Michel Pepe La Purete de L'esprit (2016)

The French cantata had a brief, but vibrant life during the first three decades of the 18th century. Beginning with Morin's first book in 1706, there followed dozens of books of cantatas by a number of French composers. Clerambault, Boismortier, Rameau and Monteclair all published cantatas during this period. Monteclair may by relatively unknown, but he was a composer of undoubted talent if judged by the works on this recording…If you like the French baroque, do yourself a favor and try to buy this recording. It is a high point in the art of the cantata, and in the musicianship of William Christie and his colleagues.

In its day La scuola de’ gelosi (1778) was one of the best-known comic operas by Antonio Salieri (1750–1825), remaining a box-office hit for decades. All the more astonishing is the fact that it could sink into obscurity. Even Goethe was excited by this masterpiece: “The opera is the audience’s favourite, and the audience is right. It contains an astonishing richness and variety, and the subject is treated with the most exquisite taste. I was moved by every aria.” In the wake of its world premiere in Venice in 1778, La scuola de’ gelosi was performed in opera houses all over Europe, from Dresden, Vienna, Prague and Paris to cities as far away as London and St Petersburg, before it passed into near-oblivion.

Récit de la vie en France au XVIIe siècle, qui est celui de l'invention du patriotisme, du sens de l'Etat, de la pression fiscale, de l'armée permanente et des grandes manufactures, celui de la raison raisonnante avec Descartes, du bien parler, des bienséances, de la gastronomie française et de la presse d'opinion, mais aussi celui de l'absolutisme et du jansénisme. …