André Campra Requiem

André Campra Requiem

Les Talens Lyriques
Choeur de chambre de Namur
Christophe Rousset, direction
Caroline Arnaud, dessus I
Eva Zaïcik, dessus II
Philippe Gagné, haute-contre
Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, taille
Douglas Williams, basse taille

Little is known about the composition of André Campra's Requiem. Did he write it when he was music master at Notre-Dame de Paris? Did he write it later? Still, we have here one of the great pages of French Baroque.

Chapel master at Notre-Dame de Paris, then later at the Chapelle Royale, André Campra composed a lot for the theater and can be considered as a milestone between Lully and Rameau. Among his religious works, his Requiem, composed after 1723, is distinguished by its calm character (the Dies Irae is absent), even serene: it does not inspire fear, does not languish in a dark atmosphere but invites to hope of eternal light. In this, he announces Fauré's Requiem. Dating from 1710-1714, In convertendo is one of four surviving church works of Rameau's youth. This motet contains a fugue that has nothing to envy to the most beautiful successes of Bach in this area.