Rameau - Les Indes Galantes – William Christie, Les Arts Florissants

 

Release Date: 12/09/1992   Label: Harmonia Mundi Number of discs: 3 Composer: Jean-Philippe Rameau Performer: William Christie, Les Arts Florissants  cd info/ buy

Review:

The music of Les Indes Galantes is absolutely beautiful, although the libretto is a bit under par. The plot of the opera consists of a prologue (predictably, with a cupid), followed by four discrete scenes. Each of these scenes is dealing with characters who, in the view of a medieval Frenchman, were exotic and even "savage." In the sequence of appearance, these include Turks, Peruvian Incas, Persians and the American Indians (the latter are referred to merely as "savages" but the geographic location gives some idea as to who they are). The stories are implausible, but they were not intended to be taken literally; rather, they were intended as something of an esopian fable, illustrating the victory of love over force and discord. The music is gorgeous and full of rhythm and colour and the singing in this performance is excellent. Many of the great Baroque performers appear on this disc - Sandrine Piau, Isabelle Poulenard, Howard Crook, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, Bernard Delétré, Claron McFadden, Nicolas Rivenq and Noémi Rime. Christophe Rousset plays the harpsichord continuo - he had not yet made a career for himself as a conductor at this time.  Christie is in the forefront of the movement toward historically informed period performances of baroque. As a result, his recordings are almost invariably the best. Everyone should get acquainted with Christie's work. I can't think of any other conductor who would be as capable of capturing your heart and turning you into a baroque afficionado as William Christie.

 

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Jean-Philippe Rameau - Dardanus – Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre

 

Release Date: May 9, 2000 Label: Archiv Produktion Number of discs: 2 Composer: Jean-Philippe Rameau Performer: Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre  cd info/ buy

Review:

If there was any composer who could fit music to the special effects called for by the conventions of the French baroque tragédie lyrique, it was Jean-Philippe Rameau (patron saint of the late bloomers, who composed his first operatic masterpiece, Hippolyte et Aricie, at age 50). In the lesser-known Dardanus, Rameau's librettist provided plenty of such opportunities. In fact, he curiously goes beyond the French Age of Reason penchant for Greek myth by inventing his own prehistory for the mythic hero Dardanus (eventual founder of Troy). The story of rival factions, divine interventions, and love triumphing over obstacles political and personal clearly inspired some of Rameau's most adventurous musical evocations (just one example might be the fascinating harmonic language he uses to depict a magician commanding an eclipse). It's this spirit of daring experiment that Rameau expert Marc Minkowski relishes throughout this magnificent, high-octane, deftly tailored account. He fires the authentic-instrument group Les Musiciens du Louvre into his customary whiplash speeds, which are just perfect for the air of martial excitement that prevails, while the many dance-centered numbers have a muscular grace. The result in general is some of his best work to date on disc, with a special emphasis on the through line of the score. The cast is spectacular--young in demeanor, passionate, and superbly fluent in the idiom. Consider the vocal acting of Véronique Gens as the conflicted heroine Iphise (in love with her father's enemy), with its rich emotional involvement; there's an exciting chemistry between her and the title hero John Mark Ainsley, who gently tapers his vibrato into a beautifully nuanced tenor--now forlorn and outcast, now assertively heroic. Less satisfying is Laurent Naouri's inconsistently projected lower range as the antihero Anténor. The chorus has been beautifully prepared. For this recording, Minkowski uses Rameau's original 1739 version, with some interpolations of especially compelling material from the slimmed-down 1744 revision. --Thomas May Performer: Veronique Gens, John Mark Ainsley, Laurent Naouri, Jean-Philippe Courtis, Magdalena Kozena, et al. Orchestra: Les Musiciens du Louvre Conductor: Marc Minkowski

 

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Jean-Philippe Rameau - Platee – Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens Du Louvre

 

Release Date: January 27, 1992 Label: Erato Number of discs: 2 Composer: Jean-Philippe Rameau Performer: Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre cd info/ buy

Review:

Even the most committed Rameau collector may admit that some of his (mythological, pastoral, supernatural, etc.) plots are less than gripping for today's audiences, however richly he served them in musical terms. Platée, however, is a wicked comedy that has kept its bite, and that Rameau appears particularly to have relished setting to music. It has in abundance everything that's most engaging in this most engaging of composers: invention, color, pathos, wit, charm and surprise. Marc Minkowski seems to have something of a Midas touch. He has given us some of the best available performances of Händel and Rameau and - who knows, prompted perhaps by the sending-up of Olympus in Platée - has gone on since to give us an excellent Belle Hélène, indeed with one or two of the same singers in a successful new take on "crossover." This set is, in my opinion, one of the finest ever recordings of baroque opera and should be acquired while it's still available. Jennifer Smith's performance as La Folie alone is worth the price, and is just one of an abundance of musical and comic gems, from a love song to an owl ("le plus beau des hiboux" - Jupiter in disguise, of course) to a chorus of enquiring frogs.

 

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Jean-Philippe Rameau - Castor et Pollux - Harnoncourt, Concentus Musicus Wien

 

Release Date: May 11, 1993 Label: Teldec Number of discs: 3 Composer: Jean-Philippe Rameau Performer: Harnoncourt, Concentus Musicus Wien cd info/ buy

Review:

What is so transcendental about this performance goes far beyond the application of "performance practices" and use of period instruments: the unanimity of approach; the profound and intimate understanding of the music's rhetorical language - its gesture and space as conceived by Harnoncourt and executed by the entire ensemble; the sublime nuances and instant turns of phrase; the suavity; the color and drama; the sense of dance - from playful to haunting and fiery --- and everything in between; the gloriously spontaneous sound of the ensemble ornamentation; subtle use of notes inegal. The vocal soloists seem beautifully suited to their roles - expressive, colorful. The Stockholm Chamber Choir is magical -- perfectly in tune and extraordinarily responsive to each text setting (blending wonderfully with the orchestra as well). One would be hard-pressed to find an early-music ensemble (or any ensemble) present in a more fluent, longing and ultimately triumphant reading as that of the closing grand Chaconne and ensuing chorus. As I recall, this was something of a revolutionary recording for the Concentus Musicus Wien as well - using crescendo/diminuendo bowing and other baroque techniques more boldly than in previous recordings.

 

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Rameau - Anacreon - William Christie, Les Arts Florissants

 

Release Date: December 16, 1992 Label: Harmonia Mundi Number of discs: 1 Composer: Jean-Philippe Rameau Performer: William Christie, Les Arts Florissants cd info/ buy

Review:

Anacreon was an ancient Greek poet, noted for his relish of the pleasures of life, amorous and bibulous as well as literary and musical. He lived to a great age and retained his appetites and his capacities. The eighteenth century, a period that naturally sympathized with such a figure, took him up: London had its Anacreontic Society, poets wrote and composers set Anacreontic Odes, and the French wrote divertissements about him, Rameau composed two such: one in 1754, the other three years later, and it is the latter of these, originally designed as an acte de ballet to replace another in a revival of his Les surprises de l'Amour, that is recorded here. Rameau's second Anacréon, to a libretto by P.-J. Bernard, deals with the poet's dual loyalties to Bacchus and Cupid, their conflict and their resolution, with his desertion of his beloved, Lycoris, symbolizing his brief allegiance to Bacchus alone. A rather feeble plot, to be sure, but it scarcely matters: what Rameau wanted was a few good pegs on which to hang music of varied emotional content, and that is duly provided. The music, though nowhere near Rameau at his greatest, is characteristic and charming; among its high points are the expressive récit for Anacréon when the followers of Bacchus put Cupid to flight and sunder him from Lycoris, the dialogue for Anacréon and Cupid in Scene 3, the air in Scene 4 for Anacréon with choral interpolations, and the triumphal air for Cupid at the end, when he (or she) invites Bacchus to power-sharing. And there are some typically original and colorful ballet sequences, of which the concluding one is perhaps the most striking. The performance here is as stylish as we know to expect from William Christie's group, Les Arts Florissants. René Schirrer, who sings the title role, is capable but not quite so smooth or graceful as one might hope; it sounds a shade more effortful than it ought ideally be. But then, Anacréon is meant to be fairly elderly when the action takes place. Cupid, on the other hand, is greeted on his first appearance "C'est la voix d'un enfant", and indeed the voice is somewhat childlike: I should have preferred the simplicity of a Judith Nelson or an Emma Kirkby (deceptive simplicity though it may be) to this rather more self-conscious singing. Still, these are minor objections, counsels of perfection, and should not give pause to any Ramellian who wants to acquire this rarity. S.S.

 

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