The James Bowman and Michael Chance recording of these Trois Lecons de Tenebres is more or less the best disc I have among the several lined up in the front room so any further reading of them is up against quite some opposition.
It is an indication of a relative feeling of being 'comfortably off' that I heard the disc on the radio, thought I wouldn't like it, but still bought it out of curiosity. And then bought two previous versions to make further comparisons.
The text is that of the 'lamentations' attributed to Jeremiah on the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. but a note in one of the booklets advises that we no longer think that Jeremiah was the author. It is a great shame to be best known for something you didn't write.
The most striking difference between the Bowman/Chance counter-tenor performance and the two sopranos here is that the ladies are more operatic, dramatic and, at times, sensual, compared to the chaste and affirmative male duo. Both are capable of sublime moments, both of aspiration and melancholy, ornamentation and interplay. It is probably never going to be possible for me to prefer the ladies but only because I am so accustomed to the version I've had for years. There are moments and phrases taken differently that shed light and extend one's understanding of the piece. The masterpiece is the third lecon, to which the first two have built, and both deliver it entirely convincingly if not in the same way.
Significantly, Couperin himself wrote in his preface that,
although the vocal part is written in the treble clef, all other kinds of voices may sing them,
so we need not think that one recording is more authentic than any other on account of the vocal range of the singers, or their gender.
Francois might not even be the best-known Couperin, with Louis' keyboard music perhaps being familiar to more of the classical music audience now, but this is vocal music to compare with any in the canon, not just representatiive of an age and place that has Charpentier also among its impressive cast list.
The Lecons, at about 42 minutes, are not long enough to fill the full potential of a disc nowadays and so a comparison of the available recordings (and there are plenty more than the four I now have) involves which other pieces make up the programme. While the harmonia mundi 1970 of Alfred Deller, accompanied by tenor, Philip Todd, has nothing else and keeps it simple, that might be preferable to breaking up the set of Lecons, as this does, with two sonatas by Brossard before ending with his brief but elegant Stabat Mater. Bowman and Chance put the main attraction in between a warm up of two other Couperin pieces before adding the Magnificat.
More adventurously, perhaps, Rene Jacobs and Concerto Vocale (again, harmonia mundi), add short items by Jeremiah Clarke and Henry Purcell, but I can't see why you want to break up the three lecons and staying with Couperin throughout seems the right thing to do rather than change mood, focus or even composer midstream. It doesn't last long enough as it is so one ought to have as much as one can have without distractions.
Deller is great, has the leading role to himself with tenor as viola or cello to his violin, and is worth having for that difference alone. Perhaps he would still be the outstanding choice for some and it doesn't sound out-dated by the more recent releases to me.
Rene Jacobs takes top billing ahead of fellow counter-tenor, Vincent Darras, on his recording from 1982. Here the theorbo is heard, plucked, higher in the mix than the others, where the viola da gamba and keyboard continuo are for the most part not meant to intrude much more than instruments in the recitative of opera. It is probably the least compelling of these four recordings although that would not cloud the issue if one hadn't heard the others. It does make more of my favourite phrase in the viola da gamba part than all but the Bowman/Chance, as the finale of the troisieme is lifted to a 'one more time' refrain.
It would have come as an enormous shock if any of the alternatives had replaced my favourite, especially quite so quickly, but it's easy to see why one recording of a much-loved piece is inadequate for the serious collector. Beyond Spem in Alium and the Allegri Miserere, there are very few pieces I need to have more than one version of. One needs time to listen to them all, for a start. But Lucy Crowe and Elizabeth Watts have made a fine contribution to the catalogue with this new disc, differentiated as they are, but able to blend, combine or separate their parts to wonderful effect. If this had been the first recording I had heard, or the only one, it would be a big favourite but, as it is, it will be some time, if ever, before it rivals Bowman and Chance, but all such considerations are unnnecessary when one has them all to compare, contrast and enjoy, bringing out different possibilities in the same miusic each time. It's not the 'same' music any more than different productions of the same play are the same play.
Two very minor faults with the new release are that once you've managed to remove the multi-lingual booklet from the case, it is almost impossible to get it back in and that, mysteriously to me, because I haven't been able to explain it yet, the text in the booklet is attributed to the Lecons of Charpentier. Either they have made an inexplicable error in editing and proof-reading or I've not appreciated why the text, which is presumably the same or very similar, is the one Charpentier used rather than Couperin's. It's not really relevant when listening to the music but it has caused me some wondering during time that I could have been wondering about something else.
