Debate and Dispute

Donald Macleod continues his focus on French composers, inspired by this month’s ‘Tour de France’ cycle race. Today Donald considers Rameau's prickly relationships with colleagues and friends.

"I have followed the theatre since the age of twelve", so said Rameau to a young composer who wrote to him for advice. It's an intriguing insight into a man who didn't produce his first opera until the age of fifty. Quite why it took him that long isn't clear. Up to that point he had been a church musician, following in his father's footsteps, holding a succession of posts mainly in the South of France. He also taught and established himself as a theoretician of some note. A brief, early sojourn in Paris, a mecca for any theatrical hopeful, ended abruptly when he was still in his twenties. It wasn't until he returned to Paris in 1723 that Rameau was able to start writing music for theatrical entertainments, at first for the popular Fairs, and then finally in 1733 for the Paris Opera. In the midst of constant cultural rows over the merits of French and Italian operatic style, Rameau flourished as a theatre composer. At one point he was so successful the management of the Paris Opera decreed no more than two of his works should be mounted per season, to allow other composers to get a look in! He completed his final opera, a masterpiece, Les Boréades in 1763, the year before he died at the age of eighty. Across the week Donald Macleod focusses on this remarkable period in Rameau's life, from the first of his theatrical works to his last.

There's plenty of evidence to support the view that Rameau was a difficult man. But how much of it was true, and how much of it was generated out of spite? Donald Macleod weighs up the available facts.

Overture to Zoroastre
Les Arts Florissants
William Christie, director

Zoroastre, Act 3
Sommeil, fuis de ce séjour - L'aurore vermeille - Pour la fete la plus belle - De notre flamme mutuelle
Entrée de peuples différent
Mille rayons brillants- Tout se ranime - O lumière vive et pure
Mark Padmore, tenor, Zoroastre
Gaëlle Méchaly, soprano, Amélite
Les Arts Florissants
William Christie, director

Achanté et Céphise, Act 3
Aigle naissant, lève les yeux
Cyrille Dubois, tenor, Achanté
Les Ambassadeurs et La Grande Écurie
Alexis Kossenko, director

Achanté et Céphise, Act 3
Tremblez, tremblez malheureux
Hélas, hélas! Vous pouvez m’opprimer
Soyons unis jusqu'au tombeau
Haine implacable, guide leurs pas
Air très vif
Haine implacable, guide leurs pas
Zirphile est nôtre reine
Triomphe! victoire!
Sabine Devieilhe, soprano, Céphise
Cyrille Dubois, tenor, Achanté
Judith van Wanroij, soprano, Zirphile
David Witczak, baritone, La Génie Oroès
Les Chantres du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles
Les Ambassadeurs et La Grande Écurie
Alexis Kossenko, director

Les Boréades, Act 2
Enlèvement d'Orithie
Air Andante
Air di Borilée C'est des Dieux qu'on doit appr Loure
Première Gavotte vive pour les suivants de Bore
Deuxième Gavotte pour Orithie
Première Gavotte da capo
Choeur; Ciel! Quels accords harmonieux
Benedict Kristjánsson, tenor, Calisis
Tomás Šelc, baritone, Borilee
Collegium 1704
Václav Luks, director

Les Boréades, Act IV
Entrée de Polymnie
Les musiciens du Louvre
Marc Minkowski, director

Producer: Johannah Smith