In the first decades of the 17th century, music travelled faster and further than ever. Composers from the Low Countries moved southwards, prints circulated and styles merged. Jehan Titelouze (c. 1563-1633), who was born in Saint-Omer and worked at Rouen Cathedral, embodies this trend. He stands at the crossroads of the Renaissance and the Baroque, with one foot in Franco-French polyphony and the other in a new, expressive, French musical language. Les Meslanges places Titelouze at the centre of a programme that brings the intricate international network of musicians, styles and repertoire to your ears. Masses, motets, hymns and canticles alternate with organ music, in dialogue with works by Orlandus Lassus and other contemporaries from the Low Countries. The big revelation is a recently rediscovered mass by Titelouze himself: an impressive musicological discovery and a rare glimpse of the vocal oeuvre of a composer we know best as a pioneer of organ music. Fasten your seatbelts for Les Voyages d’Orphée: a lively snapshot of Europe in transition.
Program
J. Titelouze: Missa Cantate à 6 | Hymnes de l’église pour toucher sur l’orgue | G. Bouzignac: In pace in idipsum | C. Raquet: Fantaisie sur Regina coeli | A. Boësset: Domine salvum fac regem
Performers
Cécile Dalmon, Esther Labourdette, cantus | Raphaël Mas, Vincent Lièvre-Picard, countertenor | Damien Rivière, tenor | Roland ten Weges, bassus | Eva Godard, Sarah Dubus, recorders & cornetto | Krzysztof Lewandowski, cornetto, dulcian & rackett | Claire McIntyre, Arnaud Brétécher, trombone | François Ménissier, organ | Volny Hostiou, serpent & artistic director | Thomas Van Essen, tenor & artistic director