La Naissance d'Osiris (Osiris birth) was performed in 1754 at the birth of Louis XVI in Fontainebleau. Rameau composed the one-act ballet based on a libretto by Louis de Cahusac, who has already provided the libretto for numerous other works by Rameau (Zoroastre, Anacréon, Les Fêtes de l'hymen et de l'Amour …). The piece depicts the birth of the goddess Osiris and symbolizes the birth of the grandson of Louis XV.
Written at the request of Louis XIV in honour of his sisterin- law, Henrietta of England, Le Ballet royal de la naissance de Vénus was performed in 1665 with Henrietta herself as the goddess of love and youth. In twelve entrées, this grandiose spectacle, combining dancing, music and poetry, served the power of the king, while attesting to the magnificence of his court. Musically very inventive, it shows the culmination of the ballet genre, on which Lully was to draw in creating the tragédie en musique. To complete the programme, excerpts from Les Amours déguisés (Armida’s famous lament “Ah! Rinaldo, e dove sei?”), Psyché, Le Bourgeois gentil homme and Le Carnaval - from the latter, a piece recycled from Les Noces de village, a burlesque aria sung by the boastful village schoolmaster Barbacola, a basso buffo role that Lully wrote for himself.
The Deutsche Schalmey has occupied a shadowy place in music history, not quite a shawm, not quite an oboe. This disk gives it a real existence, and presents it very pursuasively, with well played, idiomatic music. The sound is what you would expect with characteristics of the oboe and shawm mixed together.
Written at the request of Louis XIV in honor of his sister-in-law, Henrietta of England, Lully's Le Ballet royal de la naissance de Vénus was performed in 1665 with Henrietta herself as the goddess of love and youth. This grandiose spectacle combining dancing, music and poetry, served the power of the king, while attesting to the magnificence of his court. Musically very inventive, it shows the culmination of the ballet genre. The recording, from Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques is completed by excerpts from Les Amours déguisés, Psyché, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and Le Carnaval.
To create a sense of the Venetian liturgical celebrations attendant on the birth of Louis XIV in 1638, Benjamin Chénier and the Galilei Consort have constructed a sumptuous performance from various works composed by Giovanni Gabrieli, Giovanni Rovetta, Giovanni Antonio Rigatti, Claudio Monteverdi, and Giovanni Bassano. Rovetta had been chosen by Louis XIII to assemble the singers and instrumentalists, and his Kyrie, Gloria, and Credo from the Messa e Salmi Concertati form the core of this historical simulation, which is completed by a Sanctus and Agnus Dei by Rigatti, and various instrumental pieces and motets.
Hugo Reyne décide, en 1987, de fonder un ensemble dont la vocation est la redécouverte du patrimoine musical français des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Le nom qu´il lui choisit réunit le mot simphonie, synonyme à cette époque d´ensemble instrumental, et le Marais, l´un des plus beaux quartiers de Paris, représentatif de la période baroque.
Chronologically, this programme of music for wind ensemble is framed by Darius Milhaud’s La création du monde, a ballet score from 1923, and the composer Anders Emilsson’s Salute the band, commissioned for the 2006 centenary of the Swedish Wind Ensemble. The remaining four compositions are all concertante works, featuring the French saxophone virtuoso Claude Delangle. The disc opens with Catch Me If You Can, based on a film score by John Williams, inspired by the progressive jazz movement of the 1960s. Jazz was an important source of inspiration for Milhaud as well, but in the case of La création – a retelling of an African creational myth – it was the kind of jazz that he heard in Harlem during a visit to New York in the early 1920’s.