Christmas Works Stir a Range of Emotions

In a sense, William Christie and Les Arts Florissants returned to home base in their first visit to Royce Hall on Sunday night, revisiting the music of French Baroque composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier, whose short opera “Les Arts Florissants” gave the ensemble its name.

Their program was devoted to some of Charpentier’s Christmas works, one of which packed especially startling dramatic power.

This was “In Nativitatem Domini Canticum,” a half-hour oratorio on the Nativity that begins in somber anguish, and bursts with choral passages of uninhibited hope and joy, as well as others that can melt the heart.

Perhaps the most striking section of all is a gorgeously still instrumental intermezzo in the center of the work depicting the sleeping shepherds, which Christie drew out with a hushed yet riveting undercurrent of tension--after which the “Shepherds’ Awakening” had an electric, almost rowdy effect. Christie also brought some physical dramatic flair to the performance. He had his 22 singers leap to their feet as they sang of their hope for the arrival of the Savior.

The Midnight Mass for Christmas is a different kettle of fish, where, as per Charpentier’s instructions, a few of his lilting instrumental noels--carols--were inserted between the sections of the Latin Mass. Both “In Nativitatem” and the Midnight Mass are featured on Les Arts Florissants’ latest Erato CD, but these live performances were marked by even more deeply expressive, thoroughly lived-in phrasing.

As a prelude, Les Arts Florissants offered Antiphons of Advent from the Dominican Antiphonarium, a setting of seven short prayers interspersed with five more carols, which displayed the creamy tone of the gracefully swaying wind players. Also featured was some breathtakingly beautiful a cappella singing at a treacherously low volume level.