Spirit Of The Dance

A fabulous disk by an expert in the genre; this was released as a 20th anniversary offering for William Christie and Les Arts Florissants and is titled Musique de Ballet by Rameau and Charpentier. The balance is skewed towards Rameau by approximately two to one. The Rameau pieces are taken from Les Fetes d'Hebe and Hippolyte et Aricie and reminded me of the glorious prom concert this year given by John Eliot Gardner featuring dancers from France and South Africa which featured much of this music. Rameau was ideally suited to that prom because the music just urges the dance onwards with energy and joy and an infinite variety of rhythms. Les Arts Florissant fully demonstrate the skill in this music that they have developed and the whole thing is a total delight. The Charpentier extracts from La Descente d'Orphee, Plaisirs de Versailles and Medee are more courtly and restrained but they have their own charm. Rameau perhaps dwelt more with the common people and Charpentier with the toffs, at least musically speaking.