Already in ancient times people played with the proximity of love and war. Thus the goddess of love Venus deceives her husband Vulcanus with the god of war Mars, and the Roman poet Ovid writes in his Amores the winged word: "Militat omnis amans" (Every lover is a soldier in war). These conditions were also reflected musically in modern times, when the masters of the 16th century emphasized sometimes more the warlike, sometimes more the amorous playfulness of love in their works. In its latest album for COVIELLO, the Ensemble thélème also unfolds a fascinating panorama of musical states of mind of past times. The ensemble thélème specializes in the performance of early music. thélème, founded in 2013 by Artistic Director, Jean-Christophe Groffe, is largely made up of musicians who graduated from the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. The name of the ensemble refers to the utopia described by François Rabelais at the end of his novel Gargantua. Thélème is a hexagonal five-story Renaissance chateau built with precious materials. At Thélème, there is no outer wall, no clock. What is the point of worrying what time it is when we are not dependent on time, when we decide ourselves when we will get up, eat, work, or dedicate ourselves to the pleasure of conversation? The name alone says it all: the Greek “thelo” means “I want”, so thélème can be translated as “free will”.
