Bourgeois

Brent Bourgeois was one half of the equation known as Bourgeois Tagg, a pop/rock band who had a small number of hits in the mid/late 80's, including "Mutual Surrender (What A Wonderful World" and "I Don't Mind At All". Critics were comparing Bourgeois to Paul McCartney and Todd Rundgren. As the band were preparing to record a third album, Bourgeois kindly left them to pursue a solo career. Some felt the huge success of "I Don't Mind At All" would lead to greater success for him. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way.

Thomas-Louis Bourgeois (1676–1751) is one of the masters of the French chamber cantata at the time of the Régence, when – at last – it was permissible to introduce Italian influences openly in France. His imaginative music, as elegant as it is compositionally skillful, forms a welcome complement to the works of contemporaries such as Campra or Rameau who are infinitely better known today. Carolyn Sampson and Le Concert Lorrain revive for us the charming insouciance of the Régence.

Bourgeois was born in Hainault, which today is a province of Belgium. Between 1700 and 1705 he was active as a church musician in Toul and Strasbourg, then went to Paris to sing as an haute-contre in the Académie Royale de Musique. He also gave music lessons and published his first compositions: a book with chamber cantatas and two ballet operas. In 1721 he was in charge of the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. He was forced to leave because of financial mismanagement, and went to The Hague, where he headed the French theatre.