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Marouan Mankar Bennis – Bernardo Storace – In Modo Pastorale (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:56 minutes | 1,52 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © L’Encelade
“In an age in which it is said that art and science are being stifled by politics, what we are going to attempt is an art and science expedition. (…) We are going to visit Corsica, Sardinia, Italy, Sicily, etc. and we shall be publishing almost as we wend our way. Every gust of wind that blows towards France will carry a few pages that we have written on the very land that inspired them, packed full of local colour and still hot off the press from each experience.” Alexandre Dumas, La Méditerranée et ses Côtes, 1834
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Marouan Mankar-Bennis – Jean-François Dandrieu: Pièces de caractère (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:14 minutes | 1,35 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © L’Encelade
For the benefit of those listeners who think that one harpsichord is pretty much like another, and that they all sound the same, we strongly recommend this album from Marouan Mankar-Bennis – a follower of Olivier Beaumont, Bob van Asperen and Pierre Hantaï, and who is now performing with Vincent Dumestre and his Poème Harmonique, amongst many other projects – which is dedicated to Jean-François Dandrieu (1682 – 1738). This is an imaginary suite, concocted by Mankar-Bennis and based on the fourLivres for harpsichord, respectively published in 1705 (“Livre de jeunesse”), 1724 (“Premier livre”), 1728 and 1734, whose individual movements he has arranged into a great fresco, in the manner of a lyrical tragedy à la Lully: aPrologue of five pieces form a suite, and then five acts, each considered like a suite in its own right. The richness of the instruments here is extraordinary – they were picked out personally by Mankar-Bennis, of course – a copy of a Flemish harpsichord from the 17th century made by Joannes Couche, and a copy of a French instrument from the mid-18th century. By playing with the registers and the lute stops (the entire Prologue is played on the lute stops, although a listener would hardly expect that that’s the only string to that particular bow), he draws out an incredible richness from his instruments, running from cannon blasts on Caractères de la guerre played “with the flat of the hand” as per Dandrieu’s instructions (an ancestor to the cluster, then), to the songbird chirruping of the harpsichord’s upper range on Le Concert des oiseaux, a foretaste of Messiaen if ever there was one. This is one for anyone not yet sold on the harpsichord…
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Marc Mauillon, Myriam Rignol, Thibaut Roussel, Marouan Mankar-Bennis – Lambert: Leçons de Ténèbres (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:44:29 minutes | 1,73 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Best known as the composer of three hundred serious airs, Michel Lambert (1610-1696) wrote two full cycles of lessons, both transcribed in an unsigned and undated collection of manuscripts. The first cycle, recorded in its entirety here for the first time, was written in a cursive script, which reproduces as faithfully as possible the vocal ornamentation with all its rhythmic subtleties, but which also retains a few uncertainties when it comes to the placement of chords for the basso continuo. It demands that the musician undertake a detailed work of reconstruction and minute adjustments, alongside an intimate understanding of the soul of this music which inhabits the border separating the sacred from the profane. Under the reign of Louis XIV, Lambert’s Leçons de Ténèbres were associated with ceremonies where the court took part in public acts of worship. Contemporary accounts tell us that they were performed by three female singers during the Tenebrae, but Marc Mauillon and his three instrumentalists (viola da gamba, theorbo and positive organ) here offer us a version of male voice, taking into account that Lambert himself must have sung them – the score, while not handwritten, is rather more an aide-mémoire than a version ready to play – and he also sang his own airs de cour. He probably also provided the musical accompaniment – probably on theorbo – alongside viola and theorbo player Nicolas Hotman, from whom our performers have chosen a few instrumental pieces, which serve as preludes, postludes, meditations or respirations between Leçons, which at the time would have formed a part of three liturgical performances in the three days before Easter. While the experience on offer here is different from that which was originally intended for these pieces, it is still certainly worth a listen, not least for the meditative state into which it will plunge the listener.
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