Les Talens Lyriques

The French musical ensemble Les Talens Lyriques was created twenty years ago by the harpsichordist and orchestral conductor Christophe Rousset. This instrumental and vocal formation derives its name from the subtitle of one of Rameau’s operas : Les Fêtes d’Hébé (1739).

Description

Les Talens Lyriques thus range from Monteverdi (L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, L'Orfeo), Francesco Cavalli (La Didone, La Calisto) to Haendel (Scipione, Riccardo Primo, Rinaldo, Admeto, Giulio Cesare, Serse, Arianna, Tamerlano, Ariodante, Semele, Alcina), taking in on the way Jean-Baptiste Lully (Persée, Roland, Bellérophon, Phaéton, Amadis, Armide), Henri Desmarest (Vénus et Adonis), Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville (Les Fêtes de Paphos), Cimarosa (Il Mercato di Malmantile, Il Matrimonio segreto), Tommaso Traetta (Antigona, Ippolito ed Aricia), Jommelli (Armida abbandonata), Martin y Soler (La Capricciosa Corretta, Il Tutore burlato), Mozart (Mitridate, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Cosi fan tutte), Salieri (La Grotta di Trofonio, Les Danaïdes), Rameau (Zoroastre, Castor et Pollux, Les Indes galantes, Platée), Gluck (Bauci e Filemone) and Beethoven, and not forgetting Cherubini (Médée), García (Il Califfo di Bagdad), Berlioz, Massenet and Saint-Saëns.

Christophe Rousset

Christophe Rousset (French: [ʁusɛ]; born 12 April 1961) is a French harpsichordist and conductor, specializing in the performance of baroque music on period instruments.

Biography

Christophe Rousset, founder of the Les Talens Lyriques, is an internationally renowned harpsichordist, conductor and musicologist with a passion for opera and European music of the 17th and 18th centuries.

He studied harpsichord at La Schola Cantorum in Paris with Huguette Dreyfus, and subsequently at the Conservatoire Royal at The Hague with Bob van Asperen winning the prestigious First Prize in the 7th Bruges Harpsichord Competition at the age of 22. This was followed by the creation of his own ensemble, Les Talens Lyriques, in 1991. At the heart of the ensemble is Rousset's academic research and specialism in the music of the Baroque, Classical and pre-Romantic periods.

Having initially attracted the notice of the international press and record companies with his extraordinary talent as a harpsichordist, he soon went on to make his mark as a young and gifted conductor, earning invitations to perform with his ensemble at venues throughout the world, including among them Paris Opera, De Nederlandse Opera, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Salle Pleyel, Opéra de Lausanne, Teatro Real, Theater an der Wien, Opéra Royal de Versailles, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Barbican Centre, Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Aix-en-Provence and Beaune festivals.

Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau (French: [ʒɑ̃filip ʁamo]; (1683-09-25)25 September 1683 – 12 September 1764(1764-09-12)) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François Couperin.

Little is known about Rameau's early years, and it was not until the 1720s that he won fame as a major theorist of music with his Treatise on Harmony (1722) and also in the following years as a composer of masterpieces for the harpsichord, which circulated throughout Europe. He was almost 50 before he embarked on the operatic career on which his reputation chiefly rests today. His debut, Hippolyte et Aricie (1733), caused a great stir and was fiercely attacked by the supporters of Lully's style of music for its revolutionary use of harmony. Nevertheless, Rameau's pre-eminence in the field of French opera was soon acknowledged, and he was later attacked as an "establishment" composer by those who favoured Italian opera during the controversy known as the Querelle des Bouffons in the 1750s. Rameau's music had gone out of fashion by the end of the 18th century, and it was not until the 20th that serious efforts were made to revive it. Today, he enjoys renewed appreciation with performances and recordings of his music ever more frequent.

Christophe

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Arte

Arte (Association relative à la télévision européenne) is a Franco-German TV network, a European channel, that promotes programming in the areas of culture and the arts. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping, Arte GEIE, plus two member companies acting as editorial and programme production centres, Arte France in Paris (France) and Arte Deutschland in Baden-Baden (Germany). As an international joint venture (an EEIG), its programmes cater technically to audiences from both France and Germany. This implies double-titling, opposite-language subtitling, dubbing, hosts who speak both languages alternately, and two separate audio tracks (through DVB-T, satellite television and digital cable).

Three-quarters of ARTE's programming are provided in equal proportion by the two member companies Arte France and Arte Deutschland while the remainder is being provided by Arte GEIE and the channel's European partners.

Arte France was formerly known as La Sept (La Société d'édition des programmes de télévision, but also a play on words, given that the name means the seventh (network) and La Sept existed while the fifth network was still La Cinq; it made satellite television programs at the time) and by ARTE Deutschland GmbH, a subsidiary of the two main public German TV networks ARD and ZDF.