Reviewing
the Virgin Veritas reissue of some
of Charpentier’s Leçons
de Ténèbres made
me think about this recording as its
perfect foil. That Veritas reissue
offers Charpentier’s Tenebræ
settings for Maundy Thursday and Good
Friday, with readings from Lamentations
2 and 3; on this Erato recording are
Couperin’s settings of the Tenebræ
lessons for Wednesday in Holy Week
from Lamentations 1 – all that survives
of his output in this genre.
Whereas Charpentier’s
settings are often elaborate, dramatic,
and feature two or more voices, Couperin’s
are typically more intimate and reflective
and set for solo voice or two voices,
though they also feature the elaborate
melismata on the letters of
the Hebrew alphabet which commence
each section of the text of Lamentations,
as prescribed in the Roman Breviary.
Despite their greater inwardness,
these Couperin settings are often
more arresting and memorable than
Charpentier’s, as, for example, his
setting of the words princeps provinciarum
(the ruler of the provinces) in the
first lesson.
Tenebræ,
the office of Matins for the last
three days of Holy Week, the Sacred
Triduum, was in seventeenth-century
France and elsewhere brought forward
to the late afternoon or evening of
the previous day, which means that
these lessons for Holy Wednesday are
actually those for Matins of Maundy
Thursday. (For a fuller explanation,
see the Charpentier review.)
Couperin’s settings
have been recorded a number of times,
most recently by The Theatre of Early
Music (BISCD-1346). Reviewing
that recording, RH mentions this
Erato version with strong approval:
"Christie’s superb recording
uses sopranos Patricia Petibon and
Sophie Daneman, who sing with great
purity and use French pronunciation
for the Latin." Though RH liked
the Bis recording, his reservations
about its slight lack of intensity
and emotion imply that it would not
be his ultimate choice. He specifically
mentions Alfred Deller’s performance,
but he was also thinking of this Christie
version when he wrote "I have
a soft spot for the soprano versions
of these pieces, and a preference
for a performance more inflected by
French Baroque mannerisms."
I had intended to
retrieve my copy of this Erato recording
from our holiday home in the New Forest
but, prevented by making the journey
as a result of having to wait for
a plumber to fix a leak, I downloaded
it from itunes – a pretty good substitute,
also available from Warner, which
allows me to submit this review alongside
that of the Charpentier. I would,
however, recommend purchasing the
CD: downloading doesn’t get you the
booklet with texts and notes – pretty
essential for this music unless you
happen to have access to the Vulgate
texts of Lamentations or a pre-1971
Holy Week Manual. You’d have to do
even more searching on the web to
obtain the texts of the four short
motets which round off the CD. I must
apologise, also, for the fact that
not having the CD to hand means that
I can’t give the recording venue and
dates as usual.
Singing, accompaniment
and recording are all that could be
desired. The accompaniment is, appropriately,
the lightest possible. Some may be
put off by the French pronunciation
of Latin – rather strange to those
used to Italianate pronunciation –
but that is what Couperin would have
expected to hear. My only reservation
is the short playing time. Even with
the four short motets, well worth
hearing and equally well performed
and recorded, the disc runs to less
than 48 minutes. Bis offer the slightly
more substantial Magnificat,
but my allegiance remains with this
Erato recording, especially as the
longer playing time of the Bis version
is partly due to the more leisurely
tempi on that CD.
There is also a very
good version of the Leçons,
coupled with the Magnificat,
Lætentur cœli and Venite
exultemus on Hyperion CDA66747
– James Bowman and Michael Chance
accompanied by Robert King et al.
With two counter-tenors rather than
two sopranos, this version is complementary
to the Christie. The fact that it
offers a more respectable playing
time of 63:09 is neither here nor
there, nor is the fact that I keep
one at home and the other at our holiday
home – both have honoured places in
my collection.
Those three fillers
on the Hyperion recording also feature
on another Couperin collection, performed
by Jill Feldman, Jaap ter Linden et
al on a recommendable budget-price
Harmonia Mundi recording (HMA190 1150)
which seems to be out of the catalogue
at the moment – look out for remainders
or wait for it to reappear, as I hope
it will.
Let me also recommend
Christie’s recordings of Charpentier,
in particular, the super-budget-price
4-CD reissue on 2564 61758 2 – four
superb premium-price CDs in their
original jewel cases bundled together
in a new cardboard wrapper: Divertissements,
airs et concerts; Les Plaisirs
de Versailles; In navitatem
Domini canticum and La Descente
d’Orphée aux enfers. I
may have been bitten by the download
bug recently, but for around £20 or
even less, this is about as economical,
less tedious and less likely to strain
your broadband allocation than downloading
these recordings and you get all the
original lavish documentation.
Brian Wilson
Sophie Daneman (soprano); Patricia Petibon
(soprano) 
