Ensemble Pierre Robert, Frederic Desenclos - Charpentier: Méditations pour le Carême (2006)

This disc is part of a remarkable series on France's Alpha label, pairing mostly Baroque repertories with detailed presentations of visual artworks that are either contemporary with the music or otherwise somehow related to it. You can get a good education in art of the seventeenth century just by buying these discs as they appear. Look at the dramatically lit detail from a 1663 painting by Lubin Baugin on the cover of the disc (the entire painting, along with other details, is reproduced inside). It has something of the startling contrasts of Italian Mannerist art, but it is nevertheless smoother, more muted, more controlled. The same is true of Charpentier's adaptation of late seventeenth century Italian models, magnificently rendered here by the Ensemble Pierre Robert. The program begins with 10 petits motets, with just three male soloists (not the choir of the grand motet) and a small ensemble with organ. These Méditations pour le Carême, or Meditations for Lent, are dignified and formal yet interior, with a strong connection between music and text. They have something of the quality of Bach's cantatas as compared with his large sacred works, and, as with Bach, their texts are drawn on a variety of sources from the Bible to fresh efforts. All texts are given in Latin, French, and English. Yet more unusual are the pieces at the end of the album, so-called élévations inserted into a mass as consecrated bread and wine are elevated. These alternate with organ works by Nicolas de Grigny, and the whole program concludes with an Easter piece that rounds everything off both musically and thematically. Also noteworthy is the recording locale, a church under the ownership of the French Ministry of Defense, itself beautifully photographed in the booklet; the quiet radiance of the sound seems expressly designed for Charpentier's music. This disc offers a rich exploration of the musical world of a composer who, except for a few works, is still not well known outside of France.