by William Christie and Les Arts Florissants marked the Holy Week in the Wigmore Hall with a selection of Tenebrae lessons and responsibility of Marc-Antoine Charpentier, which were used for liturgical use on the evenings before Munddon Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The lessons take their texts from the wasters of Jeremias, while the reactions use short extracts of passion for passion from the gospels. Together they form dark meditations about the fallen state of man and the later redemption by the atonement sacrifices of Christ.
Charpentier’s music can be extraordinary – strict, beautiful, more sensitive. The forces are small: one or two singers, tenor or baritone and a handful of instruments, violins, recorder, viola da gamba, theorbo and organ. The vowel letter swings between a syllable signal and the passages of larger poetry, melismatic, sometimes even operas. Instrumental lines seem to mourn next to the singers or to flee the voices.
A Tenebrae service takes place in the collection of darkness because candles are wiped out of each other, and minimal lighting was used for the concert, which distracted the music in an unbroken order with little from the prayer mood. Christie attributed to the organ as a director and could be better described as an effective anchor for what was a chamber ensemble of the same for all intentions and purposes and played with excellent focus, great refinement and real depth of the feeling.
The singers were Tenor Ilja Aksionov and Bass Bariton Padraic Rowan, both flawless. Aksionov with his slightly talked tone, an admirable liquidity and subtle dynamic control sounded in the Seconde Leçon de Ténèbres du Mercredi Saint, while Rowan in the Troisième Leçon de Ténèbres du, Mercredi Sainta, in the remarks, in Responctory, in the Responcredi, in the Responcredi -Sainta, in Responcredi, in Responcredi, in Responcredi -Sainta, as was dramatic in the Responcredi -Sota -Tatta matters. Her voices mixed wonderfully in the Troisième Leçonde Ténèbres du Vendredi Saint and in the final reaction of Tristis Est Anima Mea, the most beautiful things that Charpentier ever wrote, with its chromatic harmonies and exquisite designed lines. Breathtaking stuff, every single second of it.
