I am a huge admirer of the late conductor Frans Brueggen. I just recently listened again to the DVD on which is captured his interpretation of Beethoven’s Eroica.
Such was the significance of the music of Jean-Philippe Rameau for Frans Brüggen that the Dutch conductor’s first concert with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century featured a suite by the French composer, and his final directing appearance, shortly before his death in 2014, did likewise.
Between times this inspirational musician and his orchestra recorded a series of orchestral suites drawn from the opéras-ballets, tragédies en musique and pastorales-héroïques, first for Philips and then for the orchestra’s own label on Glossa.
These eight suites have now been united by Glossa for the first time in a magisterial and richly-enjoyable demonstration of Frans Brüggen’s empathy with the output of the Baroque composer from Dijon.
From Les Boréades to Les Indes galantes, from Acante et Céphise to Zoroastre via Castor et Pollux, these suites – originating in scrupulous scholarship by orchestra member Wim ten Have – together represent a pillar in the modern revival and appreciation of the music of Rameau, which was dear to the heart of Brüggen and so many of the other early music pioneers of his generation.
Here is the wonderful Eroica symphony, as conducted by Frans Bruggen:
