This is dark and quiet music for a dark time. I have had it for a long time on CD but almost never listened to it for I found it rather depressing. But the excellent performance linked to below with its very pure singing has revived my interest and now I can see the beauty of this music.
In France, during the reign of Louis XIV, the religious service known as "Tenebrae" was one of the most distinctive ceremonies in the liturgical year. The music was performed during the last three days of Holy Week and gradually, in the course of the office, the candles were extinguished, recalling the darkness that covered the earth when Jesus died on the cross. As text were used the "Lamentations of Jeremiah" which sing of the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE.
France, alongside Italy, played an important role in the history of settings of the Lamentations in the 17th and 18th centuries. Here a form, the "Leçons de ténèbres," emerged that was quite unique. The Leçons de ténèbres had a liturgical function, but were also performed at the court of Louis XIV. They are characterized by a highly melismatic vocal line and the frequent use of the tonus lamentationum, a medieval Gregorian chant that served as melodic basis.
A cycle of Leçons de ténèbres consists of nine leçons, three for each day. Each office consists of three nocturnes comprising three psalms - without Gloria - preceded and followed by an antiphon and three readings (leçons) each followed by a responsorium.
Musical settings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah were common
in the Renaissance, famous polyphonic examples being those by Thomas
Tallis, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Lassus, and Carlo Gesualdo. Leçons de
ténèbres were a particular French subgenre of this music and important composers were Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Michel
Delalande, Michel Lambert, and several others.
Those by Couperin (written between 1713 and 1717) are for two high
vocalists and basso continuo. They are composed of three lessons (two
other sets of three for Thursday and Friday having been lost). Each
Latin verse is preceded by a melisma on the first letter of the Hebrew
text. The first two were composed for one single voice, while the third
was written for two voices. This last Leçon, where the two voices
perform superb appoggiatura (adding non-chord, auxiliary notes), ornaments, dissonances and vocalizing, is
considered one of the undisputed peaks of Baroque vocal music.
Listen to William Christie & Les Arts Florissants: Gwendoline Blondeel | Soprano, Rachel Redmond | Soprano, Myriam Rignol | Viola da gamba, William Christie | Organ.
Classical Music