Songs Of Remembrance

Programme:
Couperin: Troisieme Lecon de mecredi saint
Charpentier: Messe de Morts
Purcell: Funeral Sentences

Expressive works by seventeenth and eighteenth century composers are the focus of this concert. Couperin's Lecons de Tenebres entertained and moved when they were first heard in Holy Week 1714, with the musical language matching the poignancy of the text and the drama of the liturgy.

Both written in the 1670s, Charpentier's Messe de Morts (commemorating various obsequies for his patrons the Guise family) and Purcell's Funeral Sentences (possibly written following the death of his teacher Matthew Locke in 1677), demonstrate the highly expressive influence of Italian music.