In seventeenth-century Paris, Marc-Antoine Charpentier stood apart. While his rival Lully dominated the opera house and the court, Charpentier devoted himself to sacred music — absorbing the emotional richness of the Italian style he had studied in Rome and bringing it to bear on the devotional life of Paris's churches and chapels. The result is music of remarkable range: jubilant and penitential, intimate and grand — ancient light that still surprises with its harmonic daring and expressive depth.
This program pairs the full sound of The Emmanuel Choir with period instruments played by early music specialists, and features choir members as soloists throughout. The repertoire spans Charpentier's sacred output — from the festive Laetatus sum and the radiant Regina caeli to the turbulent Quare fremuerunt gentes — with the great Miserere at its heart: a sustained meditation on contrition and mercy whose searching beauty makes it among the most fitting music Lent has ever inspired.
Period-Instrument Chamber Ensemble
Christian Lane, direction