Leçons de Ténèbres

With their mellifluous vocal lines and introspective mood, Couperin’s “Lessons of Darkness” are among the most intimate and expressive of all Baroque sacred works. Setting verses from the Lamentations of Jeremiah—the “weeping prophet” who mourns the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC—these three lessons were intended for the Holy Wednesday service of Tenebrae, in which context they become elegies on Christ’s Passion and Crucifixion. The Office of Tenebrae is traditionally celebrated in the evening by the flickering light of candles, the flames of which are extinguished, one by one, to symbolise the ever-increasing darkness of Holy Week. Couperin’s Leçons are, therefore, musical reflections on timeless themes: on destruction, death and grief, yet also on transcendent spirituality. Against an anguished bedrock of mournful harmonies and yearning dissonances, the seraphic vocal lines soar and float like holy incense. Particularly lovely are the florid vocal arabesques adorning the Hebrew letters (Aleph, Beth, Gimel, etc.) that precede each verse. The delicate scoring, for one or two solo voices and continuo (a flexible instrumental ensemble providing the harmonic structure), enhances the meditative intention of the music. In all, the Leçons epitomise what Couperin’s biographer Wilfrid Mellers describes as the “sensuous tenderness and wistfulness” of his later works—qualities that spring from an awareness of the transience of all things.