Lecons de Tanabres

"Versions of these Baroque treasures which bow to no one in vocal loveliness.

François Couperin's three Leçons de ténèbres – settings for solo voices and continuo of sections of the Lamentations of Jeremiah – are such a high-point of the Baroque vocal repertoire that is hard to believe there could be any singer working in this field who would not want to record them. Many French composers in the decades around 1700 wrote expressively melismatic pieces of this kind for performance during Holy Week, principally in convents, but Couperin's Leçons reached a level of emotional intimacy and musical beauty that nobody else's can match. Quite simply, they are among the most treasurable of 18th-century masterpieces.
It is understandable, therefore, that although they have come to be thought of primarily as music for women's voices, countertenors should also be drawn to perform them: James Bowman and Michael Chance recorded them for Hyperion in 1990, and now here is a rival version from two of the finest of their younger colleagues, operating under the banner of Daniel Taylor's Theatre of Early Music. Any suspicions, however, that a countertenor voice might have difficulty in moving as freely and naturally as a soprano are firmly dismissed by these performances, which bow to no one in terms of vocal loveliness.

Of the two, the ever-mellifluous Taylor shows the more pure and delicate voice in the First Leçon, while Robin Blaze in the Second is stronger and more pungently characterful, with a greater tendency to use vibrato as an expressive device. In the gorgeous Third Leçon – as also in the fill-up Magnificat – they combine superbly without at any point losing their individual characters.

These are leisurely readings, taking a total of 47 minutes to Bowman and Chance's 40, and relying more for effect on the meditative intimacy of Couperin's haunting melodic lines and aching dissonances than on the more extrovert declamatory aspects of his word-setting. Such things may well determine preference, I dare say, since both are sung with great expertise and sensitivity within their chosen interpretative parameters. No lover of this superb music need fear disappointment by this atmospheric new recording, however."