by Mike Telin
The mid-1700s was a time when French aristocrats viewed leisure as an occupation, furnishing extravagant houses with the latest trends in art and design. They also perused their fancies as patrons of the arts.
This weekend Les Délices will explore the music from that brief period of time in a program entitled “The Age of Indulgence” on Saturday, November 7 at 8:00 pm at Survival Kit Gallery, and on Sunday, November 8 at 4:00 pm in the Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church. A pre-concert lecture will begin at 3:00 on Sunday. [Read more…]
The Cleveland-based early music ensemble Les Délices will open the Signature Series at Lorain County Community College on Thursday, September 24 at 7:30 pm with their newest program, titled Toutes Suites. “The program is all about the genesis of the French baroque instrumental dance suite,” the ensemble’s creative and resourceful artistic director Debra Nagy told us by telephone. The concert, to be held in the Cirigliano Theater, will include music by Lully, Marais, and Couperin performed by Debra Nagy (baroque oboe), Julie Andrijeski (baroque violin), David Ellis (viola da gamba), and Simon Martyn-Ellis (theorbo).
The provocative title of Les Délices’ final program of the season alludes to two composers of the seventeenth-century: the “angelic” Marin Marais (read: pleasant and generous) and the “diabolical” Antoine Forqueray (read: self-centered and cantankerous). With all their differences, the angel and the devil can be strangely allied: both men were virtuosos on, and champions of the seven-string viol, the richly expressive bass instrument that characterizes much of early French baroque music. 
This week Les Délices, Cleveland’s French baroque music specialists, will present “The Angel and the Devil.” The program showcases music by the most famous pair of viola da gamba players of the eighteenth century, Marin Marais and Antoine Forqueray. Referred to respectively as The Angel and The Devil, their musical personalities will be brought to life by two modern-day gambists, Josh Lee and Emily Walhout. Oboists and recorder players Debra Nagy and Kathryn Montoya, baroque violinists Scott Metcalfe and Ingrid Matthews will join harpsichordist Michael Sponseller and the dueling gambists in music by Jean-Féry Rebel, François Couperin and Marc-Antoine Charpentier.
Now that the sun is finally beginning to melt some of Cleveland’s snow piles, the Cleveland-based band Les Délices reminds us of the wintry darkness from which we earnestly hope soon to emerge. In a departure from their usual repertoire — the secular music of the French baroque — the group served up a rich and satisfying feast of Lenten fare, a concert of sacred music for the Christian season of penitence and reflection. (This concert repeats on Saturday, March 7, at St. Peter’s Church, Cleveland (7:30 pm) and Sunday, March 8, at Plymouth Church UCC, Shaker Heights (4:00 pm). 
This weekend, Les Délices will present “Cantiques Spirituels — Music for Lent,” a concert that straddles the worlds of private devotion and the public sphere. “What I think is wonderful about this program is the interesting juxtaposition of the texts with the music,” guest soprano Nola Richardson said during a recent telephone conversation. “The texts are quite somber, but the music of Couperin and Charpentier is so elaborate and beautiful.”
The fourteenth century was a strange time in the history of Europe, as those who have read Barbara W. Tuchman’s 1978 book, A Distant Mirror, already know. Amid all its tumult, that period also became a fertile era for musical experimentation, a subject Les Délices explored in two concerts last weekend presented in collaboration with the Boston ensemble Blue Heron. 
On Saturday, January 17 at 8:00 pm in William Busta Gallery, and on Sunday, January 18 at 4:00 pm in Plymouth Church, Les Délices, in collaboration with Blue Heron Ensemble, Scott Metcalfe (left), director, will present a fascinating concert entitled Fourteenth Century Avant-Garde.
Fourteenth century avant-garde? “It’s one of the most exciting moments in music history for me,” Les Délices founder and artistic director Debra Nagy said during an enlightening telephone conversation. “To our ears, the music may not sound modern, yet in many respects it is some of the most rhythmically complex music that we have until the 20th century.”