BaL 10.11.18 - Couperin: Leçons de Ténèbres

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

09.30
Building a Library: 350 years to the day since François Couperin’s death, Simon Heighes surveys the Leçons de Ténèbres and makes a recommendation.
In 18th century France theatres were closed during the Easter fortnight and fashionable audiences seeking Holy Week’s hot ticket flocked to church services, the only available entertainment - and the only place professional opera singers were allowed to perform. Composers took advantage of their resources and Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres from around 1713 were written as an integral part of the liturgy for the end of Lent, settings of texts from the Old Testament Book of Lamentations.
Although modestly scored for one and two voices and organ, the music makes a deeply expressive and satisfying sequence, by turns meditative, dramatic and contemplative as it deals with the captivity of the Jews and the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem in 587 BC and demands top-flight singers.

Available recordings (in no particular order):-

Lucy Crowe, Elizabeth Watts, La Nuova Musica, David Bates (SACD)

Alfred Deller, Philip Todd, Raphaël Perulli, Michel Chapuis

Sophie Daneman, Patricia Petibon, Les Arts Florissants, William Christie

Katherine Watson, Anna Dennis, Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen

Daniel Taylor, Robin Blaze, Laurence Cummings

XVIII-21 Musique des Lumières, Jean-Christophe Frisch (download)

Emma Kirkby, Judith Nelson, Jane Ryan, Christopher Hogwood (organ) (download)

Concerto Vocale, René Jacobs

Carolyn Sampson, Marianne Beate Kielland, Lynda Sayce, Robert King, Susanne Heinrich,
King’s Consort

Sandrine Piau, Veronique Gens, Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset (download)

Margaux Blanchard, Sylvain Sartre, Les Ombres

La Sfera Armonioso (download)

Isabelle Desrochers, Mauricio Buraglia, Nima Ben David, Pierre Trocellier

Emma Kirkby, Agnès Mellon,, Charles Medlam, Terence Charlston

Pierre Hantaï, Rolf Lislevand, Jordi Savall, Montserrat Figueras, Maria Cristina Kiehr

Hasnaa Bennani, Isabelle Druet, Claire Lefilliâtre, Le Poème Harmonique, Vincent Dumestre

[BBMmk2]

This be rather good, as I would like to know these works better.

[Pulcinella]

09.30
Building a Library: 350 years to the day since François Couperin’s death, Simon Heighes surveys the Leçons de Ténèbres and makes a recommendation.
In 18th century France theatres were closed during the Easter fortnight and fashionable audiences seeking Holy Week’s hot ticket flocked to church services, the only available entertainment - and the only place professional opera singers were allowed to perform. Composers took advantage of their resources and Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres from around 1713 were written as an integral part of the liturgy for the end of Lent, settings of texts from the Old Testament Book of Lamentations.
Although modestly scored for one and two voices and organ, the music makes a deeply expressive and satisfying sequence, by turns meditative, dramatic and contemplative as it deals with the captivity of the Jews and the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem in 587 BC and demands top-flight singers.

Really? Holy week services seen as 'entertainment'?
Or is this just more W1A intern drivel?

Nelson, Kirkby, Ryan, Hogwood here (pace comments on the DGG thread, a nice L'oiseau lyre release).

[vinteuil]

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In 18th century France theatres were closed during the Easter fortnight and fashionable audiences seeking Holy Week’s hot ticket flocked to church services, the only available entertainment - and the only place professional opera singers were allowed to perform.

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Really? Holy week services seen as 'entertainment'?

... well, this was Paris, and Paris in 1714, the fag-end of Louis XIV's court. I suspect 'entertainment' was precisely what many of the courtiers were seeking...

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[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Or is this just more W1A intern drivel?

It's cut-and-paste from the BBC website.

[ardcarp]

Most of the really first-rate early music sopranos are in Alpie's list, so maybe this will be a hard choice. I can't help hoping my current fave Maria Cristina Kiehr will fare well.

[MickyD]

The vintage Kirkby/Nelson/Hogwood version is a personal favourite.

I also worked on the filmed extracts that they did of the pieces on The South Bank Show way back, so fond memories for me.

I haven't heard any of the later performances, so will be fascinated to hear this BAL.

[DoctorT]

Interesting that this is the subject of the November Gramophone survey

[Beresford]

The EMS broadcast on 28th October was devoted to this work.

[Pulcinella]

Interesting that this is the subject of the November Gramophone survey

Who won?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[Miles Coverdale]

Am I the only one who thinks that having Simon Heighes present a programme called Building A Library is the very definition of irony?

[Bryn]

Am I the only one who thinks that having Simon Heighes present a programme called Building A Library is the very definition of irony?

I wonder who booked him?

[MickyD]

Am I the only one who thinks that having Simon Heighes present a programme called Building A Library is the very definition of irony?

I suppose it depends upon whose library he is building!

[Pulcinella]

Interesting that this is the subject of the November Gramophone survey

Just arrived in today's post.
Do I reveal the result(s) or not?