Vocal masses by Gounod and Saint-Saëns

With this program, Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel wish to highlight rarely performed sacred works by French composers of the 19th century.^E century, whose audience is now mostly familiar with operas. Hervé Niquet has built a new program combining traditional Gregorian antiphons and rare works by Gounod and Saint-Saëns, all marked by the same neoclassical approach. It is next to Vocal mass by Gounod, which he says he “worked in much the style of the Sistine Chapel”, which he wrote in 1842, and which was a success when it was created in Vienna, and the Messe opus 4 from Saint-Saëns, the first major work by the musician to bear an opus number because the first work, which he considers to be truly in keeping with tradition, was created (also with honors!) at Saint-Merri Church in 1857; but also lesser-known works by the two masters, such as The Seven Words of Our Lord Jesus Christ, composed in 1855, little given and yet described by their dedicatee as “so admirable in its breadth and simplicity”, or even the Veni Creator from Saint-Saëns, the first work composed after his appointment as organist of the Church of La Madeleine in 1858, both luminous and introspective.

The concert on November 16, 2023 is organized as part of theLouis Janmot Exhibition · The Poem of the Soul | Musée d'Orsay (musee-orsay.fr)

The concert on August 26, 2023 at the Utrecht Early Music Festival (Netherlands) was the subject of a video recording broadcast live from the festival and available in replay on the Festival website >> Organization Oude Muziek:: Le Concert Spirituel/Hervé Niquet - Voices in the Notre-Dame