Purcell, Dido And Aenes, Les Arts Florissants

When I founded my ensemble Les Arts Florissants in 1979, I knew at once that I wanted the battle I was launching to make the baroque repertory popular again to be fought not only in the concert hall but also through that wonderful weapon of seduction, recordings.

Following on logically from his complete cycle of Monteverdi madrigals, Paul Agnew – here both conductor and stage director – presents his intimate and ‘sacred’ version of the composer’s first opera (and the first great opera in musical history). In a fine collective spirit, the singers and instrumentalists of Les Arts Florissants participate in the drama on equal terms, mingling in a single set that gives increased prominence to the (masterly) lighting and to the protagonists (overwhelmingly moving in their restrained movements and expressions): we are transported to the very heart of Monteverdi’s masterpiece, as if we had fallen into a painting by Nicolas Poussin, caught up in the mystical adventure of two lovers more mythical than ever.

Ma rencontre avec la musique de Charpentier remonte à mes années d'études aux Etats-Unis, au cours desquelles mes professeurs avaient l'habitude de parler de cette musique et de la montrer. J'ai ainsi découvert le "Reniement de Saint-Pierre" dans une anthologie de musique religieuse…Je me souviens aussi avoir entendu du Charpentier chanté en traduction anglaise, parfois aussi en latin par certains chœurs de paroisses protestantes. C'est là que j'ai pris connaissance de la "Pastorale sur la naissance de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ".William Christie

Due to legal complications engineered by Jean-Baptiste Lully and effected by Louis XIV, Marc-Antoine Charpentier's brilliant incidental music for Molière's final comedy, Le Malade imaginaire (1672-1674), was subjected to two drastic revisions. Despite the composer's usual precautions and careful maintenance of his manuscripts, the work's ordering became confused and scores of two important sections – the "Premier intermède" and the "Petit opéra impromptu" – lost. Thanks to the work of musicologists John S. Powell and H. Wiley Hitchcock, the full work has been reconstructed from surviving parts and restored for performance. The 1990 recording by William Christie and Les Arts Florissants is the most complete and authoritative version available; but if that makes it seem stuffy and dry, then hearing the performance will come as a glorious surprise.

William Christie’s account on Erato is probably now a first recommendation… he has marshalled expert singers; Alan Ewing’s Polyphemus is particularly good, well characterized and spirited. Indeed, the whole performance is full of life and personality, and Christie holds everything together with finesse and grace.

With Le Jardin de Monsieur Rameau, William Christie invites us to take a pleasant walk in the beautiful garden of French vocal music from the XVIIIth Century. Featured composers include Rameau and his contemporaries, and the repertoire ranges from opera highlights and profane cantatas to instrumental interludes. Christie's program presents a vivid overview of the music that was played in Versailles at the peak of its splendor. The album's vocal soloists are young singers who took part in Le Jardin des Voix (The Garden of Voices) - a biannual musical academy led by William Christie and Paul Agnew that is designed to unveil the most promising talents of the coming generation.

For all the lovely recordings of the Mozart Requiem, KV 626 - and there are many fine ones that run the gamut of 'authoritative/authentic' performances to richly robust and romantic versions that ring the halls with operatic grandeur - this 1995 recording with William Christie conducting Les Arts Florissantes is one that is so richly rewarding to return to for its delicate yet soulful sincerity. The instruments are in keeping with the instruments of Mozart's time, and the choral technique is more straight toned than other more modern choruses. The soloists - Anna Maria Panzarella, soprano, Nathalie Stutzmann, alto, Christoph Pregardien, tenor, and Nathan Berg, bass - are all excellent, both as individuals and in quartet and combinations.

Guillaume Bouzignac (1690?-1743?) was not attached to the French Royal Court. His music was not published by Ballard, who held a royal monopoly on musical publication. He MAY have been a choirboy in Narbonne, a master of the choirboys in Grenoble, a musical servant of Henri Montmorency, governor of Languedoc at the time of the wars against the Huguenots, and a person of musical importance in the city of Tours, where the manuscript of these motets was discovered in 1905. That covers almost everything that's known about the composer outside of the very specific information about his musical thought contained in his works.

Is it fair to say that most born Frenchmen have considered themselves exceedingly fortunate in their nativity? Moi? I didn't enjoy such luck. Neither did Jean-Baptiste Lully, the favorite of Louis XIV and thus the tyrant of French music for thirty-four years. Lully was born in Florence in 1632, but carried to France as a youthful Ganymede; he entered the service of the Sun King in 1653 as a dancer, and he rose to a position of monopoly influence in Louis XIV's court despite his flagrant debauchery and libertine sexuality. Just as Louis declared, that 'he was the State,' Lully could well have said "French Music, it's me!"

“Christie's love-affair with Hippolyte informs every note of this mesmerising performance, transporting the listener from enchanting pastoral scenes to ominous, Stygian shores.” BBC Music Magazine