Racine: Cantiques spirituels.

Pascal Collasse, like both Marais and D'Anglebert, was a pupil of Lully and closely associated with the Paris Opera. Indeed, he is best known to posterity for the hours he spent as Lully's hack, filling in the parties de remplissage of his teacher's operas. It is also claimed that he gained his post at the Chapelle Royale in the competition of 1683 only through Lully's powerful surport. A new CD of Cantiques spirituels de jean Racine (Astrde/Auvidis E8756, rec 1992) gives us a chance to correct that impression and to conclude that history's assessment of him has been hard. Collasse's four Cantiques are charming lyrical works in the Lullian mould, and take the form of …