Rameau: Overtures

The overtures to Rameau’s operas were, even in his own time, highly prized for their inventiveness. Having only started writing for the theater midway through his career, Rameau hit the ground running, as one of the greatest orchestrators of the Baroque. Les Talens Lyriques revel in all the contrasts of style and instrumental sonorities spanning Hippolyte et Aricie (1733) and Acante et Céphise (1751)—the blazing trumpets and chuntering horns in Le Temple de la Gloire make an especially magnificent impression here. The players are not only alive to instrumental color, but also to the drama of Rameau’s pioneering “program” overtures which prepare the audience for the action to follow. In Naïs Christophe Rousset creates an operatic scene in miniature, whipping up a graphic attack by giants on the heavens.