Marc-Antoine Charpentier

Marc-Antoine Charpentier was a French Baroque composer under Louis XIV, born in or near Paris, whose sacred vocal music was especially admired in his lifetime. After studying in Rome with Giacomo Carissimi, probably between 1667 and 1669, he was for seventeen years house composer to Marie de Lorraine, duchesse de Guise, writing Italianate oratorios and motets, and wrote music for Molière's The Imaginary Invalid. From late 1687 he was music master to the Jesuits in Paris, and from 1698 until his death in 1704 maître de musique of the Sainte-Chapelle. More than 500 of his works survive in 28 autograph volumes, and the prelude of his Te Deum H.146 has opened Eurovision broadcasts since 1954.