During the last years of the reign of Louis XIII. Michel Lambert was a sought-after master of singing at the royal court of Paris. Based on a rich ornamentation and other new style elements, the singer and theorbo player created a sophisticated new vocal genre. This "art of good singing" soon dominated the secular music scene...

But the popularity of this style of singing was not hidden from the Catholic Church either: in order to make the dark liturgy of Holy Week a little more attractive to the faithful, the composer was asked to set Jeremiah's lamentations in music. More and more, the liturgical Vespers of Holy Week mutated into concert events in which the faithful could even admire opera singers ...

With Monique Zanetti, a proven expert from the French "art de bien chanter" has recorded three of these Leçons de ténèbres for AEOLUS.