Baroque, Baroque!

Why is everybody wild about Rameau?

Rameau and Voltaire

Why is Sir John Eliot Gardiner presenting a 'Concert Atelier' on February 11 in Paris on Rameau and dance?

Why is he active in a 'Castor et Pollux' performance a week later at the Salle Pleyel, also in Paris?

And why is it possible to enjoy a 'spiritual concert" the same week with music by Couperin, Rameau and André Campra?

Gramophone magazine and Rameau
One might of course explain this in a simple way. What would be more natural for 'the English Baroque Soloists than playing high baroque music so to speak on location in Paris? However this does not explain why the magazine 'Gramophone' in its latest number reviews the work of Angela Hewitt and her recent shift to the music of Rameau.

Find the answer in Marie Antoinette
The answer is most likely to be found in the film by Sofia Coppola: Marie Antoinette. The film made a splash last autumn in Paris and was highly praised as well as scorned for its musical scores intermingling pop and classics. In the end of the Marie Antoinette film there is a beautiful aria by Rameau, 'Tristes Appréts, Pâles Flambeaux', from the opera 'Castor et Pollux'. They make the most of this aria by using it as a prelude for the tragic ending of this so very decadent French Queen.

Rameau's life and works
But who was Jean-Philippe Rameau? Born in Dijon in 1683, he lived as an organist in Clermont until he in 1722 relocated to Paris. During his lifetime he published a number of theoretical treatises on harmony and composed what in every sense must be regarded as some of the most lavish and extravagant music ever. Baroque means flamboyant and Rameau was exactly that leading the French musical scene for most of the 1730's until his death in 1764.

During this period he lived amongst the intellectual avant-garde in the libertine household of Alexandre Le Riche de la Pouplinière. He even composed music to a libretto by Voltaire.

Man and music of the enlightenment
Until the 1980's he was generally considered non-performable. Today his cello and clavichord music are widely performed and give a splendid introduction to the cultured life of his age and time: The Enlightenment, which we are grasping to understand today.

Related article
Music Review of Rameau's Keyboard Suítes