Les Arts Florissants; William Christie director, harpsichord, organ ; Lucía Martín-Cartón soprano ; Ana Quintans soprano ; Théo Imart countertenor ; Jacob Lawrence tenor ; Giacomo Nanni bass-baritone ; Luigi De Donato bass

William Christie leads Les Arts Florissants, the ensemble he founded in 1979, in two works for Holy Week. Giacomo Antonio Perti, born in Bologna in 1661, was in his late teens when he composed the first of his many oratorios. Oratorio della Passione, created in 1685 and revised several times thereafter, paints a vivid, deeply moving portrait of the scene at Jesus’s tomb, while Luigi Rossi’s Oratorio per la Settimana Santa is a dramatic blend of recitative, instrumental interludes and choral numbers that projects the Passion story’s overwhelming human emotions.