Leçons de Ténèbres by Couperin
Season
2023/2024
At the helm of his Concert Spirituel, Hervé Niquet exalts the spellbinding sobriety of these soul-stirring pages.
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During the Ceremony of Darkness, the Lamentations of Jeremiah, recounting the ruin of Jerusalem destroyed by the Babylonians, were sung for the three Lessons of Holy Wednesday. Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet was then sung at the beginning of the Latin verses, to celebrate the acrostic nature of the original text.
Cast
Le Concert Spirituel, Chœur et Orchestre
François Saint-Yves, Orgue
Hervé Niquet, Direction
Programme
François COUPERIN (1668-1733)
Première Leçon à une voix
Marc-Antoine CHARPENTIER (1643-1704)
Répons unus ex disciplis meis H114
Jacques-François LOCHON (1660?-1710?)
Tuere nos mortales (pièce instrumentale)
François COUPERIN
Deuxième Leçon à une voix
Marc-Antoine CHARPENTIER
Répons eram quasi agnus innocens H115
Louis CHEIN (1637-1694)
Missa Pro Defunctis - Introït (pièce instrumentale)
François COUPERIN
Troisième Leçon à deux voix
Marc-Antoine CHARPENTIER
Répons Una hora non potiuistis vigilare Mecum H 116
Michel-Richard DELALANDE (1657-1726)
Miserere
Production
Le Concert Spirituel
Duration
1h15 minutes
without intermission
Photo credit
Le Concert Spirituel au Festival de Rocamadour 2017 ©Louis Nespoulous
Additional information
The concert on 28 March at La Sainte-Chapelle will open the Paris Opéra Festival 2024.
« Il existe beaucoup de très belles Leçons (Cavalieri, Michel, Lalande, Charpentier, Zelenka...), mais j’ai choisi celles de Couperin, qui frappent par la beauté de leurs mélismes, la souplesse mouvante à l’extrême de leurs harmonies, et la simplicité profonde de leur ton.
We know from period documents that the highly ornate vocal part of these Lessons, written for one or two vocal parts and basso continuo, could be sung in unison by a choir of nuns.
At the time, female singers practised ornamented plainchant on a daily basis, and together they were able to perform the highly ornamented figures in Couperin's writing as a single voice.
It may seem an impossible feat to achieve today, but with the six singers who surround me on this programme, we decided to take up the challenge.
And all of a sudden, that was it: the sound, the music, took on an extraordinary dimension."
Hervé Niquet
