Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)

[MickyD]

I bought that Savall 2-SACD Rameau Suites set on release (2011)....enjoyable yes, but I find it a bit overdone sometimes - heavy-footed and rather closely recorded, compared to the spacious purity of sound on the Bruggen/Philips discs which (especially on the Decca Originals Indes Galantes remaster) has a particular tonal quality which I can only describe as "reaching into the spiritual" - which is for me what so distinguishes Bruggen's Rameau from most others. The Netherlands halls' acoustics also matched the music very well. (Which they didn't always in later Haydn or Beethoven tapings from the same artists).

In a piece like Air pour les amants et les amantes, to my ears he carries more lift and light, more schwung through the dances too. The individual Glossa sets seemed to me, to be even more exceptional. They take me.. somewhere else...
But then, I almost always feel a special connection to anything Bruggen creates.

Try comparing Bruggen/Savall in other Indes Galantes movements - you may hear what I mean. That lovely airiness to the flutes...so distinctive of the O18thC/Bruggen sound world.

The Savall is physically exciting and immediate, but seems to remain in the secular, quotidian...

I should have followed up D2k2's mention of the Rameau/Currentzis The Sound of Light - as HD implies, it was my 2014 Record of the Year and is a stunning one-off, a far-flung outlier - as extreme, individual and intense a take on Rameau's sci-fi universe as you could ever imagine!
May the force be with you...

I could never call any recording of Savall's 'quotidian', least of all this one.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I could never call any recording of Savall's 'quotidian', least of all this one.

Neither could I. And, now that I've looked up what it means, I never would.

[Nick Armstrong]

Neither could I. And, now that I've looked up what it means, I never would.

Oh very good, Oscar

Will definitely try and catch these. It was a previous COTW (in the ‘90s) on Rameau (esp Tristes apprêts from Castor et P) that made me a fan...

[Richard Barrett]

I quite agree, Richard. I am lucky enough to have grabbed hold of the Leonhardt "Zais" when it first appeared in the early 80s. It cost me a fortune - a fellow Ramellian brought me a copy from Paris to London. I understand it is now as rare as hen's teeth. There has of course since been a newer version from Rousset, but I wonder how that compares...I haven't heard it yet.

I've just started listening to it now. The weirdly disjointed Ouverture sounds excellent. I'll dig out the Leonhardt to make a comparison some time. So far so good though.

edit: halfway through now, time for bed. Wonderful! It might just be a bit closely recorded for your liking, Micky...

[jayne lee wilson]

Remember the pioneers......

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/rameau-opera-suites-collegium-aureum/0054727742026

This must have been one of the earliest Stereo Rameau recordings (1964/67) and was the first CD I ever bought of the music - although I had off-air tapes of Bruggen doing a suite or two....at times, perhaps, a shade large and lush-sounding to present ears (the Collegium Aureum, bless them, are never in a hurry...), but gracious and beautiful on those ears too.

"Rameau proves here his mastery of magic, and leaves us longing for something which lies beyond the horizon, a longing which we may never expect to be satisfied..."

Karin Sutherland, Notes to the closing Musette en rondeau from Fêtes d'Hébé, Bruggen/Glossa recording. Whatever qualities the Collegium Aureum adumbrate or miss, they do seem to capture that element beautifully.

Their strings have a silvery, ethereal sheen.

[MickyD]

I've just started listening to it now. The weirdly disjointed Ouverture sounds excellent. I'll dig out the Leonhardt to make a comparison some time. So far so good though.

edit: halfway through now, time for bed. Wonderful! It might just be a bit closely recorded for your liking, Micky...

Ah, thanks for the warning, Richard...the old Leonhardt recording is spacious and very much to my liking. That overture is just amazing and sounds so exciting in Leonhardt's hands.

This recording of an orchestral suite was the one that really opened my ears to Rameau. It dates from the late 70s but still sounds fabulous to me.

[Richard Barrett]

thanks for the warning, Richard...the old Leonhardt recording is spacious and very much to my liking.

Do try and have a listen to some of it to see how you feel about this feature though. The performance is quite exceptional.

[doversoul1]

Donald Macleod said yesterday that the word Baroque was first used in France in the criticism of Hippolyte et Aricie. Listening to (watching) the Savall’s concert mentioned up-thread while remembering this, I thought Hippolyte could almost have been a precursor to The Rite of Spring: that particular elegance of the court of Sun King seemed all but a distant dream. Fascinating.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Donald Macleod said yesterday that the word Baroque was first used in France in the criticism of Hippolyte et Aricie. Listening to (watching) the Savall’s concert mentioned up-thread while remembering this, I thought Hippolyte could almost have been a precursor to The Rite of Spring: that particular elegance of the court of Sun King seemed all but a distant dream. Fascinating.

My brand-new Rameau Companion (see #6 above) says that Rameau was the first composer to be labelled (dismissively) as 'baroque'. Perhaps better French scholars can tell us whether the word was in earlier pejorative use in other arts?

[vinteuil]

My brand-new Rameau Companion (see #6 above) says that Rameau was the first composer to be labelled (dismissively) as 'baroque'. Perhaps better French scholars can tell us whether the word was in earlier pejorative use in other arts?

... there's quite a good wiki page :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque

.

[Richard Barrett]

Having listened yesterday to Chrisoph Rousset's Zaïs, this evening is devoted to Le temple de la gloire in a recent Ricercar recording directed by Guy van Waas. I believe Jean-Claude Malgoire (another important Rameau pioneer of course) released a recording of this in the early 1980s but I never managed to acquire a copy so I've never heard this work before. It's full of fine things, and contains quite a few real ear-openers, and is no less stylishly performed than the aforementioned Zaïs. I'm not too sure about what's going on in the libretto (by Voltaire) but it's an allegorical work with more choral music than most of Rameau's operas and certainly has a clear character of its own. A point is made in the liner note that no unscored percussion has been added to the performance, which I think is to be welcomed - that sort of thing has become a bit exaggerated in recent years if you ask me.

[MickyD]

Having listened yesterday to Chrisoph Rousset's Zaïs, this evening is devoted to Le temple de la gloire in a recent Ricercar recording directed by Guy van Waas. I believe Jean-Claude Malgoire (another important Rameau pioneer of course) released a recording of this in the early 1980s but I never managed to acquire a copy so I've never heard this work before. It's full of fine things, and contains quite a few real ear-openers, and is no less stylishly performed than the aforementioned Zaïs. I'm not too sure about what's going on in the libretto (by Voltaire) but it's an allegorical work with more choral music than most of Rameau's operas and certainly has a clear character of its own. A point is made in the liner note that no unscored percussion has been added to the performance, which I think is to be welcomed - that sort of thing has become a bit exaggerated in recent years if you ask me.

I got the LPs of Malgoire's 'Temple de la Gloire' when they first came out (I don't believe it ever got issued on CD). It was not a very happy affair - playing in those early days was not very polished and Malgoire to my mind never really had the benefits of good recordings..they always sounded hard and boxy. His 'Platée' was much the same. But I am grateful for what he did in those days when we had so little Rameau on offer. The Ricercar production is on another plane entirely.

Mention should also be made of two very good recent Glossa sets of lesser known works: 'Les fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour' from Niquet and 'Les Fêtes de Polymnie' from Gyorgy Vashgyi. The latter is, to me, the superior work and is given a lovely performance.

[vinteuil]

Having listened yesterday to Chrisoph Rousset's Zaïs, this evening is devoted to Le temple de la gloire in a recent Ricercar recording directed by Guy van Waas. I believe Jean-Claude Malgoire (another important Rameau pioneer of course) released a recording of this in the early 1980s but I never managed to acquire a copy so I've never heard this work before.

... there is also a Nicholas McGegan recording of le Temple de la Gloire -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DD4NTD9

Sadly I have found all the J-C Malgoire recordings to be pretty tedious heavy-handed affairs...

.

[Richard Barrett]

Sadly I have found all the J-C Malgoire recordings to be pretty tedious heavy-handed affairs...

His Indes Galantes (1974) made a very strong effect on me when it came out. What it lacked in polish it made up for in enthusiasm and a sense of discovery, making the music sound new. I still listen to it sometimes, same with his excerpts from Les Paladins originally released in 1972. Also he was the first to record a complete opera by Lully, I think (Alceste in 1975) and that was quite revelatory too. Credit where it's due! I have Les fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour and Les Fêtes de Polymnie lined up for today's listening. Almost everything has been recorded now, which has been a long time coming... but back in the 1970s you had to take what you could get.

[edashtav]

but back in the 1970s you had to take what you could get.

Back in the 60's, we Brum Uni undergraduates were amazed to encounter Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie staged in the Barber Institute, conducted by Anthony Lewis in his last days in Brum, and starring a youthful Janet Baker.

Brum University was not a HIPP paradise but it was definitely hip!