Customer Reviews

Rameau - La Guirlande ~ Zéphyre / Daneman, Méchaly, Ockenden, Decaudaveine, Agnew, Baloza, Cappella Coloniensis, Christie

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This is a fantastic disc which i bought serendipitously during a discovering Rameau phase. I love baroque music generally and have mainly attended to the more obvious and mainsteam composers Handel Bach Vivaldi Scarlatti. I felt i was neglecting the French composers. The recording itself is well produced with good balance of the various musical elements singing and orchestral. If you don't want to commit to a full length opera then these two gems are just the right size. The solo singing is exquisite and recreates an athmosphere of mythic serenity and beauty. tempi are well judged, the french diction feels very authentic (i expect that les arts spend so much time in europe/france that the whole feel for place and time is bound to rub off and having several other recordings by the same group the high standard is expected and met every time. i'm no music expert but i return to this disc time and time again. i particularly like the all female work where to 3 sopranos compliment each other beautifully. i have to confess to listening to the disc mostly without paying attention to the text but the story in my view is not essential to enjoying this as a purely musically experience in itself. it's quite easy without the text to recognise the "affections" that the baroque composers were so familiar with and keen to express in music. in my view a real find...go for it!!