Rameau: Les Fêtes D'hébé

Christophe Rousset and the Talens Lyriques bring us to the stage of the Royal Academy of Music where Pygmalion, an act of ballet by Jean-Philippe Rameau inspired by an episode of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was created in 1748. Love, showing empathy for Pygmalion's despair of loving a statue, invigorates the sculpted woman who immediately falls in love with her creator. Very suggestive, the music of this tender and mischievous ballet deploys the grace of 18th century dances. Like Ovid's Love, Christophe Rousset instils life in this score, one of Rameau's greatest successes in his day, and offers us, thanks to his sense of drama and his impeccable leadership, a new and essential reading of this ballet.

With Les Indes galantes by Jean-Philippe Rameau, György Vashegyi – along with his Orfeo Orchestra and Purcell Choir – makes a further dazzling addition to their Glossa series of French dramatic masterpieces from the Baroque, and in the company of a luxurious line-up of vocal soloists.

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.

The remarkable French harpsichordist Christophe Rousset tackles Rameau’s relatively unknown instrumental transcription of his popular opéra-ballet, Les Indes Galantes.
Christophe Rousset plays Rameau’s instrumental transcription of Les Indes Galantes on the stunning 18th century Jean-Henry Hemsch harpsichord. Public disapproval to the premiere of the opéra-ballet led to Rameau not only omitting the recitatives and its controversial passages, but to transcribing the whole work for instruments. He re-grouped the remaining pieces according to their keys into what he called ‘quatre grands concerts’ or concert suites.

Les fêtes de Paphos (The Festivals of Paphos) is an opéra-ballet in three acts (or entrées) by the French composer Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville. The work was described as a ballet héroïque on the title page of the printed score. Each act had a different librettist. Les fêtes de Paphos was first performed at the Académie royale de musique, Paris on 9 May 1758 and was a popular success. Mondonville recycled material from two of his previous operas for the first two acts, namely Erigone (1747) and Vénus et Adonis (1752), both originally composed for Madame de Pompadour's Théâtre des Petits Cabinets. The title of the work is explained in the preface to the printed score. Paphos was a city in Cyprus sacred to Venus, the goddess of love. "Reunited on the island of Paphos, Venus, Bacchus and Cupid decide to enliven their leisure in such a pleasant location by celebrating their first loves, and this gives rise to the following three acts and the title Les fêtes de Paphos."

I know of no Rameau work more colourful, more melodious, more replete with inventive vitality, wrote Gramophone in reviewing this 1973 premiere recording of the French Baroque masters 1735 heroic ballet Les Indes galantes. There is immense enthusiasm and spirit in this performance [and] some excellent singing Among the array of sopranos I was specially impressed by the full, bright ring of Rachel Yakar Anne-Marie Rodde: a good stylist and a clean, accurate voice, coping well with Rameaus florid detail The tenor Bruce Brewer is a real find for the lyrical French roles: his voice is very smooth and graceful In all, a set which no Rameau admirer should miss. Conducted by Rameau specialist Jean-Claude Malgoire, it is now being issued for the first time on CD.