André Campra (1660-1744)
Requiem (c.1695)
Miserere (1725-26)
Gwendoline Blondeel (soprano), Bastien Rimondi & David Tricou (haute-contres), Antonin Rondepierre (tenor), Igor Bouin & Matthieu Walendzik (baritone)
Les Arts Florissants/William Christie
rec. 2023, Cathédrale Notre-Dame du Liban, Paris
Latin texts with English and French translations
Pentatone PTC5187479 [81]
Campra is probably best known for his Requiem, and so it’s surprising that this is the first complete recording of the work from those doyens of French Baroque music, William Christie and Les Arts Florissants. The work famously foreshadows Fauré’s setting as a serene vision of the afterlife, omitting the tormented Dies irae sequence of the rite. But in this performance, it’s a solemn, slow-moving affair, lacking just a touch of this ensemble’s trademark luminous, airy timbre where one might have expected it. The lower French Baroque pitch, and tolling bell with the intoning of the Requiem plainchant by the serpent at the start certainly set the tone for that subdued atmosphere.
The Introit is not quite earthbound, but it isn’t airborne like the recording by Philippe Herreweghe on Harmonia Mundi, nor as rhythmically dynamic like that account or Hervé Niquet’s in the faster section. The succeeding Kyrie and first part of the Gradual proceed so gravely as to dispel almost any hint of their unsolemn triple-time meter, but it is as though the performance is holding back for the welcome outburst of energy in the Gradual’s faster second part. The Offertoire relaxes, though with a lithe, but not violent, energy in the vigorous fugue on “Deliver them from the lion’s mouth”. Peace is restored in the Agnus Dei which treads as cautiously as the work’s opening sections, but is more radiant, as also the concluding “Requiem aeternam” section, which is more hushed.
The French pronunciation leads to some curiosities for listeners used to more conventional Church Latin, aside from the regularly encountered pinched “u”s in this repertoire – there are some effortful “eleisons” with drawled middle vowels by the baritone soloist in the Kyrie, and the soft “c”s of “luceats” in the Gradual sound like a lisp.
The Requiem is complemented on this recording by the penitential Miserere psalm setting. Although it is a private prayer or meditation addressed to God, Campra’s composition elicits as much drama as the Requiem, to which Christie and his ensemble are well attuned within ever well-judged limits. The opening movement swells from its sombre instrumental beginning to the first, hopeful choral climax of the whole piece. The chorus remain texturally balanced and fluid, culminating in optimistic but not effusive acclamations in the ‘Libera me’ and concluding sections. Along the way, the baritone solo ‘Amplius lava me’ bears a quiet hopefulness though with a telling and slight trembling humility; the soprano air for ‘Asperges me’ works up to a playful but not gloating triumph as the Psalmist trusts in God’s redemptive power.
If not a benchmark recording for the Requiem, this disc is worth having for the clear-focused account of the Miserere, which is no less a rewarding work, though less well known.
Curtis Rogers
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