Search - Emmanuel Mandrin, Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr :: Clerambault: Chants et Motets /Mandrin, Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr

Just like Antonio Vivaldi in Venice, Nicolas Clérambault in Versailles was in charge of a well-known ensemble of musical young ladies. While Vivaldi was chapelmaster of a well-endowed orphanage, Clérambault worked at Saint-Cyr, a school for the daughters of impoverished noblemen founded by Madame de Maintenon (mistress of Louis XIV). The latter-day "Damsels of St.-Cyr" give flawless performances of some of Clérambault's motets, hymns and chants. (Yes, many French Baroque composers indeed composed plainchant in a French Baroque style.) The beginning of this record is a stunner: 30 seconds of unaccompanied unison singing that combines the purity of Gregorian chant with the graciousness of the French Baroque style, followed immediately by some spine-tingling suspensions at the opening of the penitential Psalm-motet Miserere. The remainder of the disc presents motets and chants for various parts of the liturgical year, all mixing elegance, piety, and (often) good cheer--only to finish with De profundis, a Psalm-motet for burial services as strikingly anguished in its way as the Miserere. --Matthew Westphal