Les Accents

The French early music ensemble Les Accents have specialized in vocal and instrumental repertories of the 17th and 18th centuries, focusing on the oratorio and motet genres, and sometimes devoting themselves to meticulous re-creation of works and even entire musical events. The group have broadened the available repertory of Baroque Italian oratorios. Les Accents were formed in July 2014 at the International Festival of Baroque Opera at Beaune, France, as their director, Thibault Noally, assembled musicians to back a concert by soprano Gaëlle Arquez. They realized that there was a need for a historical-performance instrumental ensemble who specialized in Baroque music, and the following year they returned to Beaune for a new realization of the oratorio Il Trionfo della Divina Giustizia by Nicola Porpora. They performed a program of Italian motets at the Salle Gaveau in Paris later that year. Les Accents have also performed purely instrumental repertory, and in 2016 their concerts explored the little-known Venetian violin sonata, offering world premieres of works by Evaristo Dall'Abaco and Giuseppe Torelli. They also participated in a lush re-creation of Vivaldi's opera Tamerlano. Les Accents devoted much of 2017 to the music of Alessandro Scarlatti; they returned to Beaune for a full-scale re-creation of Scarlatti's opera Mitridate Eupatore, and later in the year joined other groups for performances of Scarlatti sacred works. The group have also performed music of the German Baroque period (Biber, Buxtehude, Pachelbel, and the Bach family), as well as French works (Leclair, Mondonville). They added Handel to their resumé in 2018, participating in a production of Handel's early Italian opera Rodrigo. Venetian instrumental repertory formed the basis for Les Accents' debut album, Venezia 1700, released in 2016 on the Aparte label. The group followed that up with Oratorio, featuring mezzo-soprano Blandine Staskiewicz in a program of Baroque oratorio.
© James Manheim /TiVo