Lessons of Darkness by Couperin, Pk 15 apr 2022, No (2022/2022), Diriģents Stéphane Fuget, Chapelle Royale, Versailles, France

The Leçons de Ténèbres became in the middle of the 17th century the subject of increasingly popular musical compositions. Michel Lambert was the first in France to compose a cycle of it in 1662, quickly followed by Charpentier and Lalande. But the most famous – and the first to have regained the honors of the record and the general public today – are those of François Couperin, dated 1714. At the end of the reign of Louis XIV, France is a land of piety, but also of Italianism in music, including religious music. Also the emotions composed by Couperin for his singers are so dramatic that one would think they come from the opera... Vocality and spirituality are combined with art, testifying to the refinement of the beautiful French song practiced both in salons and theaters than in places of worship. In fact, people crowded to listen, in the Parisian convents, to these divine voices intoning the Lessonsfor the days of Holy Week, faceless voices of young conventual recluses, voices from heaven… but often opera singers when the halls are closed in times of penance! Traditionally, the candles were extinguished as the Office of Darkness unfolded, ending in the darkness of the night...The three preserved lessons of François Couperin are written for Holy Wednesday, and represent one of the peaks of French sacred art from the beginning of the 18th century. Stéphane Fuget conducts the young and sublime Florie Valiquette and Marie Perbost (escaped from who knows which convent…) for this concert particularly in phase with Versailles, which is also the subject of a recording for our discographic collection.