Around 1240, King Louis IX had the Sainte-Chapelle built to house his unique collection of Passion relics, including Christ’s crown of thorns. This chapel in the Palais de la Cité was used by French royalty until the 14th century. As a pinnacle of the radiant Gothic style, the Chapelle was the setting for the liturgy of the hours and masses that the monarch attended daily. The music in the chapel included both Gregorian plainchant and the early polyphony of the Notre-Dame school. The programme of this concert is taken entirely from Parisian manuscripts from Louis IX’s time, some of which were explicitly intended for the Sainte-Chapelle. With an idiosyncratic selection of liturgical chants, motets and rondeaux, the Schola de la Sainte-Chapelle offers us a taste of the most solemn moments in the liturgical calendar, such as Good Friday, when the king in his coronation robes displayed the True Cross to the people.
Program
Motets, hymns, antiphons and conducti by P. Le Chancelier | Anonymous works from French and Italian sources I-Fl MS Pluteus 29.1 (Medici Antiphoner, (‘F’)), F-Pnm Latin 8800 and others
Performers
Schola de la Sainte-Chapelle | Brigitte Lesne, artistic leader
