**** It's quite something, someone with 'multiple faces' and especially when she's a goddess. Hécate was the case here. Around the year 1700 and thereafter, it inspired writers, composers and performing musicians in France who united a new genre of poetry and music. One of those composers was Nicolas Bernier. Even now, musicians have been inspired, with Korneel Bernolet as the driving force behind this inspiration.
No worries if you don't know the Baroque composer Nicolas Bernier, for it is Korneel Bernolet's merit that we get to know this clever Frenchman again through the CD 'Trois visages d'Hécate'. Three cantatas that have something of opera, each depicting one of the faces and corresponding characters of the goddess. Soprano Lieselot De Wilde fortunately has only one face, but that doesn't stop her from performing in a divine and deeply committed manner, treating both text and music with great precision so that the listener is drawn into the story and the respective face of the goddess.
She is accompanied and supported by the ensemble Apotheosis, one of the younger ensembles that perform flawlessly and continue on the path of our Flemish and other pioneers who made a splash in the second half of the last century and the first decade of this century by returning to historically informed performances from the Baroque onwards. That pioneering spirit has, as it were, been inherited by a young generation that is now gaining recognition, and deservedly so. Meanwhile, research into performance practice has advanced even further, making it possible to pay attention to scores that had been forgotten under thick layers of dust in attics. Sleuths like Korneel Bernolet always know how to unearth that seemingly lost old material and breathe new life into it. Trois visages d'Hécate by Nicolas Bernier is one such achievement.
It is reasonable to assume that some Baroque enthusiasts may find this music somewhat less appealing, because there is only one singer and no dialogues, which might cause them to feel a certain lack. Others will welcome this with open arms, if only because it belongs among the more unique recordings. Unique not only because of its obscurity, but also unique because of the high quality of the performance, which on one hand fits our hectic society and on the other immediately immerses us fully in some sort of Baroque-decorated setting. Decorating might well be one of the best words to describe how the musicians work.
It is a CD for lovers of music, a CD for discoverers, and a CD for anyone who wants something different from the usual big names and familiar works.
- WHAT: Trois visages d'Hécate by Nicolas Bernier
- WHO: Soprano Lieselot De Wilde, ensemble Apotheosis, conducted by Korneel Bernolet
- EDITION: Et'Cetera, KTC 1576
