Meurtes au Potageur du Roy

Roman noir et gastronomique à Versailles au XVIIe siècle.
Château de Versailles, mai 1683. La mode est aux jardins. Louis XIV raffole des légumes primeurs : asperges, petits pois, melons… La Quintinie, directeur des jardins fruitiers et potagers royaux, en détient les secrets. …

Johann Sebastian Bach was an incredibly good "recycler" of his own music and reused much of what he had already composed in a different form. For the concerts of the Collegium Musicum, which had been taken over from Telemann, in the famous Caf Zimmermann, he needed a large number of instrumental pieces. This was also a special opportunity to perform music for up to four harpsichords - a field of experimentation that must have been extremely appealing to Bach as a legendary keyboard virtuoso.

Parmi les œuvres emblématiques de Versailles, les Symphonies pour les Soupers du Roi figurent au premier plan. Musiques d’un Palais convoquant un monde de passions, de caractères, d’intrigues, d’échos de batailles… ennobli par le faste des trompettes et des hautbois, elles résonnent jusqu’à nos jours comme les musiques du Plus Grand Roi du Monde. Certes, ce sont des « Musiques de Table » comme on en trouve ailleurs en Europe (le Banchetto Musicale de Schein en 1617, la Tafelmusik de Telemann en 1733), mais quel Prince peut aligner pour ce faire les 24 Violons du Roi, et les vents de sa royale Ecurie ? Avec le luxe d’un orchestre d’Opéra, voici Louis XIV mangeant en public chaque jour, un moment essentiel de la journée.

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.