French Airs De Cour

The second disk that I currently have by Vincent Dumestre's ensemble Le Poeme Harmonique, this time it centres on the airs of Anthoine Boesset. The title of the disk is Je Meurs Sans Mourir, which translates as I Die Without Dying, typical of the courtly manners that prevailed. Like Gibbons who I posted about earlier today, this is music that straddles the late 16th and early 17th century and as was the necessity at that time it is again based on a court, this time the French. This was the beginning of secular entertainment as opposed to strictly sacred music and rudimentary ballets were the popular form. Boesset branched out to also provide songs for the ballets and these often had risque lyrics for the time. This disk is more of a straight performance than others by Le Poeme Harmonique and L'Arpeggiata without much of the improvisatory element that other disks include. It is more of a strictly early music release than some of those that crossover ( in the best possible way ) to a sort of world music audience. The instrumentation is the now familiar lute, theorbo, archlute, baroque guitar, viols and percussion.