« Pour le mélomane d’aujourd’hui, ces Sonates de l’Oeuvre III, élégantes comme un conte de Diderot, une toile de Boucher ou une « folie » en style rocaille des environs de Paris, demeurent un précieux témoignage du goût d’un public esthète et exigeant qui, ne l’oublions pas, faisait l’admiration et l’envie de la plupart des cours d’Europe. » (Christophe Rousset)

This manuscript, from Christophe Rousset's private collection, was discovered by him in 2004. Dedicated to a Madame de Théobon, it contains not only the essential French harpsichord pieces of the late seventeenth century, but also many transcriptions of compositions by Lully and several hitherto completely unknown preludes. Providing precious insight into the art of the harpsichordist and the musical practices of that time, these pieces are recorded here for the first time. With it's powerful but still austere sound, the Nicolas Dumont harpsichord of 1704 does them full justice.

Pergolesi’s sublime setting of the Stabat mater, a 13th-century text that was accepted as part of the Catholic liturgy only in 1727, was written at the end of his brief life (he died in 1736 at the age of 26) and suggests that had he lived longer his name might be as familiar as Vivaldi. Rossini, in particular, admired it to such an extent that he was reluctant to accept the commission for his own setting (1842) on the grounds that it could never equal Pergolesi’s.

'Armide' is in the form of a tragédie en musique, a genre invented by Lully and Quinault, and was their last collaboration. It was a new form of opera that combined elements of classical French drama with ballet, French song and a new form of recitative. Critics in the 18th century regarded 'Armide' as Lully's masterpiece and it continues to be well-regarded, featuring some of the best-known music in French baroque opera and being arguably ahead of its time in its psychological interest. The subject, chosen for Lully by King Louis XIV, is the enchantress Armide’s unhappy love for the knight Renaud, drawn from Tasso’s 'Gerusalemme liberata'.

Armida abbandonata is one of Niccolo Jommelli's finest operas. It was the first he composed after returning to Naples from his triumphant years in Stuttgart (1754-1769), receiving its first performance at the Teatro San Carlo on May 30, 1770. Among those who attended was the 14-year old Mozart, whose report that Armida was "beautiful, but too serious and old-fashioned for the theater," has been frequently quoted and almost as frequently misunderstood. "The theater" almost certainly refers specifically to the San Carlo, which did indeed find Armida "too serious," in the sense of its harmonic and orchestral complexity, ironically a criticism Mozart himself would later encounter in Vienna.

Written at the request of Louis XIV in honour of his sisterin- law, Henrietta of England, Le Ballet royal de la naissance de Vénus was performed in 1665 with Henrietta herself as the goddess of love and youth. In twelve entrées, this grandiose spectacle, combining dancing, music and poetry, served the power of the king, while attesting to the magnificence of his court. Musically very inventive, it shows the culmination of the ballet genre, on which Lully was to draw in creating the tragédie en musique. To complete the programme, excerpts from Les Amours déguisés (Armida’s famous lament “Ah! Rinaldo, e dove sei?”), Psyché, Le Bourgeois gentil homme and Le Carnaval - from the latter, a piece recycled from Les Noces de village, a burlesque aria sung by the boastful village schoolmaster Barbacola, a basso buffo role that Lully wrote for himself.

Bach's six sonatas for violin and keyboard, written at the Cöthen court where the composer was responsible for instrumental music, are sometimes cited as historical firsts – as the first violin-and-keyboard sonatas to cast the two instruments in equal roles. The designation is a little misleading, for the works had few real successors; it took more than 50 years before violin and keyboard once again took the stage as equals. Their equality in this set is not really a stylistic innovation but rather the result of Bach's tendency to think exhaustively in terms of the potentialities of his instruments. Be that as it may, one must approach a recording of the set with ears open to the contributions of both instrumentalists and how they work together.

Composed in 1771 to a libretto by Metastasio tracing the well-known biblical story of Judith and Holofernes, La Betulia liberata was Mozart’s first oratorio. Often described as a stroke of genius, this recording by Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset, with Sandrine Piau, Amanda Forsythe and Teresa Iervolino, shows the dramatic intensity of which he was already capable at the age of just fifteen and the influence of his early experiences with opera.

A keen advocate of the works of Antonio Salieri, Christophe Rousset continues his exploration of the composer's works, having unearthed the manuscript of another masterpiece. The three-act opera Armida, first performed on June 2, 1771 in Vienna, presents a perfect synthesis of the Italian and French styles. Salieri was just twenty when he turned to the difficult opera seria genre. He chose to tackle a well-known subject: that of the love affair between the Christian Crusader Rinaldo and the Saracen sorceress Armida, borrowed from Tasso's epic poem Gerusalemme liberata. A very dense plot focuses on an intense drama involving just four characters. The fluidity, originality and brio of his compositional style were to ensure Salieri's lasting reputation throughout Europe.

In November 1772, as the 16-year-old Mozart was preparing to astonish the Milanese with his third operatic work for the Teatro Regio Ducal, his older contemporary, Tommaso Traetta (1727–79) from the Puglia region of Italy, was presenting the premiere of his second opera for the court of Catherine the Great in St Petersburg. Today, the former’s Lucio Silla is probably better known than the latter’s Antigona. But which is the finer work? On the basis of this outstanding new recorded version, I would say that Traetta’s tragedia per musica in three acts far outclasses Mozart’s opera seria for its consistent musical inspiration and sheer theatrical know-how.

The musical world owes a debt of gratitude to French conductor Christophe Rousset not only for the vital, exquisite performances he delivers with the ensembles Les Talens Lyriques and Choeur de Chambre de Namur, but for his work in bringing to light neglected masterpieces of Baroque opera. Lully's Bellérophon, premiered in 1679, was a huge success in its time, with an initial run of nine months. Part of its popularity was doubtless due to the parallels that could be drawn between its plot and certain recent exploits of Louis XV, but even the earliest critics recognized the score's uniqueness and exceptional quality within Lully's oeuvre, so it's perhaps surprising that it has never been recorded before.

Another French baroque opera composer, Henry Desmarest, resurfaces after centuries of obscurity. Vénus & Adonis, first seen in 1697 in Paris, was composed in the midst of a scandal, when Desmarest eloped with a young singer who was the daughter of a powerful official. In his absence, he was sentenced to death and thus effectively exiled until his pardon in 1720. The opera’s theme of illicit love seems to have fired Desmarest’s imagination, and the stylish cast, headed by Karine Deshayes and Sébastien Droy, responds in kind. One senses, too, rare involvement in the playing of Les Talens Lyriques. More Desmarest operas await.

Lully's 1685 Roland, on a subject apparently chosen by Louis XIV–its message is that loyalty to one's country and fighting battles is more important and noble than earthly love–was a great hit and played on-and-off in France and other European countries until 1750. The plot involves Angelique's vacillating love for Médor. She vacillates due to the fact that Médor is of "obscure lineage" and therefore beneath her station. He has undying, wild love for her. Roland adores Angelique also, but while she admires his knightliness, she is otherwise not interested. After Médor threatens suicide, Angelique gives in; they marry to great festivity at the close of Act 3.

Christophe Rousset and the Talens Lyriques bring us to the stage of the Royal Academy of Music where Pygmalion, an act of ballet by Jean-Philippe Rameau inspired by an episode of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was created in 1748. Love, showing empathy for Pygmalion's despair of loving a statue, invigorates the sculpted woman who immediately falls in love with her creator. Very suggestive, the music of this tender and mischievous ballet deploys the grace of 18th century dances. Like Ovid's Love, Christophe Rousset instils life in this score, one of Rameau's greatest successes in his day, and offers us, thanks to his sense of drama and his impeccable leadership, a new and essential reading of this ballet.