All Dates

Concert

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse

23
Jul

Manoir de la Possonnière (France - 41)

20:30 – Les Rendez-vous de la Possonnière

Joachim Du Bellay, lyric poet

Joachim Du Bellay (1522-1560) stormed onto the Parisian literary scene with the resounding avant-garde manifesto Défense et illustration de la langue française. Ronsard and Du Bellay are the great French poets of the sixteenth century, but while the former has been set to music hundreds of times, Du Bellay inspired only about thirty compositions. Denis Raisin Dadre and his ensemble Doulce Mémoire celebrate the Angevin poet with works by the leading composers of the period, among them Arcadelt (who set nine chansons to his texts, including Je ne puis dissimuler a year before Du Bellay’s death), Lassus, Chardavoine and Verdonck. It was also established practice at the time to declaim poems accompanied by a musician who improvised on the lyre, an instrument and usage imported from Italy (recitare a la lira). Denis Raisin Dadre has decided to pay tribute to these sixteenth-century ‘slammers’ by asking a modern equivalent, Kwal, to ‘slam’ some of Du Bellay’s sonnets, including the famous Heureux qui, comme Ulysse.

 

Informations

Cast

(2 possibilities : 2 or 5 singers)

Camille Fritsch, mezzo-soprano
Hugues Primard, tenor

Olivier Coiffet, alto
François-Olivier Jean, tenor
Marc Busnel, basse

Florent Marie, lute and renaissance guitar
Sébastien Wonner, épinette
Baptiste Romain or Nicolas Sansarlat, lira da braccio
Denis Raisin Dadre, recorders and direction