Jean Philippe Rameau: Dardanus-Suite, Le Temple De La Gloire

This republication of orchestral suites of two stage works by Jean-Philippe Rameau (16831764) marks the first time Jeanne Lamon and the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra have explored music of the French Baroque period

The two suites recorded on this CD are taken from Rameau’s famous five-act Tragédie en Musique “Dardanus” and from the somewhat lesser known Opéra-Ballet “Le Temple de la Gloire”. When Rameau first turned to opera with “Hippolyte et Aricie (1733), Rameau was already fifty years old and a composer at the height of his artistic powers. In the following six years he was the focus of the conflicts between the conservative “Lullists” and the “Ramists”, which were to culminate in the semi-mythological tragedy Dardanus of 1739

After the disputes had died down, this very “Dardanus” was regarded as one of Rameau’s best musical creations

“Le temple de la gloire” a commissioned composition celebrating the French victory over the British forces after the Battle of Fontenoy, premiered in 1745.