Alfred Deller & Wilfred Brown sing Couperin: "Troisième leçon"

Here is the "Third Lesson" from Couperin's magnificent "Leçons de ténèbres" with countertenor Alfred Deller and tenor Wilfred Brown. (The first and second lessons are for solo voice). Desmond Dupré, viola da gamba, and Harry Gabb, organ. Recorded in 1960.

Deller made a later recording of this work with tenor Philip Todd in 1967. That recording is still in print.

Link to My Alfred Deller playlist:
   • Alfred Deller (1912-1979)  

From the liner notes to the 1967 recording:
"There are few works which, with such deliberately limited means, are so full of pathos. The melancholic genius of Couperin was fully in tune with a text of lamentations. The composer who, shortly before the end of his life, was to write a Pompe funèbre in his Suites for viols, found his natural expression in the Jeremiah text. His music, dramatic and pliable like that of Monteverdi, full of intimate and lyrical fervor, was an ideal vehicle to express the anguish of mortal man and the faith of the Christian soul in eternal life."

Yod - "Manum suam"
Caph - "Omnis populus"
Lamed - "O vos omnes"
Mem - "De excelso misit"
Nun - "Vigilavit jugum"
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem"

Composed in 1714 for the Abbaye royale de Longchamp.

Link to my Alfred Deller playlist:
   • Alfred Deller (1912-1979)  

Link to my Wilfred Brown playlist:
   • Wilfred Brown (1921-1971)