Choral Music / Sacred Music [Heart and Mind]

In the 17th century, a form of art song experienced its heyday, especially in France: the so-called air de cour. Numerous composers catered to the demands of the nobility, at whose courts the songs were performed by soloists accompanied by lutes. The beauty of the melodies was the paramount criterion, while the secular texts dealt almost exclusively with romantic love. This was the reason why these popular songs were not allowed to be sung in churches and monasteries. The Franciscan monk François Berthod therefore adapted some of the texts into sacred songs so that nuns could also sing them. On the album by the ensemble La Néréide, a selection of famous airs de cour and some sacred versions can be heard. The three sopranos are accompanied by instrumentalists in various combinations (lute, theorbo, viola da gamba, organ). Their program was created with an underlying story: a fictional young noblewoman living in a church-run boarding school discovers the wonderful secular songs during the holidays with her family and, together with her schoolmates, transforms them into sacred pieces so that they can also be sung in a religious setting. A not entirely unlikely fairy tale that makes the discovery of the songs truly exciting.