Since the creation of their ensemble La Nereide in 2019, the three sopranos Camille Allerat, Julie Roset and Ana Vieira Leite have wanted to tell stories about women, women who are courageous, vulnerable, passionate, powerful, secretive - and sometimes all of these at once. Le Coeur et la Raison imagines the fate of a young noblewoman sent to the Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr, where she received a meticulous education, particularly in music; she took part in services and sang works by it's organist Louis-Nicolas Clerambault (1676-1749) - including his magnificent Miserere - and by Jean-Francois Lalouette (1651-1728), a pupil of Lully. When she returned to her family, however, she sang the melodies of fashionable court airs, which she then shared with her fellow students at Saint-Cyr, to the great disapproval of the religious authorities. She and her colleagues then rewrote the song texts transforming the declarations of love into statements of faith. Today, these three friends and artists present an emotionally charged programme, accompanied by a first-rate instrumental trio.

Neglected since Charpentier's death, the oratorio genre finds in Clerambault a worthy successor to the master with his poignant version of the biblical story l'Histoire de la Femme adultere. Conducted by Reinoud Van Mechelen, a nocte temporis delivers a masterly performance in which every note reveals the depth of the human soul, while the Chœur de Chambre de Namur displays all it's virtuosity in the timeless Te Deum à Grand Chœur, a true testament to Clerambault's genius!