Sonnenkönig
Lully: “Alceste”, Suite d’orchestre, 1674
Marais: “Alcione”, Suite des Airs à jouer, 1706
Rameau: “Les indes galantes” (Symphony, 1735)
“Les Boréades”, Suite d’orchestre, 1764
When jealous gods rage, the world is in uproar – at least on the opera stage. Jordi Savall has composed wonderful orchestral suites based on four tragedies of love from the French baroque era: love sounds noble and sublime with Lully, but wildly raging with Marais. Life in the “gallant West Indies” as Rameau imagined it is frivolous and easy. The lovestruck gods of the wind – the Boreads – act most bizarre in Rameau’s last opera. To the Parisians of the baroque era, these masterpieces from the Sun King’s and his successors’ court were a wonderful hors d’oeuvre – for a classy night of passion, maybe?
