Working and living almost exclusively in early-eighteenth century Paris, Louis-Nicolas Clérambault was primarily an organist. While employed in the Parisian churches of Grands-Augustins and Saint-Sulpice, he honed his skills as a composer. While Clérambault was organist and choir director at the royal house of Saint-Cyr he developed the French Cantata form and was widely heralded as the master of the genre.
Many of Clérambault’s secular cantatas were concerned with Greco-Roman subjects and have titles like Orphée, Apollon, and La mort d’Hercule. We will now hear a selection from one of these secular cantatas, titled Léandre et Héro. This is a Récitatif and Air fort et tendre from Léandre et Héro of Cantates françoises, livre II by Louis-Nicolas Clérambault. This performance is by Génération Harmonique.
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