Rameau - Rosbaud / Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire / Sénéchal - Platee (1956, 1999)

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Rameau - Rosbaud / Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire / Sénéchal - Platee (1956, 1999)

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Jean-Philippe Rameau - Platee
Hans Rosbaud / Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire / Michel Sénéchal
EAC+LOG+CUE | 2xCD, APE: 438 MB | Partial Artwork | Mono | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: EMI France # 7243 5 73169 2 7 | Country/Year: France 1999, 1956
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque, Opera

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Rameau - Rosbaud / Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire / Sénéchal - Platee (1956, 1999)

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Platée (Plataea) is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Jean-Philippe Rameau with a libretto by Adrien-Joseph Le Valois d'Orville. Rameau bought the rights to the libretto Platée ou Junon Jalouse (Plataea, or Juno Jealous) by Jacques Autreau (1657–1745) and had d'Orville modify it. The ultimate source of the story is a myth related by the Greek writer Pausanias in his Guide to Greece.

Rameau's first attempt at comic opera, the plot concerns an ugly water nymph who believes that Jupiter, the king of the gods, is in love with her. The work was initially called a ballet bouffon, though it was later styled a comédie lyrique, putting it in the same category as Rameau's Les Paladins. It was written for the celebrations of the wedding of Louis, Dauphin of France, son of King Louis XV of France, to the Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain, who, according to contemporary sources, like the title character was no beauty. Instead of getting the composer into trouble, the entertainment at Versailles seems to have been well received, and Rameau was appointed a few months later to the position of Composer of the King's Chamber Music with a sizable annual pension.

The opera was first performed on 31 March 1745 at the Grande Écurie, Versailles.

Comic opera was relatively rare during the Baroque era in France and the musicologist Cuthbert Girdlestone expresses his surprise that none of Rameau's contemporaries seem to have remarked on the innovative nature of Platée. Rameau may have been inspired by a revival of an earlier comic opera, Les amours de Ragonde by Jean-Joseph Mouret, in 1742, or by Joseph Bodin de Boismortier's comic opera-ballet, Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse from 1743. wikipedia

HANS ROSBAUD, conductor/pianist

Biography

Hans Rosbaud (July 22, 1895, Graz, Austria – December 29, 1962, Lugano, Switzerland) was an Austrian conductor, particularly associated with the music of the twentieth century. As children, Hans and his brother Paul Rosbaud performed with their mother, who taught piano. Hans continued studying music at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main, under the tutelage of Bernhard Sekles in composition and Alfred Hoehn in piano.

Rosbaud's first professional post was in Mainz, starting in 1921, as the music director of the city's new School of Music, which included conducting the municipal symphony concerts. He became the first chief conductor of the Hessicher Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra (later the Hr-Sinfonieorchester) of Frankfurt in 1928. During the 1920s and 1930s, he presented premieres of works by Arnold Schoenberg and Béla Bartók. During the Nazi era, his freedom to present new music was restricted. In 1937, he became the general music director of the city of Münster. In 1941, Rosbaud took the same position in Strasbourg, heading the Orchestre philharmonique.

In 1945 he was named music director of the Munich Philharmonic by United States occupation authorities. In 1948, Rosbaud's contract with the Munich orchestra was allowed to lapse because the city authorities wanted to move the orchestra's repertoire in a conservative direction. That year Rosbaud became the first chief conductor of the South West German Radio Orchestra in Baden-Baden, where he remained for the rest of his life. In 1954, he conducted the first performance of Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron on 8 days' notice, and this performance was preserved on a 1957 commercial recording for Philips. He regularly took the SWR Symphony Orchestra to festivals of contemporary music, such as at Donaueschingen.

Gramophone recently remarked that Rosbaud "was one of the unsung heroes of mid-20th-century music, who … gave thoroughly rehearsed and assimilated performances and premieres of the widest possible range of music". Prominent in his legacy are recordings of the music of Bruckner, Mahler and Stravinsky. A tireless advocate of new music, he was closely associated with Karl Amadeus Hartmann, conducting premiere performances of Hartmann's opera Simplicius Simplicissimus and his Second and Fourth Symphonies, amongst others. [Courtesy: Wikipedia]

Rosbaud has one of those magical names that once you hear one of his glorious recordings, you somehow know you need to seek more. Since those early LP days, I am proud to say I have some 65 CDs of Rosbaud in his commercial- but mostly independently produced CDs. Each is a gem. His commercial recordings were issued by Deutsche Grammophon, some on EMI, and Philips. The EMI released featured Rosbaud with pianist Walter Gieseking in Mozart concertos, the Philips in collaboration with pianist Robert Casadesus, and the DGG recordings collaborating with violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan. Back in 2004, DGG issued a five-CD set embracing Rosbaud's great recordings [477 089]. I well remember, too, the finest interpretations of the music of Jean Sibelius under Rosbaud's baton [DGG 447 453] with the Berlin Philharmonic. It remains my favourite recording of Rosbaud in non-collaborative orchestral music.

On independent and smaller labels, Hans Rosbaud's work can be found on Andante, Andromeda, Appian/APR, Archipel, Bayer, Dante, Grammofono, Hänssler, Haydn House, Lys, Medici Arts, Memories, Music & Arts, Orfeo, Preiser, Q-Disk, Radio Netherlands, Philips/Retrospective, Tahra, Urania, Vive, Vox, and WalHall, and, no doubt, a few others. By now, after his passing, there is a cult who is out there seeking Rosbaud's recordings.

I well remember trying to find LP recordings back in the late 1950s and 1960s that were already very hard to find. I found many and I must say, I never let up until I did find a recording I was seeking. I feel very much that way presently as music/record collectors will be seeking many of these CDs that will ultimately fall by the wayside. Rosbaud, like so many other great musicians from the first 60 years of the twentieth century, left recordings—commercial and live—that leave a distinct impression on the listener. That kind of music-making can only endure more as time progresses. classicalmusicguide.com

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Rameau - Rosbaud / Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire / Sénéchal - Platee (1956, 1999)

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