Released: 01 September 2017

Reference: AP155

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Credits

Recorded by Little Tribeca at the Theater an der Wien de Vienne in January 2017.
Artistic direction, sound engineering: Maximilien Ciup
Editing, mixing: Emily Ruby
Executive production: Little Tribeca and Les Talens Lyriques
Cover © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York/Acquisition, Edward S. Harkness Gift, 1926
Edition & publishing Pygmalion © Les Arts Florissants
Edition & publishing Les Fêtes de Polymnie © Sysart Ltd. Orfeo Music Foundation

Awards

Choc ClassicaGramophone Editor's choice
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Released: 01 September 2017

Reference: AP155

Rameau: Pygmalion & Les Fêtes de Polymnie

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Composer

Description

Christophe Rousset and the Talens Lyriques bring us to the stage of the Royal Academy of Music where Pygmalion, an act of ballet by Jean-Philippe Rameau inspired by an episode of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was created in 1748. Love, showing empathy for Pygmalion's despair of loving a statue, invigorates the sculpted woman who immediately falls in love with her creator. Very suggestive, the music of this tender and mischievous ballet deploys the grace of 18th century dances. Like Ovid's Love, Christophe Rousset instils life in this score, one of Rameau's greatest successes in his day, and offers us, thanks to his sense of drama and his impeccable leadership, a new and essential reading of this ballet.

 

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In the press

Christophe Rousset is consistently one of today's most brilliant Baroque conductors, unfailingly alive to the rhythm, drama and beauty of the music, as wonderfully demonstrated here.
Gramophone

It is glowing, gregarious music and was one of Rameau's most popular pieces during his lifetime. This new recording from Christophe Rousset and his French baroque specialists Les Talens Lyriques demonstrates why. The playing is sumptuous, broad and vibrant.
The Guardian

Rameau at his greatest. Opera

Tracklist

Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)

Pygmalion. Acte de ballet (1748)
1. Overture
2. Scene 1 – Pygmalion : « Fatal Amour, cruel vainqueur » air
3. Scene 2 – Pygmalion, Céphise : « Pygmalion, est-il possible que tu sois insensible » recitative
4. Scene 3 – Pygmalion, la Statue : « Que d’appas ! Que d’attraits ! » recitative
5. « D’où naissent ces accords » recitative
6. « Quel prodige ? Quel dieu ? » recitative
7. « De mes maux à jamais » air
8. Scene 4 – L’Amour, Pygmalion, la Statue : « Du pouvoir de l’Amour » recitative
9. « Jeux et ris qui suivez mes traces » ariette vive et gracieuse
10. Les différents caractères de la danse
11. Sarabande pour la Statue
12. « Le peuple dans ces lieux s’avance » recitative
13. Scene 5 – Pygmalion, la Statue, choeurs : air gay pour l’entrée du peuple qui vient admirer la Statue
14. Gavottes
15. « L’Amour triomphe » ariette
16. Pantomime niaise et un peu lente
17. Pantomime très vive
18. « Règne, Amour » ariette
19. Air gracieux
20. Contredanse

Les Fêtes de Polymnie. Orchestral Suite (1745)
21. Overture
22. Air grave et fier
23. Mouvement de chaconne
24. Air grave et majestueux
25. Premier et second Menuets
26. Premier et second Passepieds
27. Entrée des Peuples
28. Gigue
29. Air vif
30. Air fort gai

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