JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU

1-12 NAÏS (1749)

Ouverture
Musette
Entrée majestueux des Dieux
Gavotte pour les Zéphirs
Gavotte gracieuse en Rondeau
Rigaudons
Sarabande
Entrée des Luteurs et Chaconne
Tambourins
Loure
Sarabande
Musette

13-29 ZOROASTRE (1749)

Ouverture
Air Majestueux
Passepieds I & II
Loure
Air des Esprits infernaux I
Air des Esprits infernaux II
Air grave
Air tendre en Rondeau
Rigaudon
Menuets I & II
Sarabande
Rondeau. Mouvement en Chaconne
Gavotte en Rondeau
Entrée des Indiens et Indiennes
Air pour les Jeunes
Marche des Mages et des Peuples
Contredanse

Frans Brüggen always ends up coming back to Rameau: A composer whose orchestral suites are clearly one of the specialities of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, a fact that is resoundingly demonstrated on this new CD, Brüggen’s fifth disc devoted to this marvellous repertory. (The previous CD, containing the suites Acante et Céphise and Les Fêtes d’Hébé, is Brüggen’s top-selling CD on Glossa, and one of the label’s all time best-sellers.)

One of Rameau’s maxims was to never bore an audience, and his suites are a perfect example of how he carried this idea into practice. But Rameau was never completely satisfied with compositive devices alone, and his entire body of work is full of continually surprising instrumentation: percussion, trumpets, flutes, two clarinets –which appear for the fist time in French opera–, and the unforgettable musette, which illustrates our cover.

The magazine Goldberg described Brüggen’s previous recording of Rameau suites (GCD 921103), in unequivocally glowing terms:
“... this marvelous compilation taken from two of Rameau’s stage works... is simply stunning, for the music, for the playing, and, not least, for the recorded sound... For me this is a definite record of the year!”