François Couperin's Leçons de ténèbres of 1714 were all written for the Wednesday-evening Tenebrae ("shadows," or light-dimming) service during Holy Week. Settings of these texts, with their mysterious melismas on the opening syllable, are not abundant during the Baroque era, and Couperin's version, for two singers and continuo, is a marvelous example, combining the ornate French style of the High Baroque with the older, gnomic spiritual atmospherics of the Tenebrae lessons. Couperin never wrote anything else quite like ...
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François Couperin's Leçons de ténèbres of 1714 were all written for the Wednesday-evening Tenebrae ("shadows," or light-dimming) service during Holy Week. Settings of these texts, with their mysterious melismas on the opening syllable, are not abundant during the Baroque era, and Couperin's version, for two singers and continuo, is a marvelous example, combining the ornate French style of the High Baroque with the older, gnomic spiritual atmospherics of the Tenebrae lessons. Couperin never wrote anything else quite like this, and Les Nouveaux Caractères founder and director Sébastien d'Hérin does well with his rich, resonant harpsichord accompaniment, nicely highlighted by Glossa's engineering. ~ James Manheim, Rovi
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