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HMA 1951133

‘There is perhaps nothing in all of 17th century

French music that has the power to move the

listener as deeply as the Leçons de Ténèbres

by François Couperin.’

François Couperin (1668-1733)

Leçons de Ténèbres

There is perhaps nothing in all of 17th century French music that has the power to move the listener as deeply as the Leçons de Ténèbres by François Couperin, a composer whom it is all too easy to dismiss (Burney was the first to do so) as the author of admittedly elegant, but nonetheless super ficial little bagatelles for a sophisticated, not to say frivolous, audience. And yet this was the audience that heard the Leçons for the first time at Longchamp where the ‘dark masses’ (Ténèbres) were a specialty.It was part of fashionable behaviour to go there on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of Holy Week to hear the female singers of the Opéra in the latest setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. After all the opera houses were closed, for some of the favourite lady singers the liturgy of Holy Week offered the only opportunity to display their languorous ‘ports de voix’, their affected ‘sons filés’, their breathtaking ‘accents’ and ‘tremblements’, to the great delight of a public that was more interested in a sacred ‘divertissement’ than in prayer and repentance.In fact these settings comprise the first part of the breviary prayers divided into three nocturnals and consisting mainly of psalms and lessons. The ‘dark masses’ were therefore originally intended to be sung just after midnight during the first hour of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Saturday (matins). This was a rather inconvenient hour for a spoiled opera audience, so the time was changed to the afternoon of the day before, ‘Mercredy, Jeudy et Vendredy Saint’.Couperin composed his Leçons de Ténèbres between 1713 and 1717. The first three, for ‘Mercredy Saint’, were printed; of the other six unfortunately all trace has been lost, although the composer informs us in his Preface that he had already composed three leçons for ‘Vendredy Saint’, and intended publishing the entire cycle at a later date. Couperin’s Leçons belong to a typically French tradition: Guillaume Bouzignac, Michel Lambert and Marc-Antoine Charpentier were his direct predecessors, and we possess Lamentations from the hands of Sébastien de Brossard and Michel-Richard de Lalande, both of whom belonged to Couperin’s generation. But more than those of his precursors and contemporaries, Couperin’s Leçons are, in the first place, absolute, timeless music which relegate the stylistic considerations of the day to a secondary, relatively insignificant position. Neither does Couperin regard the original setting for 2 sopranos as strictly necessary:‘The first and second leçons for each day are always in one part, and the third in two; thus two voices suffice for their performance; although the vocal part is written in the treble clef, all other kinds of voices may sing them, all the more so as most people today who accompany know how to transpose . . .’ (Preface)In none of his predecessors or contemporaries is the contrast between the instrumental, celestial character of the Hebrew letters and the dramatic-lyrical fullness of the verses stronger than it is in Couperin.The Letters. These are a survival of the original form of the poem which, wrongly ascribed by Jewish and Christian tradition to Jeremiah, is a passionate lament in five songs or cantos on the fall of Jerusalem (586 B.C.) and an exhortation to repentance and meditation.Each verse began with a letter in the order of the Hebrew alphabet. In the Latin translation of the original Hebrew text this scheme disappeared, but the tradition of beginning each verse with the original Hebrew letter survived. These letters now had no sense whatever, but they remained where they were, even in the Gregorian setting of the text. In the French Leçons de Ténèbres of the 17th century they form little ‘préludes’ based on the centuries-old Gregorian Lamentation pattern.

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The Verses. The liturgy demands that the verses of the poem ascribed to Jeremiah – the three Leçons pour le Mercredy Saint consist of only the first 14 of the 22 verses from the first of the five Lamentations – commemorate the events of the Passion in a lyrical manner. The Leçons de Ténèbres are, therefore, lyrical Passion music, while Bach’s Passions are quite distinctly dramatic Passion music with the emphasis on the facts of the events of the Passion. From a musical point of view Couperin is here speaking (and how mellifluously he does it!) the language of the ‘tragédie lyrique’ in which declamatory and lyrical elements are fused into a single unity. The verses form a great lyrical recitative, and in the sections where Couperin specifically indicates a ‘récitatif’ one does not notice a very great difference from those sections which do not bear the indication, except that the ‘Récitatifs’ properly speaking usually begin with a long held chord in the bass.The key-word – and therefore also the key effect – of these lamentations is contained in the first verse: ‘How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!’ The solitude of the totally destroyed city of Jerusalem is also the solitude of Jesus whose disciples have one by one forsaken him. This was in fact the whole point of the entire oppressive liturgical process in these dark masses: at the beginning of the Lamentations there are thirteen candles burning, and during the prescribed ‘petites pauses’ twelve of them are extinguished one after the other (symbolic of the twelve disciples), so that at the final ‘Jerusalem’ there is only one left alight, a symbol of the Redeemer, left alone at the end, and our only salvation.Couperin exploits every expressive device of the ‘tragédie lyrique’: distinct declamatory sections alternate with more ‘closed’ musical forms, like in the two ‘airs en rondeau’ that conclude the first two leçons, the pathos-laden lament, ‘Plorans ploravit’ in the first leçon, with a melodic line that has a ruthless descent from a high f’’ to a low D’, and especially the melancholy aria on the chaconne bass in the second leçon (‘Recordata est’). The most moving of the leçons is the third: a virtually unbroken ‘récitatif en duo’ in which Couperin clearly defines his position as an heir of Monteverdi and Carissimi.At least twice Couperin makes use of the poignant chord of the ninth at the 3rd degree to emphasize the suggestion of utter solitude in the first (‘among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her’: ex omniBUS charis . . .) and in the third leçons (‘he hath made me desolate’: posuit me desoLAtam . . .). In his use of dis sonances Couperin unites French and Italian elements; the frequent successions of suspensions and the chromatic passages are Italian, but the use of the above mentioned chord and the accumulation of dissonances over a steady pedal point in the bass (‘omnis populus gemens .  .  .’ in the third leçon) were not unusual in French music after Lully.

René Jacobs

Translation Derek Yeld

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1 | Première Leçon

Incipit Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae

ALEPH. Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo? Facta est quasi vidua domina gentium: princeps provinciarum facta est sub tributo.

BETH. Plorans ploravit in nocte, et lacrimae ejus in maxillis ejus: non est qui consoletur eam ex omnibus caris ejus: omnes amici ejus spreverunt eam, et facti sunt ei inimici.GHIMEL. Migravit Juda propter afflictionem, et multitudinem servitutis: habitavit inter gentes, nec invenit requiem: omnes persecutores ejus apprehen derunt eam inter angustias.

DALETH. Viae Sion lugent eo quod non sint qui veniant ad solemnitatem; omnes portae ejus destructae; sacerdotes ejus gementes; virgines ejus squalidae, et ipsa oppressa amaritudine.

HE. Facti sunt hostes ejus in capite, inimici ejus locupletati sunt: quia Dominus locutus est super eam propter multitudinem iniquitatum ejus; parvuli ejus ducti sunt in captivitatem, ante faciem tribulantis.Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum.

2 | Deuxième Leçon

VAU. Et egressus est a filia Sion omnis decor ejus: facti sunt principes ejus velut arietes non invenientes pascua; et abierunt absque fortitudine ante faciem subsequentis.

ZAIN. Recordata est Jerusalem dierum afflictionis suae, et praevaricationis omnium desiderabilium suorum, quae habuerat a diebus antiquis, cum caderet populus ejus in manu hostili, et non esset auxiliator: viderunt eam hostes, et deriserunt sabbata ejus.

HETH. Peccatum peccavit Jerusalem, propterea instabilis facta est: omnes qui glorificabant eam, spreverunt illam, quia viderunt ignominiam ejus: ipsa autem gemens conversa est retrorsum.

TETH. Sordes ejus in pedibus ejus, nec recordata est finis sui: deposita est vehementer, non habens consola torem: vide Domine afflictionem meam, quoniam erectus est inimicus.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum.

3 | Troisième Leçon

JOD. Manum suam misit hostis ad omnia desidera bilia ejus: quia vidit gentes ingressas sanctuarium suum, de quibus praeceperas ne intrarent in ecclesiam tuam.

CAPH. Omnis populus ejus gemens, et quaerens panem: dederunt pretiosa quaeque pro cibo ad refo cillan dam animam. Vide Domine et considera, quoniam facta sum vilis.

LAMED. O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite, et videte si est dolor sicut dolor meus: quoniam vindemiavit me, ut locutus est Dominus in die irae furoris sui.

MEM. De excelso misit ignem in ossibus meis et erudivit me: expandit rete pedibus meis, convertit me retrorsum; posuit me desolatam, tota die maerore confectam.

NUN. Vigilavit jugum iniquitatum mearum: in manu ejus convolutae sunt, et impositae collo meo: infirmata est virtus mea: dedit me Dominus in manu, de qua non potero surgere.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum.

Beginning of the Lamentations of Jeremiah

ALEPH. How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! How is she become as a widow! She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!BETH. She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.GHIMEL. Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.

DALETH. The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

HE. Her adversaires are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, turn again unto thy Lord.

VAU. And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.

ZAIN. Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.

HETH. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

TETH. Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remem bereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, turn again unto thy Lord.

JOD. The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.CAPH. All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, o Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.

LAMED. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

MEM. From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day.

NUN. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.Jerusalem, Jerusalem, turn again unto thy Lord.

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4 | A Divine HymnSet by Mr. Jer. Clarke

Blest be those sweet Regions where Eternal Peace and Musick are;That solid calm, and that bright day,Where brighter Angels sing and pray.We a Ruffled world endure,Never easy nor secure.Blest be those souls which dwell above,In Extasies of Mutual love.

5 | A Divine HymnWords by Dr. William Fuller, formerly Lord Bishop of Lincoln. Set by Mr. Henry Purcell

Lord, what is man, lost Man that thou should’st beSo mindful of him! That the Son of GodForsook his Glory, his Abode,To become a poor tormented Man!The Deity was shrunk into a Span,And that for me, O wond’rous Love!Reveal, ye Glorious Spirits, when ye knew,The way the Son of God took to renewlost Man, your vacant Places to supply;Blest Spirits tell, which did Excel,Which was more prevalent,Your Joy, or your Astonishment;That Man shou’d be assum’d into the Deity,That for a Worm a God shou’d die.Oh! for a Quill drawn from your Wing,To write the Praises of th’Eternal Love;Oh! for a Voice like yours, to singThat Anthem here, which once you sung above.Hallelujah.

7 | An Evening Hymn

The night is come like to the day,Depart not thou, Great God, away;On thee, O Lord, I do repose,Protect me from my watchful Foes:So shall I securely lay,And sweetly pass the hours away.In heav’nly Dreams my soul advance,O make my sleep a holy Trance.Sleep is a Death, O let me try,By sleeping, how it is to die.