Who was Louis Gaulard Dumesny? Dumesny was not the first haute-contre historically speaking, but he was the first to have become famous in his lifetime. Sources agree that he was a cook when Lully discovered him. He made his debut in 1677 and everyone was amazed by his acting, the power of his voice and also his ability to learn everything by ear, since he could not read music. A few centuries later, Reinoud Van Mechelen, star tenor of the international Baroque scene, has decided, with his ensemble A Nocte Temporis, to pay tribute to this ‘haute-contre’ register, a high tenor voice (not to be confused with the countertenor!), by devoting three recordings to it, paying tribute in turn to Lully, Rameau and Gluck.

Agnew's close attention to textural nuance enables us to discover many a subtle detail in the music. His declamation is clear and authoritative and his ability to embrace comfortably the high…

Versailles: its court, its atmosphere and its music… So many splendours emblematic of a monument with an incomparably rich history. The works associated with the palace have travelled down the centuries and today represent a precious part of our heritage. In this ten-CD set, Alpha retraces the musical life of the unique and luminous universe of Versailles. Le Poème Harmonique, Café Zimmermann, Capriccio Stravagante and many others invite themselves into the company of Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Jean-Henry d’Anglebert and share with us for a few hours the sumptuous concerts that made Versailles a place like no other.

With Le Jardin de Monsieur Rameau, William Christie invites us to take a pleasant walk in the beautiful garden of French vocal music from the XVIIIth Century. Featured composers include Rameau and his contemporaries, and the repertoire ranges from opera highlights and profane cantatas to instrumental interludes. Christie's program presents a vivid overview of the music that was played in Versailles at the peak of its splendor. The album's vocal soloists are young singers who took part in Le Jardin des Voix (The Garden of Voices) - a biannual musical academy led by William Christie and Paul Agnew that is designed to unveil the most promising talents of the coming generation.

Gloire au Centre de musique baroque de Versailles qui nous a fait redécouvrir Henry Desmarest, l'un des plus étonnants compositeurs du règne de Louis XIV. À vingt ans à peine, il osa braver Lully sur son propre terrain, en montant un opéra et un divertissement à la cour du Roi-Soleil. Plus tard, avec son aîné Marc-Antoine Charpentier, il fut l'un des principaux acteurs du renouveau d'un opéra français en manque de vrais succès depuis la mort de Quinault et Lully. On croyait indûment tout savoir de ce maître de musique. C'était compter sans le talent de défricheur du label français K.617, qui a trouvé en Nouvelle-Orléans les traces d'un baroque français "exporté", estampillé du nom de Desmarest, entre autres.

The ""Messe de Requiem"" is one of André Campras (16601744) best-known works and was performed especially during the 18th century at important funerals and memorial services. Despite the serious subject, the tenor is neither bleak nor filled with pain but solemnly sublime. Also in the grand motet ""De profundis"" Campra, by means of ever newer pictorial-musical representations, leads us step by step from grief to eternal bliss, thus demonstrating his theatrical abilities. ensemble3 which grew out of the Internationale Chorakademie im Dreiländereck has, under the musical direction of Hans Michael Beuerle, recorded two of the most important works of the French Baroque.

Having been relegated to a moral space of exclusion and fear in the Middle Ages, madness subsequently became a major social phenomenon. Brought under control and personified as 'Folly' in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it provided scope for social and moral criticism, leading composers and librettists to give it a prominent place on the operatic stage. Here Stphanie d'Oustrac and the Amarillis ensemble present its multiple facets, from seduction to passionate love, from despair to joy, revealing the underlying truths of humanity in the Baroque era.

Orchestre baroque français, dirigé par le flûtiste, hautboïste et chef d’orchestre Hugo Reyne, La Simphonie du Marais défend depuis plus de 30 ans le répertoire musical des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, en tissant des liens uniques et particuliers entre le public, l’histoire, la musique et les autres arts.

André Campra s’attelle à la composition de sa série de «petits motets» dès son arrivée à Paris en tant que maître de chapelle de la cathédrale Notre-Dame (1694-1700). Très vite ces compositions remportent un vif succès et l’on se presse à Notre-Dame pour les écouter Les motets de Campra sont fortement influencés par la musique italienne : raffinements harmoniques, charme de l’accompagnement, écriture brillante et contrastée… Ils sont aussi de la main d’un homme de théâtre : le texte sacré se met en scène. Campra sait tirer profit de l’effectif restreint du petit motet : airs, récits, duos, trios et ritournelles s’enchaînent comme à l’opéra ! Mais son éloquence n’est pas sans profondeur et ses grâces savent encore nous toucher.

Campra’s famous Requiem emerged from a tradition that is still unjustly neglected. Sébastien Daucé and Ensemble Correspondances offer us an opportunity to discover these maîtres de musique of Notre-Dame who, though now overshadowed by their brilliant colleague, made no less of a contribution to the development of the ‘French style’ emblematic of the reign of Louis XIV.

Soprano Sandrine Piau's new project is dedicated to French baroque repertoire, offering a wide range of very beautiful arias by Rameau, Lully, Campra etc in a 100-year journey that mixes very famous music with little-know pieces, such as arias by Grétry or Sacchini > Sandrine Piau and Jérôme Correas, a former singer, founder and music director of Les Paladins, have worked together on a regular basis since their early careers, especially with William Christie.

Campra was the most important opera composer between Lully and Rameau. The success of Europe Galante in 1697 is a tribute to this founding work of the Opera-Ballet, mixing dance and opera in the opulent divertissements. Campra takes the spectator on a voyage into the amorous nations of Europe. France moves to the rhythm of the genteel heartbeat of the shepherds and the shepherdesses, Italy refined but jealous and violent and finally the Sultan who has to soothe the criminal bitterness of the Sultana, who has been ousted by a beautiful slave. This is spicy musical banter created during the reign of Louis XIV, recovered by Les Nouveaux Caracteres directed by Sebastien d’Herin.

A Baroque West Side Story, Tancrède tells of the absolute but impossible love between two young people brought together by their passion but separated by their origins. We are in the time of the Crusades: Tancredi is the champion of the Frankish army, and Clorinda the passionaria of the Saracen troops. In the labyrinth of sentiments, sorcerer Isménor's magic wand confuses the issues, luring the two heroes into the enchanted forest to better prepare their downfall. With Tancrède, André Campra (1660-1744) established himself as one of the great opera composers between Lully and Rameau.

This two-CD album brings together the two earliest recordings by La Petite Bande. They were made in 1973 and feature landmarks in two important French forms of entertainment—comedie-ballet and opera-ballet. Performed in 1670 at Chambord, one of Louis XIV's grandest country retreats, Le bourgeois gentilhomme was the high water mark of Lully's collaboration with Moliere and was to be the last work of its kind on which the two worked together. Moliere developed the comedie-ballet from the fashionable court ballets, working the dances and music into the body of the play with unparalleled skill. Lully, himself a dancer, proved a gifted partner as the music for Le bourgeois gentilhomme reveals.

Ce programme est l’évocation d’une bibliothèque imaginaire, celle de Jean-Baptiste Matho, célèbre chanteur de la Chapelle royale sous le règne de Louis XIV. Un testament musical au tournant du XVIIIe siècle, dans l’univers si particulier du petit motet pour taille (ténor), convoquant tour à tour Charpentier, Campra, Bouteiller, Suffret et bien sûr Brossard, qui nous interpelle par ce magnifique exorde : ‘Silentium. Dormi in hortis dilecta mea. Silence. Dors dans les jardins, mon amour.’"