Rebel Bakes

After discovering François Francoeur's splendid orchestral pieces, the suites de Symphonies pour le festin royal de Monseigneur le Comte d'Artois, I was prompted by curiosity to play some of his magnificent violin sonatas in concert. This confirmed me in the conviction this violinist was undoubtedly one of the most appealing and gifted composers of 18th century France. Then it occurred to me to search his operatic output for the work or works most representative of his talents as an instrumentalist and orchestrator. The collections of the Bibliotheque Nationale soon convinced me that the 'more or less perfect pearl' was right in front of us: Piramé & Thisbé, a tragedie lyrique written in collaboration with his friend and associate François Rebel, three years his junior.

Baroque instrumental music often took the form of dance suites, which allowed considerable flexibility in the arrangement of minuets, sarabandes, gavottes, bourrées, chaconnes, allemandes, and courantes, mixed with character pieces and even scenic tableaux in the much larger presentations of court ballets. In Terpsichore: Apothéose de la Danse baroque, a splendid 2018 AliaVox release by Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations, works by Jean-Féry Rebel and Georg Philipp Telemann are compared side-by-side to indicate the commonality of practices at the time, as well as the variety of dance music in the hands of two different masters.

The discovery of Rebels (1666-1747) Dance Symphonies, a genre mixing dance and pantomime in which the narration is delivered by the dancer alone, was a defining moment in the passion of harpsichordist duo Loris Barrucand and Clément Geoffroy. Rebel, the author of a single Lyric Tragedy, Ulysse (1703), and Elémens (1737) a suite of symphonies famed for its initial Chaos, was first and foremost a composer of symphonies that were made to be danced. Among them is Les Caractères de la Danse (1715), an uninterrupted succession of fourteen dances that enjoyed a dazzling success. Remaining faithful to his time, Rebel intended for them to be played like a piece on the harpsichord.

I sette pezzi presentati in questo CD sono conservati in una singola collezione manoscritta datata 1725. I concerti testimoniano l'intensa raffinatezza di un genere ormai poco conosciuto: pezzi per flauto, due violini e basso continuo; una forma che mette efficacemente insieme le caratteristiche del solo sonata, trio sonata e concerto. Il manoscritto è conservato presso la biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica di San Pietro a Maiella di Napoli.

This double album offers a portrait of the violinist Amandine Beyer drawn from the recordings she has made for ZZT. The first CD selects highlights from her chamber repertoire, including works by Jean-Féry Rebel, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Nicola Matteis, and Robert de Visée. The second is devoted to the concerto, with compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and Arcangelo Corelli. This programme is an ideal introduction to the multiple facets of Amandine Beyer’s talent and to the grace and joie de vivre of her music-making. It also provides an opportunity to discover one of Corelli’s Concerti Grossi op.6, a preview of the complete set to be released on ZZT in the autumn of 2013.

First performed at Versailles in 1745, the opera ballet Zélindor is a delightful rococo pastorale which found favour with Louis XV’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour, no doubt because its story about a king who loves a commoner reflected her own situation. Opera Lafayette’s 2007 revival was hailed as “brilliant” by The Washington Post, which praised the soloists, headed by Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, and chamber chorus who “sang with a gusto matched by the orchestra’s rhythmic pungency”. This is the work’s world première recording with full orchestra and chorus.

An audacious Boulezian cluster explodes at the beginning of Éléments, simphonie nouvelle, a wordless ballet composed in 1737 by Jean-Féry Rebel in memory of the opera-ballet Les Élements composed by André Cardinal Destouches and Michel Richard de Lalande whose performance was directed by Rebel at the Palais des Tuileries in 1721 when a young Louis XV danced on stage in imitation of his great-grandfather, the Sun King, Louis XIV. While it was declared boring by the eleven-year-old dancing king, the work was nonetheless replayed four times the following year and was the last court ballet in France. Revised by its authors, it became very popular throughout Louis XV’s reign.

A powerful performance of French baroque by Rebel and Marais from the popular Palladians.
'The music making is gratifyingly direct – gripping, animated, and sometimes positively visceral' (International Record Review).

Les trois oeuvres enregistrées ici sont "Tombeau de M. de Lulli" (1695), "Les Caractères de la Danse" (1715) & "Les Elémens" (1737). La première est un vibrant hommage à celui qui fut le "mentor" de Rebel. Ecrite pour ensemble instrumental, cette pièce aux caractères changeants adopte une ritournelle déchirante qui réapparait entre chaque mouvements rapides. Les deux dernières sont des "symphonies chorégraphiques" où les mouvements de danses ont une place de choix (notamment dans les "Caractères de la Danse" ; le public de l'époque était friand de ces pièces ("Courante", "Chaconne", "Rigaudon", "Passepied"…)). Le "Prélude" des "Elémens" est une représentation du "Chaos", dont le tout premier accord est une des pages les plus célèbres de son auteur.

The recording is entirely devoted to French Baroque composer Jean-Féry Rebel and comprises some of his most admirable ballet music, along with the enigmatic suite Les Elemens.
The orchestra was awarded two Opus Prizes in January 2007 (voted by the Conseil québécois de la musique) for this program, which was featured in Arion’s 2006 activities. One Prize was for the ‘Concert of the Year in Montreal’ and the other for the ‘Concert of the Year, Music of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque eras’.