Advent and Christmas in late 17th-century Paris was the subject of this Les Arts Florissants concert, conducted by William Christie and focusing on music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Given on Christie’s 78th birthday, it was an evening of contrasts in many ways. The first half interwove Charpentier’s austere Antiennes O de L’Avent with a sequence of instrumental Noëls, basically arrangements of popular carols of the day. After the interval came more dramatic – if more uneven – works, depicting the Adoration of the Shepherds: the pastorale Sur la Naissance de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ; and the short oratorio In Nativitatem Domini Canticum.
The first half was astonishingly beautiful. The Antiennes, heralding the coming of Christ in music of great devotional fervour, were exquisitely sung, with everything wonderfully controlled and shaded, and a beautiful evenness of line from tenors and basses. The fourth antiphon O Clavis David, in which Charpentier adds women’s voices into the mix for the first time and opens up the continuo accompaniment to embrace the strings, suggesting a new world of infinite possibilities, had a breathtaking immediacy. The Noëls, meanwhile, played with wonderful sensuousness of tone and rhythmic precision, sounded poised and graceful. It was hard to imagine the sequence better done.
