JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU (1683-1764) ANACRÉON (1754) Scène 6 1 Ritournelle [0.00] e Air pour les Bacchantes [0.00] r Gavottes 1 & 2 pour les Égipans et les Bacchantes [0.00] Scène 1 t Ariette: “Quand l’Amour enflamme nos cœurs” (Chloé) [0.00] 2 Air accompagné: “Mirthes fleuris, naissant feuillage” (Anacréon) [0.00] y Pantomime pour Silène et deux Bacchantes [0.00] u Airs 1 & 2 pour Silène et deux Bacchantes [0.00] Scène 2 i Ariette: “L’Amour, riant et sans bandeau” (Chloé) [0.00] 3 Récitatif: “Vous nous cachez l’objet” (Chloé, Anacréon) [0.00] o Tambourins 1 & 2 [0.00] Scène 3 p Trio: “Chantons Bacchus” (Chloé, Batile, Anacréon) [0.00] 4 Air accompagné: “Tendre Amour!” (Chloé) [0.00] a Chœur: “Chantons Bacchus” [0.00] (Chloé, Batile, Anacréon, Égipans et Bacchantes) Scène 4 s Contredanse [0.00] 5 Récitatif: “Ciel, c’est Batile... Hélas!” (Batile, Chloé) [0.00] Ariette: “Des Zéphyrs, que Flore rappelle” (Batile) Total timings: [43.00] Récitatif: “Dieux! vous pleurez!” (Batile, Chloé) 6 Air accompagné: “Mille fleurs parfument les airs” (Chloé) [0.00] Récitatif: “Dieux ! ces chants ne sont pas pour moi” (Batile, Chloé) Scène 5 7 Air accompagné avec chœur: “Régnez” [0.00] MATTHEW BROOK ANACRÉON ANNA DENNIS CHLOÉ (Anacréon, jeunes Théoniens et Théoniennes) AGUSTIN PRUNELL-FRIEND BATILE 8 Airs Vifs 1 & 2 pour les jeunes Théoniens et Théoniennes [0.00] 9 Air accompagné: “Des caprices du sort” (Anacréon) [0.00] ORCHESTRA OF THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT 0 Air pour les jeunes Théoniennes [0.00] THE CHOIR OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT q Récitatif: “C’est lorsque vous chantez” (Anacréon, Chloé, Batile) [0.00] JONATHAN WILLIAMS CONDUCTOR w Ariette: “Qu’Anacréon dans ce séjour” (Batile) [0.00] www.signumrecords.com Anna Dennis and Matthew Brook with Jonathan Williams and the OAE in rehearsal at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, 9 November 2012 Anacréon in rehearsal at the QEH, 9 October 2014: an aegipan and two Bacchantes and (below) the Theonian maidens (images: OAE) (images: Oxford University) - 4 - - 5 - Anacreon and the Anacréons Like Rameau’s masterpiece Pigmalion (1748), for performance in front of the king could Marivaux and Voltaire, the festival of music and Anacréon has come down to us as an opera be assessed. Just what the septuagenarian drama which took place during the six-week The wonderfully apt epigram found on the in one act, an acte de ballet. However, just Rameau thought of this vetting we don’t voyage of 1754 was a particularly remarkable one. frontispiece of his libretto for Anacréon reveals as Pigmalion was originally intended for know, but it must have been with some relief something of Louis de Cahusac’s fascination performance with other acts, it now seems that he eventually saw his Anacréon – with The newly completed Anacréon received two with the Greek philosopher-poet Anacreon. Born probable that Anacréon and the one-act a little further revision – given at the royal performances were on 23 and 26 October. These in Teos around 600 BC, Anacreon was well La naissance d’Osiris were once part of a château of Fontainebleau in October 1754. proved to be the only ones during Rameau’s known in eighteenth-century France through multi-act opera entitled Les beaux jours de lifetime for although Rameau and Cahusac translations of his Odes and through poems l’Amour. Begun during the early 1750s, this Anacréon at Fontainebleau subsequently made some important revisions about him by his Roman emulator, Horace (65–8 new work took the form of an opéra-ballet, to the work – namely reworking scene 2 and BC). Their musings on mortality and on the a popular kind of composite opera made of For Napoleon it was ‘the true home of kings, adding ‘Tendre Amour!’ – Anacréon was not consolations of wine, love, music and nature self-contained acts linked by a common the house of ages’. Situated some 40 miles heard again until a Paris Opéra production was resonated with many at the Court of Louis XV; theme. (Les Indes galantes is Rameau’s best- south of Paris, the chateau of Fontainebleau given in 1766, two years after Rameau’s death. they inspired in Cahusac (1706–1759) an overtly known example.) However, the many layers became a residence of the kings of France in After another short run in 1771, it suffered the literary libretto. Rameau was clearly intrigued by of revision found in the autograph score of the twelfth century. Under the influence of fate of his entire output and disappeared into Anacreon too: he composed two one-act operas an unfinished third act, ‘Nelée et Mirthis’, François I and his successors the chateau was obscurity. Only with the renewed interest in early featuring the poet, both called ‘Anacréon’. reveal that the project ran into difficulty and home to a movement known as the ‘school of music in the 1890s was Rameau rediscovered: That with a libretto by Cahusac was first was abandoned. Fontainebleau’ (c.1530 to c. 1610) and to the it was none other than Debussy who conducted performed in 1754 (now catalogued as finest works of art; it was here that the Mona an abridged version of Anacréon in 1909. Other no. 30 in the Rameau Catalogue Thématique Thankfully, this was not the end for Anacréon or Lisa resided for over a century before performances have been given since, but it was [RCT]) and the other – with a libretto by La Naissance d’Osiris for in 1754 an opportunity accompanying Louis XIV to Versailles. And it not until 2012 that the first complete concert Pierre-Joseph-Justin Bernard – was composed arose to perform them both separately at was to Fontainebleau that Louis XV’s several performance in modern times was given in for the reprise of Les surprises de l’Amour in Court. Being self-contained acts, the reworking thousand courtiers repaired each autumn to Oxford by the musicians heard on this 1757 (RCT 58). Remarkably, the two works have process should have been a simple matter. enjoy the varied amusements of hunting, recording. A further performance with Baroque neither music nor text in common. The opera The poor reception of new Rameau operas in gambling and amorous intrigue. Lavish official choreography by Edith Lalonger was given at presented here is the first of the two, and this 1753, however, seems to have led the courtier entertainments were staged too. All tastes the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2014. is the first recording of the new edition published in charge of royal entertainments, the Duc were catered for and at great expense. With in the Société Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Opera d’Aumont, to organise two extraordinary performances of operas by Lully, Collasse, Omnia Rameau published by Bärenreiter. rehearsals at which the new works’ suitability Rameau and Mondonville and plays by Corneille, - 6 - - 7 - Bringing Anacréon to life entirely lost. As a result, our version must players from Bohemia in the late 1740s. The man, admittedly very likable, but still the idea therefore be based on the material which two horn players of the Duc de Villeroy’s retinue of an old man, and such an amorous A vivid picture of Anacréon’s first performances originates from Rameau’s revised version must have been accomplished indeed to have character – or as Cahusac puts it, ‘ceaselessly can be recreated from numerous documents performed at the Paris Opéra in 1766 and 1771 dealt with Rameau’s challenging writing. playing with the Amours’ – borders on the now held in Archives nationales and – an incomplete set of orchestral and vocal comical, even the ridiculous. This first obstacle Bibliothèque nationale in Paris: the records parts, three incomplete scores and a printed The libretto had to be avoided...’. of the musicians, dancers and copyists libretto. In presenting this version, we hope employed, a bill from a carriage driver listing to reflect Rameau and Cahusac’s final Cahusac’s libretto is full of endeavour too. The The remarks of Thomas Moore in the preface to journeys made by Rameau to and from Paris thoughts on the work. opera is set in Anacreon’s gardens where we his 1806 translation of Anacreon’s Odes are (countersigned by Rameau himself) and find two youngsters, perhaps members of his useful too: ‘...the disposition of our poet was details of the refreshments and numbers of The music poetry academy. First is Chloe, whom Horace amiable; his morality was relaxed but not candles used in rehearsal. Invoices from the describes as a ‘trembling fawn’ and whose abandoned... He is sportive without being costume designer and jewellers describe in Cahusac described an opéra-ballet as being a very name (meaning ‘green’) emphasises her wanton, and ardent without being licentious’. great detail the clothes worn by the cast. succession of ‘pretty Watteaus’; and with its innocence. Here too is Bathyllus (Batile), a youth While some of the sentiments expressed by Also surviving are drawings by the stage fluid structure of recitatives, airs, ariettes whom the poet Anacreon describes in several the libertine Greek poet reportedly offended designers Sébastien-Antoine and Paul-Ambroise (virtuosic arias) and choruses, and with dance erotically-charged odes, an aspect omitted by the devout Queen Marie, the overall perception Slodtz of two pieces of scenery for Anacreon’s sequences which carry important narrative Cahusac. Nevertheless, the relationship between of Anacreon was one therefore of a benign, garden – ‘latticed arbours embellished with elements, Anacréon is a thoroughly French Anacreon and his young charges certainly jovial figure. gold [and] adorned with garlands of creation. However, we also witness Rameau raises questions of those performing the opera flowers’ to be placed in the wings and a seeking to keep his music in tune with the today.