During the modern era, the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV mark a flourishing period for the arts. As before, Notre-Dame participates in this creative surge, illustrated by the Vow of Louis XIII and numerous musical works. The cathedral offers musicians a public listening space at a time when public concert halls do not exist.
Music Masters
From 1625, the chapter recruits music masters through competitions. Each candidate presents their qualities as composers and the integrity of their morals. Jean Veillot, Pierre Robert, André Campra, Jean-François Lalouette, and Jean-François Lesueur, hired in this way, lead parallel careers at the Royal Chapel or the Royal Academy of Music.
Liturgical Reform
The organ gains its prestige in the modern era. Charles Racquet, the first titular organist, initiates several restorations of the organ. The balance of power shifts between organists and music masters. In 1662, under the impetus of the Archdiocese of Paris, a liturgical reform is applied throughout the diocese. It culminates in the early 18th century with a new ceremonial for services and masses. The organist must now follow certain sections of the Gloria and the Sanctus, the Agnus, and the Domine salvum, the plainchant melodies. For the rest of the ordinary service, they can improvise in brief récits, duos, trios, and other adapted pieces. Later, Jean Racquet, Médéric Corneille, and especially Guillaume-Antoine Calvière willingly use these freedoms.
The Free Play of Organists
At the organ and in the choir, elements of secular music often intersperse with sacred music. Organ builders François Thierry (1733) and François-Henri Clicquot (1783) make significant modifications to the organ. Organists then have an exceptional instrument at their disposal, suitable for magnifying all their extravagances. They do not hesitate to indulge in it with free virtuosity, abandoning the solemnity of church music to adapt phrases from opera or dance.
The Enthusiasm for Organ Concerts
Louis-Claude Daquin, Claude-Bénigne Balbastre, and Jean-Jacques Beauvarlet-Charpentier play their concertos at the Concert Spirituel, an institution created in 1725 that offers concerts at the Palais des Tuileries. Their concertos, reprised at Notre-Dame, generate such enthusiasm that the archdiocese must repeatedly ban them as they end up disturbing public order.
In 1787, Jean François Lesueur, the first music master who was not a priest, is accused by the canons of attracting a worldly audience to the cathedral. Dismissed for abandonment of post, a musical crisis ensues, and the Revolution deals the final blow.
The Revolution transforms the cathedral into the Temple of Reason. The dispersion of the chapter in 1790 leads to that of the choir school and its twelve students. The four titular organists, Balbastre, Beauvarlet-Charpentier, Nicolas Séjan, and Claude-Etienne Luce, are dismissed in 1793, the year of the founding of the Paris Conservatory. However, Balbastre adapts his repertoire to the taste of the day and protects the organ from revolutionary vandalism.
