Tranquilles Cœurs – Le Goût Français dans les Cours Allemandes explores the profound influence of the French Baroque style on German courts between the mid-seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Performed by Ensemble Théodora, the programme traces how the musical language associated with Louis XIV — its dance forms, dotted rhythms, expressive declamation and refined ensemble discipline — was admired, imitated and ultimately assimilated across the Holy Roman Empire.

The album juxtaposes French masters such as Jean-Baptiste Lully, André Campra and Jacques Boyvin with German composers including Johann Philipp Krieger, Johann Fischer, Georg Böhm and Johann Sebastian Bach. Anonymous sonatas and suites preserved in German and Scandinavian libraries further illustrate this stylistic exchange. Lully’s theatrical brilliance, Campra’s motet style and the elegance of French dance music resonate in works written far beyond France’s borders.

Rather than presenting grand orchestral transcriptions, Ensemble Théodora embraces an intimate chamber aesthetic. The instrumentation — soprano, mezzo-soprano, violin, viola da gamba, harpsichord, organ and theorbo — reflects both French courtly refinement and German adaptation. Particular attention is paid to performance practice, echoing the ensemble discipline admired by contemporaries such as Georg Muffat and Johann Mattheson.

The title track, Tranquilles Cœurs, drawn from Lully’s Le Triomphe de l’Amour, symbolises the album’s theme: the blending of stylistic identities into a shared European sound world. With clarity, warmth and rhetorical sensitivity, Ensemble Théodora illuminates a fascinating chapter of cross-cultural Baroque history.

Ensemble Théodora
Mariamielle Lamagat – Soprano
Louise Ayrton – Violin
Alice Trocellier – Viola da gamba
Lucie Chabard – Harpsichord & Organ

Additional Artists:
Adèle Charvet – Mezzo-soprano (track 19)
Amandine Solano – Violin (tracks 3–4, 19–24, 26, 29)
Sergio Bucheli – Theorbo (tracks 1, 3–4, 14–17, 20–24, 26, 29)
Léon Serafin – Theorbo (tracks 6–8, 19)