's Castor et Pollux - "Plainte de Cloris" in Lully's Georges Dandin
- "La Mort de Didon" of Michel Pignolet de Monteclair
- "Pianto di Maria" of Ferrandini
- "Atys est trop heureux" and "Un amour malheureux" in Lully's Atys
In 1992, she gave an exceptional interpretation of Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
's songs, traditionally interpreted only by counter-tenors (Alfred Deller
Alfred Deller
Alfred George Deller CBE , was an English singer and one of the main figures in popularizing the return of the countertenor voice in Renaissance and Baroque music during the 20th Century....
, James Bowman...)
With Les Arts Florissants
- 1981 : Pastorale sur la Naissance de N.S. Jésus-Christ H.483, In Nativitatem D.N.J.C. Canticum, Marc-Antoine Charpentier
- 1981 : Altri Canti, Claudio Monteverdi
- 1982 : Les Arts Florissants, Marc-Antoine Charpentier
- 1982 : Actéon, Marc-Antoine Charpentier
- 1982 : Oratorios (Il pecator pentito, O Cecità del misero mortale), Luigi Rossi
- 1983 : Un oratorio de Noël (Sur la Naissance de N.S. Jésus-Christ H.482), Marc-Antoine Charpentier
- 1983 : Il Ballo delle Ingrate, Claudio Monteverdi
- 1984 : Airs de Cour, Michel Lambert
- 1984 : Médée, Marc-Antoine Charpentier
- 1985 : Le Reniement de Saint Pierre, Marc-Antoine Charpentier
- 1986 : Dido and Aeneas, Purcell
- 1987 : Atys, Lully
- 1988 : La Mort de Didon, Michel Pignolet de Monteclair
- 1989 : Oratorio per la Settimana Santa, Luigi Rossi
- 1991 : Orfeo, Luigi Rossi
- 1993 : Castor et Pollux, Jean-Philippe Rameau
These recordings were all published by Harmonia Mundi France.
With La Chapelle Royale
- 1985 : Motet Pour l'Offertoire de la Messe Rouge and Miserere H.219, Marc-Antoine Charpentier
- 1987 : Musikalische Exequien, Heinrich Schütz
- 1987 : Vespro della Beata Vergina, Claudio Monteverdi (Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale, Saqueboutiers, Toulouse)
- 1990 : Requiem, Jean Gilles
- 1990 : Magnificat BWV 243, Johann-Sebastian Bach
These recordings were all published by Harmonia Mundi France.
With Ricercar Consort
- 1988 : Deutsche Barock Kantaten (III) (Schein, Tunder, Buxtehude)
- 1989 : Deutsche Barock Kantaten (V) (Hammerschmidt, Selle Schein, Schütz, Tunder, Weckmann, Lübeck)
- 1989 : Motets à deux voix, Henri Dumont
These recordings were all published by Ricercar.
With Collegium Vocale Gent
- 1990 : MissaeMissa (Bach)A Missa of Johann Sebastian Bach is in general a composition of the Latin Mass by the German Baroque composer.More specifically, Missa refers to one of his four short masses in F major, A major, G minor and G major, BWV 233 to 236...
BWV 234 & 235, Sanctus BWV 238, Johann Sebastian Bach - 1991 : Missae BWV 233 & 236, Johann-Sebastian Bach
- 1993 : Kantaten BWV 39, 93 & 107, Bach
- 1996 : Geistliche Chormusik, Heinrich Schütz
These recordings were all published by Virgin Classics
With Barcarole, founded and directed by Agnès Mellon
- 2005 : Les Déesses outragées, cantates of Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, Philippe Courbois and François Colin de Blamont
- 2011 : Parole e querele d'amore
Miscellaneous recordings
- 1987 : Die Sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz, Heinrich Schütz, Ensemble Clément JanequinEnsemble Clément JanequinThe Ensemble Clément Janequin is a French early music ensemble founded in 1978 and specializing in the chansons of the Renaissance and early Baroque.The founder, and leader, is the countertenor Dominique Visse...
(dir. Dominique VisseDominique VisseDominique Visse is a French countertenor and founder of the Ensemble Clément Janequin. Visse devotes himself to performing of secular and religious music of the Renaissance. He is principally known for his interpretations of the Parisian chansons.He was a chorister in the Cathedral of Notre Dame...
), Saqueboutiers, Toulouse - 1987 : Duos et Cantates, Carissimi, Concerto Vocale, dir. René Jacobs
- 1988 : Les Comédies-Ballets, Lully-Molière, Les Musiciens du LouvreLes Musiciens du LouvreLes Musiciens du Louvre is a French period instrument ensemble, formed in 1982. Originally based in Paris, since 1996 it has been based in the Couvent des Minimes in Grenoble. The Guardian considers it one of the best orchestras in the world.- History:Founded by Marc Minkowski in 1982, the...
, dir. Marc MinkowskiMarc MinkowskiMarc Minkowski is a French conductor of classical music, especially known for his interpretations of French Baroque works. His mother is American, and his father was Alexandre Minkowski, a Polish-French professor of pediatrics and one of the founders of neonatology... - 1988 : Scylla et Glaucus, Jean-Marie Leclair, Monteverdi ChoirMonteverdi ChoirThe Monteverdi Choir was founded in 1964 by Sir John Eliot Gardiner for a performance of the Monteverdi Vespers in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. A specialist Baroque ensemble, the Choir has become famous for its stylistic conviction and extensive repertoire, encompassing music from the early...
& English Baroque SoloistsEnglish Baroque SoloistsThe English Baroque Soloists is a chamber orchestra playing on period instruments, formed in 1978 by English conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Its repertoire comprises music from the early Baroque period to the Classical period...
, dir. John Eliot GardinerJohn Eliot GardinerSir John Eliot Gardiner CBE FKC is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir , the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique... - 1992 : Songs from Orpheus Britannicus, Henry Purcell, interpreted by Agnès Mellon, Christophe RoussetChristophe RoussetChristophe Rousset is a French harpsichordist and conductor, specializing in the performance of baroque music on period instruments.-Biography:...
and Wieland KuijkenWieland KuijkenWieland Kuijken is a Belgian musician and player of the viola da gamba and baroque cello.Kuijken started his career in music in 1952 with the Brussels Alariusensemble of which he formed part until 1972... - 1993 : Cantiques Spirituels de Jean Racine, Pascal Colasse, Les Talens LyriquesLes Talens LyriquesLes Talens Lyriques is a baroque orchestra founded in 1991 by French conductor Christophe Rousset.The ensemble takes its name from Jean-Philippe Rameau's opéra-ballet Les fêtes d'Hébé ou les talens lyriques .- External links :...
, dir. Christophe RoussetChristophe RoussetChristophe Rousset is a French harpsichordist and conductor, specializing in the performance of baroque music on period instruments.-Biography:... - 1993 : Motets à une ou deux voix, Daniel Danielis, Les Talens Lyriques, dir. Christophe RoussetChristophe RoussetChristophe Rousset is a French harpsichordist and conductor, specializing in the performance of baroque music on period instruments.-Biography:...
- 1993 : Leçons de Ténèbres, Office du Vendredi Saint, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Il Seminario MusicaleIl Seminario MusicaleIl Seminario Musicale is a baroque music ensemble founded in 1985 by the French countertenor, Gérard Lesne who is also its artistic director. Considered to be one of the leading French baroque music ensembles, it has been resident since 1990 at the Fondation de l'abbaye de Royaumont, thirty...
, dir. Gérard LesneGérard LesneGérard Lesne is a French countertenor. He also the founder and artistic director of the baroque music ensemble, Il Seminario Musicale... - 2003 : Maria, Madre de Dio (Handel, Ferrandini, Scarlatti), ensemble Arion, dir. Monica HuggettMonica HuggettMonica Huggett is a British conductor and leading baroque violinist.-Biography:At the age of 16, Huggett started studying at the Royal Academy of Music, London, with Manoug Parikian and Kato Havas, baroque violin with Sigiswald Kuijken.She co-founded and served as leader of the Amsterdam Baroque...
Opera roles
Agnès Mellon has played several opera roles, all of them in the field of baroque music :- Actéon, Marc-Antoine Charpentier (Diane)
- Médée, Marc-Antoine Charpentier (Créuse)
- Atys, Lully (Sangaride)
- Orfeo, Luigi Rossi (Orfeo)
- Castor et Pollux, Jean-Philippe Rameau (Télaïre)
- Scylla et Glaucus, Jean-Marie Leclair (Vénus)