Loulou Petite Pss

The 18th century was a time when deportment and noble behavior were essential for people of quality. Dance formed a major part of all social ceremonies and theatrical presentations. Nowhere was dancing more highly regarded than in France, where ballets de cour assumed great importance, and the Lullian tragedie en musique had its counterpart in the ballet en action of the opera-ballet. The Fantaisie (1729) and Plaisirs champetres (1734) of Jean-Fiery Rebel, reflecting the differing personalities of their prima ballerinas Camargo and Salle, have been called choreographic symphonies.

Neuer Blickwinkel Sigiswald Kuijken präsentiert mit La Petite Bande erneut eine Einspielung, die dank fundierter Recherche einen neuen Blick auf scheinbar altbekannte Musik bietet: Er führt diese Werke nämlich in einer reinen Quartett-Besetzung (zwei Violinen, Viola und Kontrabass) auf. Für Kuijken vermittelt diese Ausführung viel eher die lebendige, direkte Essenz dieser Musik als ein Kammerorchester. Mit dem Menuett KV 601 Nr. 3 bietet er zudem einen adäquaten Ersatz für den früh verlorengegangenen zweiten Satz der Serenade. Obwohl fünfzehn Jahre früher entstanden ergänzen die Divertimenti KV 136-138 hinsichtlich Besetzung, Leichtigkeit und Eingängigkeit Mozarts Eine kleine Nachtmusik von 1787 wunderbar.

This two-CD album brings together the two earliest recordings by La Petite Bande. They were made in 1973 and feature landmarks in two important French forms of entertainment—comedie-ballet and opera-ballet. Performed in 1670 at Chambord, one of Louis XIV's grandest country retreats, Le bourgeois gentilhomme was the high water mark of Lully's collaboration with Moliere and was to be the last work of its kind on which the two worked together. Moliere developed the comedie-ballet from the fashionable court ballets, working the dances and music into the body of the play with unparalleled skill. Lully, himself a dancer, proved a gifted partner as the music for Le bourgeois gentilhomme reveals.

Leonhardt gives a deeply felt, reverent and contemplative performance of the St Matthew Passion. It is beautifully played and sung; introspective yet intense, understated yet profound. This is a version completely lacking in flashy, extravagant gestures but it does rather strip the piece down to its so-deep soul.

The two works performed here are two that have never gone out of fashion, even in the days before the Bach revival, in the darkest times for his reputation, these works were recognized as masterworks and have never been out of the repertoire. La petite bande was founded by Sigiswald Kuijken in 1972. It is a period instruments ensemble which has come to be recognized as having the highest standard of performance in Bach and other composers as well.

The two works performed here are two that have never gone out of fashion, even in the days before the Bach revival, in the darkest times for his reputation, these works were recognized as masterworks and have never been out of the repertoire. La petite bande was founded by Sigiswald Kuijken in 1972. It is a period instruments ensemble which has come to be recognized as having the highest standard of performance in Bach and other composers as well.

These two symphonies were composed for Haydn's second visit to London, during the winter months of 1794-95. He knew the musicians for whom he was writing, and they were a virtuoso ensemble. Therefore these are among the largest scaled, most technically demanding among all his symphonies.

These two last symphonies by Haydn (beautifully performed here) crown a lifetime of musical experimentation and orchestral mastery. No. 103, as the title implies, begins with a drum solo–a shocking innovation at the time, and one which "excited the deepest attention" in contemporary audiences. The creepy introduction reappears just before the end of the first movement, and it's a strategy that Haydn's pupil Beethoven immediately copied in his famous Pathetique Piano Sonata. The London Symphony had a longer reach still: The finale of Brahms' Second Symphony pays affectionate homage to one famous passage, but all of this music is just as valuable for itself as for its impact on later generations.

Le Jugement de Midas (The Judgement of Midas) is a French comédie mêlée d'ariettes (a kind of opéra comique), in three acts by André Grétry dedicated to . It was first performed, with amateur singers, on 28 March 1778 in the private little theatre set up by Madame de Montesson in the apartments of her secret husband Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans at the Palais-Royal in Paris. Libretto is by the Irish playwright Thomas Hales (also known by the French name Thomas d'Hèle) with additional contributions by Louis Anseaume. It was based on the burlesque opera Midas (1760) by Kane O'Hara. The public premiere at the Comédie-Italienne took place on 27 June 1778.

The death of Georg Philipp Telemann in 1767 paved the way for his godson, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach to take up the position of Director of Music in Hamburg. Prior to that C P E Bach had been working for Frederick the Second of Prussia in Berlin but longed for a greater musical freedom and stylistic flexibility that working in Hamburg would offer him. This included the composition of three oratorios, including the one presented here. C P E Bach worked on The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus in collaboration with the librettist Karl Wilhelm Ramler from 1781, and in 1787 it was published by Breitkopf. A letter from the composer to his publisher subsequently revealed he considered it to be one of his greatest masterpieces—a reflection agreed upon by audiences at the time, and succeeding generations of composers, including Haydn and Beethoven who both drew inspiration from it.