Les Leçons de Ténèbres by Charpentier, M., Couperin, Sat 20 Apr 2019, From (2018/2019), Conductor Christophe Rousset, MIlano Arte Musica, Milan, Italy

What could be more tasteful and worldly, at the end of the 17th century , than the “ Darkness ” for which people flock to the doors of Parisian convents during Holy Week? The Royal Academy of Music closed its doors at this time and the Nocturnal services on Wednesday, Thursday and Good Friday filled a refined and demanding audience. From the Leçons de Ténèbres by François Couperin, motets for solo voices composed for the ladies of Longchamp Abbey in 1714, only the three Lessons for Holy Wednesday have been preserved . The sublime finds its incarnation here, attesting to the vocal virtuosity and musical mastery of the nuns. As for the Leçons de Ténèbres by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, composed in the years 1670-1690, they are among the best compositions of the genre. Christophe Rousset offers a selection chosen from the thirty-one Leçons , the corpus of which is today scattered. French music imbued with the Italianisms so dear to the composer finds here its most shimmering expression, in a dramatization of the language sublimated with truly operatic artifices.