William Christie and Les Arts Florissants marked Holy Week at Wigmore Hall with a selection of Tenebrae Lessons and Responsories by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, written for liturgical use on the evenings before Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The Lessons take their texts from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, while the Responsories use brief extracts of passion narratives from the gospels. Together they form sombre meditations on man’s fallen state and eventual redemption through Christ’s atonement.
Charpentier’s music can be extraordinary – austere, beautiful, teetering on sensuous. The forces are small: one or two singers, tenor or baritone, and a handful of instruments, violins, recorders, viola da gamba, theorbo and organ. The vocal writing oscillates between syllabic declamation and passages of greater lyricism, melismatic, at times even operatic. Instrumental lines seem to grieve alongside the singers or wrap themselves round the voices in consolation.
