Gramophone Magazine
January 2025
Editor's Choice

Sandrine Piau, Amel Brahim-Djelloul (sopranos), Karine Deshayes, Lucile Richardot (mezzos), Les Paladins, Jérôme Corréas

Monteclair: Morte di Lucretia
Pasquini, B: Il martirio dei santi Vito, Modesto e Crescenzia: Sinfonia
Scarlatti, A: Lucretia Romana (Lasciato havea l'adultero superbo), H. 377
Benedetto Giacomo Marcello: Concerto a Cinque in F Minor, Op. 1 No. 7, S.C792
Handel: La Lucrezia "O Numi eterni", Cantata HWV 145
Benedetto Giacomo Marcello: Lucrezia, S.169

Raped by Sextus Tarquin, son of the king of the Etruscans occupying Rome, Lucretia speaks out to describe her ordeal and demand justice. Then, refusing to live in dishonour, she takes her own life. Recounted by Titus Livius, this episode marked the establishment of the Roman republic and was the inspiration for many works of art, literature and music.

Jérôme Corréas and Les Paladins explore this narrative and put into perspective the only four Baroque cantatas on the subject known to date. In these miniature operas, Alessandro Scarlatti, Montéclair, Handel and Marcello set Lucretia's speech to music: alternating between expressionist recitatives and virtuoso arias, these monologues follow the development of Lucretia's emotional state, moving from murmur to cry, from exaltation to despondency, right up to her final silence. Jérôme Corréas has teamed up with four of France's finest singers – Sandrine Piau, Amel Brahim-Djelloul, Karine Deshayes and Lucile Richardot – to bring Lucretia's story to life, bringing it to us intact in all its strength and violence, superimposed on the stories of today and raising questions about contemporary women's voices.

"Piau is at her piercingly emotive best in Montéclair’s inventively fluid recitatives...Lucile Richardot’s flexibility of dynamism and immersion in the character’s predicament, vulnerability and courage are enthralling." - Gramophone Magazine, January 2025