Marc-Antoine Charpentier composed about 35 histoires sacrées, essentially the same genre as the oratorio that had been developed by
Giacomo Carissimi in Rome in the mid-seventeenth century. The texts were most frequently taken from the Hebrew Bible (although one of the works here has as its subject the Nativity), and most are relatively brief; the three included here last from about 12 to 37 minutes. The histoires sacrées primarily consist of solos and dialogues in the style of recitatives, in which singers take the roles of the characters in the drama, with a chorus acting as narrator. Only occasionally do soloists have what is conventionally understood as an aria, and when they do, the arias are not an excuse for showy vocalism, but have the purpose of advancing the drama, albeit with heightened melodic lyricism. For the listener who can put aside the expectations of the late Baroque oratorios of
Handel or
J.S. Bach, these intimate and deeply expressive works are immensely rewarding.
Charpentier had a real gift for creating and managing dramatic tension through music, and these little gems have the character of brief operas. The longest of the three, Mors Saülis et Jonathae, has developed characters with musical individuality and a poignant story with an elegant dramatic arc. The ensemble
Il Seminario Musicale, founded and conducted by French countertenor
Gérard Lesne, performs these works with consummate musicality and sensitive attention to the subtleties of the texts. The soloists, including
Lesne himself, sing with clear understanding of middle Baroque French performance practice and with robust, clean tone, and persuasively convey the emotion and theatricality of the stories. Naïve's sound is intimate, but with a nice sense of spaciousness.