Rohff Sérieux

In Serieux Comme le Plaisir, two men and a woman live quite happily together in a romantic liaison. The woman is probably wealthy anyway, so the trio doesn't worry much about money. One day they decide to take a trip in their beat-up car, managing the whole affair in their own special, insouciant manner. They are followed by a suspicious policeman who thinks there's something fishy about this group. As part of their play they tie the girl up, apparently leaving her behind, but she adamantly refuses to be rescued and heaps abuse on anyone who tries, including the hapless policeman. At some point she goes off with an Eastern monarch, leaving her lovers behind. She returns, and soon the trio is once again sniping at puzzled interlopers, playfully going about their business of confusing everyone. Later on in the film they are seen depositing their son at school where he is awaited by two young girls.

With this third part of the "Airs sérieux et à boire", the Arts Florissants return to the subtle genre that shaped the French musical landscape for more than a century.

In 1724, Sébastien de Brossard hailed Jean-Baptiste Drouard de Bousset as ‘indisputably the best of our composer-authors’. Although, at the beginning of the 18th century, the Master of Music at the Académies des Sciences et des Inscriptions imposed himself as the unquestionable leader of the genre, his 875 airs sérieux are little known nowadays and deserve to be brought back into the light. Such is the desire of Elizabeth Dobbin and the ensemble Le Jardin Secret, who recreate with artistry and intelligence the ‘noble, pleasant and natural’ songs of the composer, described by Titon du Tillet in his Parnasse françois (1732).

With this anthology of 'airs sérieux' and 'airs à boire' of the Grand Siècle, Les Arts Florissants launches a new series on harmonia mundi. We can listen to the tracks on this disc as contemporaries turned the pages of successful collections of songs, alternating between invocations to Bacchus and invitations to love. Around William Christie at the harpsichord and his musicians, five singers offer multiple combinations of close-knit voices. From the intimacy of the salons to the liveliness of court banquets, these airs, models of refined skill, make light of the paradoxes of our hearts – for as an air by Lambert tells us: ‘Though Love creates all my grief / I wish to love and to die loving.’

If music be the food of love…With this second volume of airs sérieux and airs à boire, William Christie continues his exploration of this vast repertory of song settings of lyric and pastoral poetry, here focussing on such masters of the genre as Boesset, Moulinié, Lambert, and Le Camus. Presented by his expert team of singers and instrumentalists, these exquisite miniatures – amongst which is ingeniously interspersed Charpentier’s charming Pastoraletta – reveal all the nuances of the being in love. A delightful compendium enhanced by the superb artistry of the performers.

If music be the food of love…With this second volume of airs sérieux and airs à boire, William Christie continues his exploration of this vast repertory of song settings of lyric and pastoral poetry, here focussing on such masters of the genre as Boesset, Moulinié, Lambert, and Le Camus. Presented by his expert team of singers and instrumentalists, these exquisite miniatures – amongst which is ingeniously interspersed Charpentier’s charming Pastoraletta – reveal all the nuances of the being in love. A delightful compendium enhanced by the superb artistry of the performers.