The great composer Jean-Baptiste Lully deployed all his musical science in his grand motets to express intense emotion; Madame de Sévigné said: "all eyes were filled with tears". With their large chorals, small ensembles, trios, duets, solos and orchestral symphonies, these large religious compositions are representative of the pomp deployed at Louis XIV's court, at the service of the monarch's absolute power. If O Lachrymae fideles, composed in winter 1664, goes from contained emotion to jubilant dance, the two other motets are deeply solemn. The Dies Irae and De Profundis were played at the funeral of the King's wife, queen Maria-Teresa of Austria, in 1683, in the Basilique Saint-Denis. Les Epopées will give a sparkling, theatrical and expressive version of this music, with rich and abundant ornamentation, echoing the sun's play on Versailles's windows, mirrors and gilt.

The Leçons de Ténèbres (Lessons of Darkness) became a favourite theme for musical compositions in the middle of the 17th century. Michel Lambert was the first French musician to compose a cycle in 1662, quickly followed by Charpentier and Lalande. But the most famous - and the first to have attracted the public of today and to be recorded - are those of François Couperin, dated 1714.

The notion of interpretation constantly raises the question of how to read a score, and therefore of the very subject matter of the score. Particularly in the Baroque period, and especially in the seventeenth-century, the score is but an infrastructure that the composer leaves behind to allow his work to be brought to life. One should not be led astray by it as you might by a trompel'œil; it lacks a great deal of information: nuances, instrumentation, ornaments, playing styles, etc. The majority of these composers thus leave the performers a great deal of latitude for the completion of their scores in order to bring them to back to life.