Marin (2007)

C'est à partir d'un “Avertissement” de Marin Marais lui-même, dans son IIe livre de pièces de viole (1701), qu'est née l'idée de cet enregistrement tout à fait original et inédit. En effet, il y invite les musiciens à ne pas jouer le pièces de viole seulement sur la viole : “J'ai eu attention en les composant à les rendre propres pour être joués sur toutes sortes d'instruments comme l'orgue, clavecin, théorbe, luth, violon, flûte allemande…”, et prié les interprètes de “se donner la peine de les mettre sur chaque instrument en particulier”. Il ajoute, dans l'“Avertissement” de son IIIe livre : “Il ne s'agira que d'en savoir faire le choix pour chacun des instrument” (et) remplir le vide entre le sujet et la basse afin de ne pas faire de mauvais sons, ce qui est une règle très essentielle à l'harmonie.”

In 1813, a month before his 21st birthday and three years before his Barber of Seville, Rossini had his one-act farsa Il Signor Bruschino premiered at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice. It was not well received, although its overture, with the second violins tapping their music-stands with their bows, has become popular. The cast is strong, with Samuel Ramey providing the most potent performance as the duped guardian Gaudenzio. Claudio Desderi weaves through the absurd plot as the ridiculous figure of the elder Bruschino with a great deal of character, although the sound is somewhat threadbare at times. Frank Lopardo as the lovelorn Florville, pretending to be the young Bruschino, has a splendid, mellifluous tenor.

French Baroque composer Marin Marais is primarily known for his inward-looking viol music, but he also worked as a "measure beater" at the Académie royale de musique, the institution that evolved into the Paris Opéra, and he wrote vocal music of various kinds, as well. This disc presents instrumental excerpts from Marais' 1709 opera Sémélé. These excerpts are dances, marches, and slightly longer orchestra passages "symphonies," "préludes," an overture, and "entreés" for groups of personages that appear on-stage in the opera.

Viele versuchen es, aber wenige erreichen es: das Kunststück, als Popkünstler und Alte-Musik-Experten zu gleicher Zeit authentisch zu wirken. Dass sie zu denen gehört, die es erreicht hat, macht Hille Perl zur Ausnahmekünstlerin. Mögen sie und ihr Partner Lee Santana sich auch inszenieren – in ihrem Spiel gelingt der stets schwarz gekleideten Rotweinliebhaberin eine so vollkommen natürliche Verbindung zwischen Sinnlichkeit und melancholischer Endzeitbetrachtung, dass moderne und barocke Lebenslust, heutige Weltflucht und barockes Memento mori zu einem Lebensgefühl zu verschmelzen scheinen.

This disc presents a the music of a group of French musicians who throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries painted each other’s portraits, or their self-portraits, generally with considerable wit. We know that they were familiar with each other, and many of them are described in works bearing their names, or in tributes such as tombeaux. Thus Rameau, in his Pièces de clavecin en concerts, made fun of himself, and then offered his personal vision of Marin Marais and Forqueray.

Compositeur, pédagogue et joueur de basse de viole à la cour, Marin Marais haussa le jeu de la viole soliste au plus haut niveau de raffinement. Il composa plus de cinq cents pièces, toutes annotées avec précision, sur lesquelles se mesurèrent tous les joueurs de viole de l’époque. Il publia cinq livres pour cet instrument dont certains en duo ou trio.

For his latest recording directing Le Concert Spirituel, Hervé Niquet has revived Sémélé by Marin Marais – the final opera by one of the leading composers from the reign of Louis XIV. Known above all for his compositions for the viola da gamba, Marais the composer was at the same time the author of a number of tragédies lyriques which he wrote for the Académie royale de Musique. Even to this day it has only been Alcyone which has attracted the attention of music lovers and musicians. Yet Sémélé – first performed in 1709 – arrives now full of music to charm and seduce the listener: a sparkling prologue honouring Bacchus, a set of arias with a freshly-minted appeal, a marvellously inventive diabolical scene, divertissements rich in character; all this leading up to an earthquake scene memorably anticipating the later work of Rameau.

The April 26, 1784 Paris Opera premiere of this work was still noted under the name of the composer actually commissioned to compose it, Ch.W. Gluck, but it soon came out that in reality, the 33-year-old assistant to Gluck (who had suffered a stroke), Antonio Salieri, had written the work “in tutto”. The sensation was perfect, and due to Salieri’s success, French opera underwent a significant development. For beginning with Gluck’s operatic style, Salieri managed with “Danaïdes” to make the transition from number opera to the dramatically more consequent through-composed scenic opera. The Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele production, recorded here under studio conditions, follows historical performance practice and presents the opera in nearly uncut form.

To celebrate its 50th Anniversay, harmonia mundi presents 50 masterworks in the development of Western classical music, performed by undisputed masters in their field. This set features over 36 hours of music (all complete works, no excerpts) of music in audiophile-quality sound, elequently packaged in a deluxe boxed set and offered at a very low price. Whether you are an inquisitive novice or a discerning connoisseur, you will be thrilled to experience the sonic triumphs of the world's most innovative independent label.