Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s compositional output was prodigious on all fronts, and it’s no surprise that it includes a hefty amount of music for the Christmas season (including four settings of the ...

Based on texts from the Old Testament’s ‘Lamentations of Jeremiah’ which bemoan the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC, Tenebrae settings are musical responses to the liturgy used at Passiontide. They ...

Candlelight set the tone for the ensemble of superb focus, great refinement and real depth of feeling William Christie and Les Arts Florissants marked Holy Week at Wigmore Hall with a selection of ...

Le Nain's Nativity, the kind of painting that might have complemented Charpentier's music in the Hotel de Guise Charpentier's moments of seemingly small but potentially momentous drama were ideally ...

If the problem of organizing music for your Christmas party seems daunting, take a page from the book of the 17th century Duchesse de Guise and commission your own — or simply throw the products of ...