Search - Emmanuel Mandrin, Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr :: Charpentier: Grace Et Grandeurs De La Vierge / Mandrin, et al

High beauty, glorious female voices, wonderment and joy

Leslie Richford | Selsingen, Lower Saxony | 10/20/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Although the 17th century Catholic theology ? perhaps I should rather say, mariology ? on this disc is enough to make any self-respecting evangelical's hair stand on end, the fact remains that the music and the singing here are of such high beauty that, whatever one's opinion about the text may be, it fades into the background in comparison with the delight one must feel at these glorious voices: six high sopranos and three 'bas-dessus' (altos) accompanied merely by an organ and a bass viol singing motets for female voices that are based both on Gregorian chant and the Italianate oratorio (Marc-Antoine Charpentier was a pupil of Carissimi). One piece after the other is a source of wonderment and joy, the purity of the voices being enhanced by some marvellous sound engineering from Radio France. This really is an exceptional disc which demonstrates that the widespread prejudice against French baroque music is based on ignorance. If you have doubts, just listen in, I for my part doubt that your doubts will remain."