BOISMORTIER: Don Quichotte

Le Concert Spirituel;
Niquet, Hervé;
Dyck, Stephan Van;
Biren, Richard;
Gay, Paul;
Hall, Meredith

8.553647

The colourful and brilliant overture is followed by three acts, moving at a rapid pace, in which Boismortier makes use of some Rameau effects, triplet crotchets, short rhythmic passages, accompanied recitatives and distinctive orchestration. Rameau himself was to recall this work when, ten years later, he wrote his Boréades, in which two of the finest arias bear a striking resemblance to arias from Don Quichotte. The musical interludes ail have the pastoral characteristics of the period and, although Boismortier does not make use of the musette, the French shepherd bagpipe, to enhance them, he makes full use of the gavottes, bourrées, passepieds and other airs and dances that he happily reproduces in his compilation of sonatas. Naturally some arias provide an excuse for moralising on love and war and some instruments have the finest pages of the score assigned to them, as with the flute solo in Act II, Scene 3, with Altisidore's Eh, pourquoi mourir de changer and the oboe part in Act I, Scene 5, with the peasant girl's comic Je n'entends point le caquet d'un muguet.

CD

Muzyka klasyczna

Naxos

04-12-1996

730099464727

Gramophone Award: 'Nomination' (2011)