Originally composed for the funeral of the dauphine, Princess Marie-Anne-Christine-Victoire of Bavaria, on May 1, 1690, this remarkable setting of Dies irae was revised in 1711, either because of the dauphin's death, or that of Lalande's two daughters, both distinguished sopranos ; all died from smallpox within a period of six weeks. Lully's setting of Dies irae, for the death of the queen in 1683, had shown the possibilities of this text as a grand motet for soloists, choirs and orchestra. But it was Lalande, seven years later, who developed the concept, and produced a much more striking result - perhaps the first setting of Dies irae in the history of music where the composer exploited in such dramatic style the contrasts inherent in the 18 rhyming stanzas and final couplet of this 13th-century poem.

Cinq ans après Atys, Armide grâce à la sensibilité de Philippe Herreweghe est l’objet d’un accomplissement rare. Depuis Cadmus (1673), Lully travaille la déclamation chantée dont le meilleur exemple ici est dans les nombreuses langueurs qui étreignent le cour d’Armide, le célèbre « Enfin il est en ma puissance » (II,4), modèle de l’art lullyste, cité par Rameau pendant la Querelle des Bouffons (1753). Voici la seconde approche de l’ouvrage par le chef flamand. La lisibilité de la progression dramatique est assurée par la définition d’un orchestre, précis, fascinant, véritable acteur. Outre Acis (passacaille finale), ouvrage ultime, aucune ouvre à part Armide, n’exprime à ce degré, l’émotivité instrumentale de Lully.

The eighteenth century is probably the most extraordinary period of transformation Europe has known since antiquity. Political upheavals kept pace with the innumerable inventions and discoveries of the age; every sector of the arts and of intellectual and material life was turned upside down. Between the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the revolution of 1789, music in its turn underwent a radical mutation that struck at the very heart of a well-established musical language. In this domain too, we are all children of the Age of Enlightenment: our conception of music and the way we ‘consume’ it still follows in many respects the agenda set by the eighteenth century. And it is not entirely by chance that harmonia mundi has chosen to offer you in 2011 a survey of this musical revolution which, without claiming to be exhaustive, will enable you to grasp the principal outlines of musical creation between the twilight of the Baroque and the dawn of Romanticism.

Conductors coming to the Fauré Requiem have choices: The original, 1888 version with only five movements of the eventual seven and very minimal instrumentation; the more commonly performed 1893 chamber version, scored with only the lower strings (violins reserved for the In Paridisum movement), plus harp, timpani, organ, horns, and trumpets, but without woodwinds; and the 1900 revision for full orchestra. Philippe Herreweghe recorded the 1893 version several years ago; here he opts for the full-orchestra setting. But there’s a nice hitch: it’s played on period instruments and uses a harmonium instead of an organ. It comes across as much leaner than other recorded “full” versions (i.e., Chung’s on DG, Dutoit’s on Decca), and indeed the details of the “big” score are nice to hear.

Rameau had the somewhat dubious fortune (in his own time, at least) to be such a powerful creative personality in the field of orchestral music that the quality of his dances sometimes overwhelms the operatic context in which he places them. From our point of view today, this hardly seems a liability, especially when it permits the performance of marvelous orchestral suites such as this from his various theatrical productions. Les Indes galantes (1735) contains some wonderful dance music, scored with the composer's usual imaginative flair.