Guest
D’un feu secret, by Michel Lambert (1610-1696) Cécile McLorin Salvant, voice Sullivan Fortner, harpsichord Dušan Balarin, theorbo In July 2023 MetLiveArts welcomed three-time GRAMMY®-winning jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant for a digital-exclusive performance in the Unicorn Tapestries Room at The Met Cloisters. For Salvant, also a skilled textile artist, the tapestries have been a source of inspiration. Much of her music relates vivid stories of mythical creatures—her acclaimed “Ogresse,” which tells of a fantastical, forest-dwelling monster-woman, premiered at The Met in 2018. Now, alongside several of her closest collaborators, Salvant creates a program that reimagines songs from her latest album, “Mélusine,” drawing on the beloved Unicorn Tapestries’ mythological grandeur and themes of corporeal and ethereal love. Salvant’s long relationship with Baroque music shines in this reinterpretation of an air de cour—the predominant secular vocal composition style of 17th-century France—by royal music master Michel Lambert (1610–1696). Like many airs de cour, “D’un feu secret” tells of love’s tender joys and fiery pains: “I could heal if I stopped loving altogether, but I like the disease more than the remedy.” Salvant is joined by two instruments that would have accompanied the air in its premiere: a theorbo (a type of French lute) and a harpsichord (featuring frequent collaborator Sullivan Fortner in his harpsichord debut). For more information and to view the full series of Salvant’s Cloisters performances, please visit Cécile McLorin Salvant appears courtesy of Nonesuch Records. Recorded on Wednesday, July 5, 2022 in the Unicorn Tapestries Room, Gallery 17, The Met Cloisters Subscribe for new content from The Met: #TheMet #Art #TheMetropolitanMuseumofArt #Museum © 2023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art
