Excerpts from the operas (Dardanus, Les Indes galantes, Les Boréades and others)

Program notes

About the Work

The heart of this programme is a generous garland of orchestral and vocal excerpts from across Rameau’s operatic output: a tour through one of the richest bodies of theatre music ever written. French Baroque opera was unlike its Italian counterpart: alongside the singing it placed enormous weight on dance and on vivid orchestral ‘scene-painting,’ and Rameau was the supreme master of both. From his stage works comes an inexhaustible supply of brilliant, characterful orchestral numbers (storms and earthquakes, tender love music, exotic dances, hunting scenes) that can be lifted out and arranged into dazzling concert suites.

This selection draws on a wide span of his career: the heroic tragédie Dardanus; the exotic, globe-trotting opéra-ballet Les Indes galantes; the ballet Les Surprises de l’Amour; the pastoral Acante et Céphise; the spectacular late masterpiece Les Boréades (unperformed in Rameau’s own lifetime and only rediscovered in the twentieth century); the celebratory Le Temple de la Gloire and La Princesse de Navarre; dances from Les Paladins and La Naissance d’Osiris; and even the ‘Requiem aeternam’ from a Mass built on themes from Castor et Pollux. With two fine French singers and a period-aware conductor, it adds up to a vivid panorama of Rameau’s theatrical genius.

What to Listen For

This is a sequence of mostly short, contrasting numbers, so enjoy the sheer variety and colour. Listen above all for Rameau’s astonishing orchestral imagination: the rhythmic snap of his dances (gavottes, tambourins, rigaudons, chaconnes), the vivid ‘special effects’ (rushing string figures for storms and winds, rumbling basses for earthquakes), and the wonderful wind writing: piccolos, bassoons and the haunting musette evoking a pastoral world.

Listen, too, for the dramatic range: stately, noble music for gods and kings; tender, sensuous airs for the lovers (sung here by the soprano and baritone soloists); and exuberant, foot-tapping dances for celebrations and exotic scenes. Notice how modern much of it sounds: the boldness of the harmony (Rameau the theorist at work), the brilliance of the orchestration. Rather than following a single story, let this wash over you as a kaleidoscope of eighteenth-century French theatre: elegant, dramatic, sensuous and endlessly inventive.