La Chambre de Louis XIII – Louvre Auditorium

Nymphs & shepherds at Nightfall
Antoine Boesset – Prologue : Concert de Diane & ses nymphes
Antoine Boesset – Dialogue d’Orphée & des Hamadryades
Antoine Boesset – Concert des Nymphes des bois
François de Chancy – Allemande en sol a 4
Antoine Boesset – Quelle colère des Cieux
Antoine Boesset – Me veux-tu voir mourir
Pierre Guedron – Cesse mortel d’importuner [Cessez mortels]
Antoine Boesset – Je perds le repos

The Sun and the Night, les monsters & les Dreams
Etienne Moulinié – Concert de différents oyseaux
Antoine Boesset – Noires Forets
Antoine Boesset – Récit de la Nuit
Pierre Guedron – Une nymphe : Quels tourments [quel espoir de guérir]

The Night, The Monsters & the Dreams chased by the Time
Etienne Moulinié – O doux sommeil que tes Songes agréables [Perrin]
Jacques Champion (de) Chambonnieres – L’Entretien des Dieux
Antoine Boesset – David disgracié
Etienne Moulinié – Rompez les charmes du sommeil [Air de la Ridicule]
Antoine Boesset – Ne vante point flambeau des Cieux

The Aurore & and the Spring 
Antoine Boesset – Récit de la Félicité
Louis Couperin – La Piémontoise
Antoine Boesset – Segua chi vuoi
Antoine Boesset – Monarque triomphant
François de Chancy – Rares fleurs, vivantes peintures
Etienne Moulinié – Flores apparuerunt

This program blends viols, flutes and lutes with the singers, thus offering an intimate atmosphere in which to recreate the world of the night and its eerie figures that topple the established order of the world: from twilight, through nightmarish monstrosities, bizarre dreams, and culminating in the break of Dawn as a metaphor of the arrival of a more pacified reality.

Among the great masters of court music in 17^th century France, Antoine Boesset probably generated more enthusiasm and passion than any other musician of the era: his songs were widely printed and adapted (for voice and lute or for polyphonic settings), occasionally featuring in the great royal ballets as of the late 1610s until well after his death in 1643. Numerous spiritual parodies were made of his songs, indicating his immense popularity: his beautiful melodies met with such success that the clergy sought to direct congregations toward less profane festivities and passions by applying new words to the original prosody. The same images and references often appear, however the object of adoration is no longer a lovely young shepherdess or odd and carnival-like figures, but rather the Almighty Savior.

By opting for a small-scale ensemble, the program also provides an inverted mirror of Carnival: the very music that was performed in the great winter’s-end spectacles at the Louvre Courtyard turns up in salons and chapels for more intimate ceremonies that nevertheless display the intensity and passion of an ardent flame burning through all the nights.