Gems Charpentier, Schütz, Monteverdi

Here in a single, exceptional programme are three masterpieces by three key composers of the seventeenth century. The musical manifesto of Akadêmia, as it were…

Le Reniement de Saint Pierre (St Peter’s denial) is a unique work of its kind. At a time when French composers took little interest in setting the Passion story to music, Charpentier, faithfully following the Gospel texts, produced a Passion fragment with a rare economy of means. The work’s expressive power reaches its height with Peter’s tears as he recalls the words of Christ, inexorably repeated on poignant dissonance: “Before the cock crows, thou shalt deny me thrice.”

Schütz’s setting of the Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross, probably written around 1654, offers an inspired outpouring of sorrowful sensibility. This short yet masterly piece demonstrates its composer’s continuing interest in the oratorio form.
“A seasoned interpreter of this repertoire, Françoise Lasserre gives us a lesson in style, intelligence, and sensivity. Devoid of the slightest mannerism, doing full justice to the simplicity of style, her perfomances never go for immediate effects, and concentrate on Schütz’s specific expression.” Pablo Galonce

The maginificent proto-opera Combattimento di Tancredi et Clorinda, based on a canto of Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, achieves extraordinary dramatic intensity. “In the Combattimento, the narration of the Testo -here magnificiently declaimed by the Dutch tenor Jan Van Elsacker- reactivates the violent emotions of the protagonsits, flushed a vivid crimson by the instrumentalist of the Akadêmia ensemble.” Gilles Macassar