Les Fondamentau

John Eliot Gardiner has proved himself a doughty champion of the later French Baroque, cultivating credible performing methods and unearthing undeservedly neglected repertoire. … "Les Boreades" recorded in 1982. Viewed by many as one of the greatest of Rameau's operas, the score is both dramatically effective and a riot of orchestral colour. Gardiner conducts with a real feeling for the way in which instrumental timbre underpins the drama, while in a strong cast Philip Langridge is both stylish and superbly theatrical as Abaris.

Grands motets, requiring lavish vocal and instrumental resources, always signalled important occasions at the French court. Until the advent of public concerts in Paris in the 1720s they were performed exclusively by the king's musicians for the court. Olivier Schneebeli has assembled an admirable survey of these large-scale settings of psalm texts, which were excerpted and arranged to convey doubles entendres flattering to Louis XIV and his policies. The music employs an orchestra with a full continuo complement, a choir and a petit choeur of soloists that relies on high male voices. The only concession to modern times is the use of sopranos instead of castrati in the top part and the inclusion of girls among the pages.