A Nocte Temporis

Reinoud Van Mechelen & A Nocte Temporis – Legros, haute-contre de Gluck (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:17 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

Tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen concludes his trilogy dedicated to hautes-contre with “Legros, haute-contre de Gluck”. Joseph Legros (1739-1793) was a singer at the Paris Opéra, renowned for his extraordinary musical abilities, wide range and brilliant high notes. “His contemporaries appreciated the fact that his vocal delivery was not forced and that his taste was less mannered than that of his predecessors. His pronunciation was perfect and his face pleasing, although he did not cut a graceful figure and his stage acting left something to be desired” writes Benoit Dratwicki, of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, which is a partner in this series… Legros sparked renewed interest among modern composers for the haute-contre voice. The first to write for him were La Borde, Trial and Berton. Then came Gossec (Alexis et Daphné) and Grétry (Céphale et Procris). In 1774, Gluck’s arrival in Paris marked a turning point in Legros’s career: he made a name for himself in Orphée et Eurydice , caused a sensation in Iphigénie en Aulide and Iphigénie en Tauride … The title roles in Amadis de Gaule by J. C. Bach and Piccinni’s Atys were the last roles in which he shone. After Legros, the haute-contre voice gradually disappeared, giving way to that of the “true tenor”, a more powerful voice, but one that had difficulty tackling the high register of the old repertoire…

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Reinoud Van Mechelen, A Nocte Temporis – Bach: Erbarme dich (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:54 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

The young tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen, whose career is currently in full flower, appears as a guest soloist with today’s leading conductors of Baroque music. He has decided to devote his first solo album to a composer whom he interprets with elegance and contagious joy: Johann Sebastian Bach. The title ‘Erbarme dich’ naturally evokes for music lovers the celebrated alto aria from the St Matthew Passion; but it is also the incipit of a sorrowful, sensuous aria for tenor and flute from the Cantata BWV 55. In fact, a substantial corpus of cantatas written by the Kantor in Leipzig between 1724 and 1726 feature a close dialogue between tenor voice and flute. Bach excels in this art of discourse and enjoys underlining or contradicting the text by sketching with the flute lines full of exacerbated vocality. This art of interweaving voices attracted Reinoud Van Mechelen and the flautist Anna Besson, who have chosen, along with the organist and harpsichordist Benjamin Alard, to structure their programme around Bach arias featuring obbligato organ and traverso. This album marks the birth of the ensemble founded by Reinoud Van Mechelen, A Nocte Temporis, and the start of his collaboration with Alpha, which will extend over several years.

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Reinoud Van Mechelen & A Nocte Temporis – Jéliote, haute-contre de Rameau (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:29:27 minutes | 1,67 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

Reinoud Van Mechelen and his ensemble A Nocte Temporis continue their ‘Haute-Contre Trilogy’ with Rameau’s favourite singer, Pierre de J’eliote, probably the finest haute-contre in history. (Reminder: this is a high tenor voice, not to be confused with the countertenor!) Rameau wrote an enormous amount of music for J’eliote, who was not only a singer but also a guitarist, a cellist and even a composer. The album pays tribute to this native of the B’earn region, who was born in 1713 and died at the ripe old age of eighty-four, with a selection of airs by Rameau (from Hippolyte et Aricie, Les F^etes d’H’eb’e, Plat’ee, Castor et Pollux, Les Bor’eades) but also by Dauvergne, Colin de Blamont, Mondonville, Rebel and Francoeur. Though some are well known, others are much more rarely performed today.

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Reinoud Van Mechelen and A Nocte Temporis – Dumesny, haute-contre de Lully (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:11 minutes | 1,52 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

Who was Louis Gaulard Dumesny? Dumesny was not the first haute-contre historically speaking, but he was the first to have become famous in his lifetime. Sources agree that he was a cook when Lully discovered him. He made his debut in 1677 and everyone was amazed by his acting, the power of his voice and also his ability to learn everything by ear, since he could not read music. A few centuries later, Reinoud Van Mechelen, star tenor of the international Baroque scene, has decided, with his ensemble A Nocte Temporis, to pay tribute to this ‘haute-contre’ register, a high tenor voice (not to be confused with the countertenor!), by devoting three recordings to it, paying tribute in turn to Lully, Rameau and Gluck. The first part of this trilogy therefore contains the finest operatic airs and suites by Lully, featuring excerpts from Isis, Persée, Armide, Amadis, Acis et Galatée and Achille et Polyxène, but also pieces by Marin Marais (Alcide), Marc-Antoine Charpentier (Médée), Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (Céphale et Procris), Henry Desmarets, Pascal Colasse, Charles-Hubert Gervais and André Cardinal Destouches.

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Reinoud Van Mechelen & A Nocte Temporis – Oh, ma belle brunette (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:11:07 minutes | 2,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

The term ‘brunette’ refers not only to a young woman with brown hair, but also to a musical form that was highly fashionable from the late seventeenth century to the early eighteenth. The genre evolved from the air de cour, extremely popular in France since the beginning of the seventeenth century. The compositional process, however, remained very similar: to write a short, tender song, dealing with themes of love or nature, which could be sung alone or accompanied by a harmonic instrument. The late seventeenth century also saw the appearance of an instrument that soon became a favourite of composers and amateur musicians: the German flute, now called the traverso or Baroque flute.

In this new programme, tenor Reinoud van Mechelen, flautist Anna Besson and A nocte temporis present an anthology of airs and brunettes ranging from the most touching song to the heartiest drinking song (air à boire).

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A Nocte Temporis & Reinoud Van Mechelen – Clérambault: Cantates Françaises (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:21 minutes | 1,38 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

The son of one of the Twenty-four Violins of the King, Nicolas Clérambault was born in Paris in 1676. He was a precocious child: he is credited with a large choral motet, composed when he was just thirteen years old. His education was provided by excellent masters and he was a close friend of Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers, whom he eventually replaced in 1714 at the tribune of Saint-Sulpice and the Maison Royale de Saint-Louis in Saint-Cyr. In addition to a book for harpsichord, and another for the organ, Clérambault composed numerous motets, but during his lifetime already, his French Cantatas were the works that solidified his reputation: five books featuring twenty cantatas in addition to five single cantatas. They highlight his evolution, from a craft similar to his masters of the 17th century to the pure, classical style that soon became his. Apollon, Cantatte sur la paix, à voix seule, et simphonie écrite pour le Roy (Apollo, Cantata for Peace, single voice, and Symphony written for the King) dates back to the very end of Louis XIV’s rule, which was marked by war and famine; in it, Clérambault glorifies the King, often portrayed as Apollo, while echoing the overall feeling among the population: peace! His 1710 cantata Le Jaloux (The Jealous) departs from the standard framework: no action, no lauding or flattery, simply a delicious tableau of jealousy! The album’s centrepiece remains 1713 Pyrame et Thisbé (Pyramus and Thisbe), derived from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Pyramus and Thisbe love each other, but their parents are opposed to their union. A beautiful instrumental prelude precedes the first recitative, which introduces and frames this tragedy. The melody closing the cantata is in a way the moral of the story. Between these two ends, Clérambault strings together recitatives, melodies, symphonies, as if in a lyric tragedy. The A Nocte Temporis ensemble – flute, violin, viola de gamba, harpsichord – accompany tenor Reinoud van Mechelen who performs these intense moments of great French classicism with perfect conviction and diction – crucial for this kind of textual works – while respecting the pronunciation specific to that era. For instance, “l’espoir de se revoir” turns into “l’espouêr de se revouêr”!

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