Though sacred music has long been studied as a central element of the devotional and artistic life of European courts, its political aspect often receives less attention than that of secular court music. Moreover, comparative approaches are still relatively rare in studies of religious music, which often remain framed within well-established political and confessional boundaries. At a three-day colloquium at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles (CMBV), researchers sought to move toward a broader understanding of sacred music at court. The colloquium brought together musicologists and historians from across Europe and North America to assess the state of research by working through a variety of specific case studies. What were the connections between political agendas and the music heard at court chapels? Moving beyond abstract analyses of ‘symbolic representations’ of power, what were the daily routines and decisions that guided the production of sacred music by musicians working for royal chapels? What distinctive stylistic or generic features could be understood as politically meaningful in religious court music? By what channels and media was this music disseminated outside of the court? What was its reception? The conference offered a glimpse into these complex questions, requiring the participants to negotiate political, religious and musical issues.

The organizers of the conference, Thierry Favier (Université de Poitiers) and Thomas Leconte (CMBV), both leading specialists in the field of French religious music, have published widely on politics and aesthetics in religious music. The location of the conference, a stone's throw from the Château de Versailles, proved the perfect setting to reflect upon the cohesion between artistic production, religious expression and political action in early-modern Europe. A concert at the royal chapel offered participants a choice opportunity to combine scholarly rumination with a live musical performance in situ. Using contemporary descriptions, the organizers recreated the positioning of musicians in the chapel and chose a programme similar to that heard during the daily messe basse attended by Louis XIV: one motet à grand chœur with full orchestra and choir, a short motet for soloist and continuo, and a Deus Salve fac regem. Olivier Schneebeli conducted the Pages & Chantres du CMBV from the musicians' tribune, along with students from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon, in a performance of works by Michel-Richard de Lalande, Thomas Gobert and Pierre Robert.

The first panel addressed the intricate relationship between music, liturgy and ceremony in royal chapels via their interaction with diplomatic and political issues. Joachim Steinheuer (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg) reconstructed the music performed during public celebrations for Holy Week at the Habsburg court of Vienna from 1637 to 1740. He showed the remarkable persistence of certain musical repertory over a long period: works by Palestrina, Ingenieri, Allegri and even Emperor Leopold I were performed every year, leaving little room for new compositions. This repertory signalled the stability and the continuity of Catholicism in Vienna, simultaneously referring to Roman practices and identifying the Habsburg court as a centre of the Counter-Reformation. The royal chapel of Portugal also sought to establish a special link to Rome, as demonstrated by Cristina Fernandes (Universidade Nova de Lisboa). In Lisbon, the decisive shift toward modern Italian music occurred during the reign of João V (reigned 1707–1750), who enjoyed numerous privileges from the Vatican, including copies of works sent from the Sistine Chapel. Furthermore, some remarkable musicians were active in both cities: Domenico Scarlatti and Giovanni Giorgi were papal choirmasters before directing the royal chapel in Lisbon. The Portuguese kings funded journeys to Rome for several music students. The close reading by Luis Antonio González-Marín (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas of Spain) of music composed for royal funerals at the court of Spain revealed an increasing presence of instruments and a growing taste for monumentality during the first half of the eighteenth century.

Complementing the first session's focus on the ceremonial, the second session examined confessional issues and identities in court music. Whereas all the earlier papers had centred on Catholic courts, the focus now shifted primarily to Protestant courts, highlighting differences in methodologies and themes between Catholic and Protestant historiographies. Nonetheless, the presentations also revealed the extensive circulation of models, styles and musicians among European royal chapels, sometimes even across confessional boundaries.

William Gibson (Oxford Brookes University) examined music at the English court during a period of political and religious tensions. Music was an important mark of confessional and dynastic identity both at the English court and, after 1689, at the Stuart pretender's court in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Musical influences from the Continent remained controversial in England during a period dominated by conflicts with France and a suspicion of Catholicism. Stepping outside the court, Andrei Pesic (Princeton University) focused on the political implications of debates about religious music in central Germany. Rigourist critics accused lavish religious music of being ‘Spektakel’ akin to theatrical and court divertissements. This complaint gained broader significance in the political and religious rivalry between Saxony and Prussia, where Pietist critics condemned Italianate music in Lutheran services, suspicious that it could lead to a ‘catholicization’ of Protestant congregations. Inga Mai Groote (Universität Zürich) explored musical representations of the Reformation in festivities at German courts such as Gottorp, Darmstadt and Weissenfels between 1617 and 1717. The organizers of these celebrations sought to convey a sense of Protestant tradition while demonstrating their sovereigns' magnificence, a delicate balance that ended up reducing the importance of traditional Lutheran texts and melodies. Robert Rawson (Canterbury Christ Church University) showed how, further east, a revival of the cult of saints, which played a central role in the re-Catholicization of Bohemian Lands, was mirrored in music. Taking the story of St Nepomuk as a starting-point, Rawson showed how members of the clergy strove to appropriate this controversial Czech saint by encouraging the composition of music on devotional texts relating to Nepomuk.

The second day of the conference focused on how music contributed to the imagery of pious kingship. All the speakers focused on the political implications of religious music, most going far beyond the walls of the royal chapels to consider processions, dynastic events in foreign embassies and the relationship between courts and other major urban institutions. Major methodological influences came from urban musicology, historical anthropology and the historical sociology of music.

Thierry Favier opened the day by examining the role played by music and other aural events during the royal procession across Paris for Louis XIV's wedding. Using numerous published reports of this event, Favier showed that music was crucial not only during the procession itself, but also in the construction of its memory. He further noted that religious music was not distinguished from profane music in this context, and that the entrée royale may be viewed as a public appropriation of music by the young king. Éléonore Alquier (Archives Nationales de France) reconstructed the calendar of private devotions of the royal family in Parisian parishes and convents, raising intriguing questions about the musicians who performed at these occasions and highlighting the numerous quarrels over precedence between local officials and the clerks and musicians of the royal chapel.

Drawing on urban musicology, Ilaria Grippaudo (Università di Palermo) showed that musicians from the royal chapel of Palermo were involved in many other public and religious institutions, such as the theatre of Santa Cecilia and numerous convents. In his study of the royal chapel in Madrid, Nicolas Morales (Université d'Aix-Marseille) demonstrated that royal musicians were highly active at other institutions, even though this was officially prohibited. The musicians themselves sought these ‘extra jobs’ for financial reasons, but the demand for court musicians also reveals the symbolic prestige of royal chapels as musical institutions that diffused courtly musical models. Angela Fiore (Université de Fribourg) revealed a latent conflict between royal and ecclesiastical patronage in the viceroyalty of Naples, which was under Spanish dominion until 1707: convents that tried to hire musicians from the royal chapel were put under interdict, while aristocratic networks tried to seize major convents where they could arrange magnificent musical celebrations. Stefania Nanni (Università di Roma La Sapienza) reflected on the connection between sociability and ceremonial culture in Rome, a city marked by several overlapping geographical and symbolic layers: the papal court, social and urban space, and the Catholic world.

A second group of papers widened the focus to examine court music from a transnational perspective. Michela Berti (Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom, École Française de Rome) and Émilie Corswarem (Université de Liège) presented the results of an inquiry on national churches in Rome (for example, San Luigi dei Francesi, San Giacomo degli Spagnoli, Santa Maria dell'Anima and San Giuliano dei Fiamminghi). Charged with representing their countries, especially in extraordinary ceremonies, these national churches were also indebted to the musical and social life of the city, hiring an increasing number of Roman musicians over the course of the seventeenth century. In another case of transnational connections, Thomas Leconte showed striking stylistic and liturgical similarities between the French motet à grand chœur and the English symphony anthem of 1660–1680, connecting them to political and dynastical elements on both sides of the Channel.

Challenging the common view of decision-making at court as a formal, top-down process, Stefano Lorenzetti (Conservatorio di Musica Arrigo Pedrollo, Vicenza) examined a set of letters (1690–1691) written between Ferdinand de' Medici and the composer Giuseppe Corso Celani concerning responsories for Holy Week sung in the Chiesa di Santa Felicita in Florence. Even though the music has not survived, this document reveals an informal and friendly relationship between patron and composer: the prince requested a musical style (alla Palestrina) and specified the number of voices, while the composer kept the prince abreast of his progress in writing and copying the music.

The conference's last panel addressed the relations between musicians and princes. Daniele Torelli (Libera Università di Bolzano) examined the career of Marco Uccellini, who worked for both the cathedral of Modena and Duke Francesco I d'Este. Torelli showed that the duke not only gave the musician diplomatic tasks but also apparently coordinated the dedication of several of Uccellini's works with the duchy's diplomatic imperatives. Jean Duron (CMBV) reflected on the ways that settings of psalms by Michel-Richard de Lalande contributed aurally to the royal splendour of Louis XIV. Duron discussed the influence of Pierre Perrin's French translations of the psalms and the poet's theories about how specific verses should be set to music. John Swadley (Canterbury Christ Church University) brought to light a fortunate survival from the Spanish colonies: the fire of 1734 that destroyed the old Alcázar in Madrid did not, in fact, erase the musical repertory of the Royal Chapel, since a trove of manuscript copies had previously been sent to churches in New Spain, including a group of manuscripts now extant in the cathedral of Antigua, Guatemala.

The colloquium marked a significant step toward a Europe-wide approach to court music, bringing together researchers from communities that rarely have the opportunity to compare their methodologies and results. The diverse case studies provided by the conference papers should serve as a valuable foundation for future research, showing that further insight can be gained even in a field as well studied as the history of European courts. There remains much work to be done to expand these findings by connecting and developing their fine-grained comparisons; one possible approach would be to focus on a comparable religious observance in a variety of European courts. The conference at the CMBV was an encouraging example for musicologists and historians who seek to integrate musical issues into the broader history of politics, mindsets and institutions.