Rameau Acante Cephise Cossenko

The latest in Hervé Niquet's 'reinvigorations' of French operatic music from the Baroque and beyond for Glossa is Rameau’s 1747 'Les Fêtes de l’Hymen et de l’Amour'. A ballet heroïque in a prologue and three entrées, the whole work was designed to comprise a complete theatrical spectacle. Music for dancing – as befits a ballet – is given a prominent role and Rameau is able to create especially expressive symphonies and to give the choruses – even a double-chorus – an integral role in the action. Added to this are supernatural effects, and plots for the entrées which explored the then uncommon world of Egyptian mythology (including a musical depiction of the flooding of the River Nile).

Pieter-Jan Belder has made over 100 recordings, including the complete Telemann Tafelmusik for Brilliant Classics, and this set is part of his project to record all of Rameau’s keyboard music. On this 3CD set are Rameau’s great sets of pieces for keyboard – Pièces de Clavecin en Concerts of 1741, the Pièces de Clavecin of 1705 and 1724, and the Nouvelle Suites de Pièces de Clavecin of 1726. In the centuries that have passed since his death in 1764, he has been consistently praised by composers such as Debussy (‘A composer I cannot recommend strongly enough is Rameau’ he wrote in 1903), Hindemith, Tartini, D’Indy, and Gluck – what a variety! All wrote of their indebtedness to him, and acknowledged his influence.

Platée was one of the most highly regarded of Rameau's operas during his lifetime. It even pleased critics who had expressed hostility to his musical style during the Querelle des Bouffons (an argument over the relative merits of French and Italian opera). Melchior Grimm called it a "sublime work" and even Rameau's bitter enemy Jean-Jacques Rousseau referred to it as "divine". The reason for this praise may be because these critics saw Platée, a comic opera, paving the way for the lighter form of opera buffa they favoured.

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.

J. P. Rameau - Les Boréades & Dardanus (Suites) - Frans Brüggen, The Orchestra of the 18th Century
Classical | APE + Cue | 1 CD, covers, booklet | 245 MB RS
Philips - 10/1990

"A mythic tale of a young queen who chooses to abdicate her throne rather than be forced into a marriage with a descendant of Boreas, god of the North Wind.
Les Boréades was abandoned in rehearsals at the Paris Opera in 1763 for reasons unclear to this day. Rameau died the following year and the work disappeared from puplic view."

"Dardanus was first performed at the Académie de musique in Paris on November 19, 1739. It received 26 performances, mainly because of the support from Rameau's followers in the dispute between the styles of Rameau and Lully.
Critics accused Rameau's original opera of lacking a coherent plot. The inclusion of the sea monster also violated the French operatic convention of having a clear purpose for encounters with supernatural beings."

Les Paladins is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau first performed on 12 February 1760. The author of the libretto is unknown, but it has been attributed to Duplat de Monticourt. Rameau called Les Paladins a comédie lyrique....

Glorious music brilliantly played and vividly recorded, this recording of suites from three of Jean-Philippe Rameau's operas by Roy Goodman and the European Union Baroque Orchestra is as fine a disc of French Baroque orchestral music as has ever been issued. The wit and élan that Goodman and his Orchestra bring to Rameau is infectious. The listener finds himself smiling at Pigmalion's Les différence caractéres de la danse and laughing at Platée's Air pour des fous gais et de fous trietes.