Ravenna Festival
Ad Vesperas / Leçons De Ténèbres
Ad Vesperas
Vespri solenni nella Napoli spagnola
antifone, salmi e mottetti di Diego Ortiz
Leçons De Ténèbres
di François Couperin
Cantar Lontano
Lia Serafini soprano
Alessandro Carmignani controtenore
Fabio Furnari tenore
Mauro Borgioni baritono
Marco Scavazza baritono
Walter Testolin basso
Pamela Lucciarini soprano
Elena Biscuola alto
Enea Sorini tenore
Davide Benetti basso
Cristiano Contadin viola d’arco
Mauro Borgioni cantore gregoriano
direttore
Marco Mencoboni
As with the panels of a precious diptych, independent but connected into one structure, Ravenna Festival offers a double concert – two jewels of sacred music to be performed in the basilicas of San Vitale and Santa Maria Maggiore: the voluptuous and ethereal atmosphere of Diego Ortiz’s Marian pieces, Musices Liber Primus, published in 1565, a mere two years after the Council of Trent had prescribed utmost sobriety in liturgy, and the Leçons de ténebrès, based on the Lamentations of Jeremiah and set to music by François Couperin in the Abbey of Longchamp, near Paris, for Ash Wednesday 1714. These will be re-proposed as they used to be, by the sole light of candles to be progressively extinguished: only the highest one will remain, symbolising Christ.
