Rameau Acante Cephise Cossenko

For his first album as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, 2021 International Chopin Competition winner Bruce Liu – “a pianist with a captivating musical personality” (Financial Times) – has compiled an enthralling survey of 200 years of French keyboard music, from Baroque to modern. The phenomenal young Canadian pianist has subtly adjusted the action of his instrument to highlight the differing musical styles. Gramophone’s reviewer acclaimed DG’s release of Liu’s Warsaw competition performances as “one of the most distinguished Chopin recitals of recent years, full of maturity, character and purpose”. The album’s title Waves alludes not only to the nature theme that runs throughout the programme, but also to the sheer spontaneity of Liu’s music-making.

Rameau on the piano? It's not altogether unheard of – there were a handful of classic recordings made by Robert Casadesus back in 1952 – but, despite many recordings of Bach, Handel, and Scarlatti on the piano in the digital age, there's been precious little Rameau on the piano until this Angela Hewitt recording of three complete suites from 2006. By choosing the Suite in E minor from the Pièces de clavecin of 1731 plus the Suites in G minor and A minor from Nouvelles suites de pièces de clavecin, Hewitt has for the most part stayed away from the more evocatively titled works and stuck to the standard stylized Baroque dance forms of the allemande, courante, and gigue. Justly celebrated for her cool and clean Bach recordings, this strategy works well for Hewitt. Without seeming to resort to the sustain or the mute pedal, she floats Rameau's lines and melodies, and without seeming to exaggerate the accents or dynamics, she gives Rameau's rhythms a wonderful sense of lift. In the deliberately evocative movements from the G minor Suite – "La poule," "Les sauvages," and especially "L'egiptienne" – Hewitt seems to bring less to the music – her interpretations are remarkably straight – and to get less out of it – her performances are remarkably bland.

In this new album, William Christie invites us to a wander in the vocal art of the 18th Century, at the time of Rameau and his contemporaries. These musical treasures, as with the famous gardens ‘à la française’, are closely linked to these times of splendour. The soloists come from the Jardin des Voix, the Arts Florissants’ Academy for young singers in which the most promising talents of the upcoming generation had the priviledge to work with the ensemble, before starting a worldwide tour of the most prestigious venues. This recording crowns their work.

My first encounter with Rameau came when I was seven years old. The piano was predominant in musical life in the Soviet Union at the time but Johann Sebastian Bach was the only composer to represent the baroque era. Ever-present in concert halls, his compositions were also the daily bread of young pianists in music school. My first teacher had been born in Paris and had a deep knowledge and strong sense of French culture, especially French literature. Thanks to him, I in turn fell in love with France in general and Rameau in particular, and Rameau has stayed with me ever since. I have always kept him in a corner of my mind without ever being able to play his music in public, because unfortunately concert organisers, including in France, then as now prefer composers better known to the general public.

For approaching a century and a half in France – across the reigns of Louis XIV, XV and XVI – the Palace of Versailles played host, both indoors and outdoors, for an extraordinary sequence of dramatic musical performances. Un Opéra pour trois rois, conducted by György Vashegyi, represents the legacy of that time, a specially constructed operatic entertainment drawn from works by composers from Lully to Gluck, commissioned – and even, on occasion, performed – by kings, their queens and inamoratas.

Like olives, artichokes, and more essentially and problematically, anchovies, Patricia Petibon's voice is an acquired taste. She is a high coloratura (up to E-flat), her technique is formidable, capable of great floridity and very fine breath control, she sings mostly without vibrato, and the tone can be so diamond-brilliant that it can grate, although for darker dramatic moments she can moderate the shine.

This limited edition presents three outstanding albums by Víkingur Ólafsson in a box set including additional fan content and deluxe packaging. With three albums on Deutsche Grammophon so far Ólafsson is known as one of the most exciting pianists of today and widely acknowledged for his “individuality of spirit and intelligence of execution” (Limelight Magazine).

Reinoud Van Mechelen and his ensemble A Nocte Temporis continue their ‘Haute-Contre Trilogy’ with Rameau’s favourite singer, Pierre de Jéliote, probably the finest haute-contre in history. (Reminder: this is a high tenor voice, not to be confused with the countertenor!) Rameau wrote an enormous amount of music for Jéliote, who was not only a singer but also a guitarist, a cellist and even a composer. The album pays tribute to this native of the Béarn region, who was born in 1713 and died at the ripe old age of eighty-four, with a selection of airs by Rameau (from Hippolyte et Aricie, Les Fêtes d’Hébé, Platée, Castor et Pollux, Les Boréades) but also by Dauvergne, Colin de Blamont, Mondonville, Rebel and Francoeur. Though some are well known, others are much more rarely performed today.