It can be difficult really to love Rameau. And it did look a bit presumptuous of the BBC Proms Guide contributor to describe him as 'the French Bach'. Would even the most musically patriotic Frenchman (or woman) really go that far?
(Don't answer that. I know it's probably a 'Yes'.)
But if ever there was a musical manifesto that a French patriot could point to to go some way, at least, to giving that assertion some body, it was Les Arts Florrisants at the Cadogan Hall.
The band has always ben something of a favourite of mine, though I've not been, in the past, always without reservations about William Christie's direction.
That lunchtime, they were under the direction from the harpsichord of Paolo Zanzu, who I don't really know, though I presume I must have heard him playing continuo with the band; but both his playing and direction were utterly delightful. Usually, I find it difficult not to associate Ramaeau from the absurdly intricate formalities and rules of the Court at Versailles. As though, somehow, all those rules about who sat on a three-legged stool, who on a chair, who had how much of their name or rank on which door, who could wear what height of platform heels, and strut them along which corridor, were all also getting into the musical notation.
Not in this concert, though. This was Rameau with his high-heel shoes kicked into a corner. (We'll pretend that, Versailles notoriously not having any loos, we don't know what they might have landed in apart from just a corner.) And, especially in (I think, I haven't got the programme) the Premier Tambourin et Deuxième Tambourin en Rondeau) amazingly light, fast and frisky. With not a foot (or a finger) wrong.
On Monday, Les Arts Florissants played like bon viveurs to a man (and woman). Enthusiasm, complexity and joie de vivre splendidly moderated by delicacy and, yes, even where required in the last piece of the concert, that somewhat more sober kind of 'mathematical', 'celestial sewing machine' precision and intricacy that might just, at least, for its duration, have you believing quite devoutly Rameau could, after all, be the 'French Bach'.
Beautifully judged performances throughout. The tone of the instruments absolutely beautiful too and very nicely balanced. It may be on the iPlayer for longer than usual. If you missed it first time around, Go listen to it. I insist.
And watch out for Paolo Zanzu.
"Sewing machine"? Peter Porter once called Bach 'the celestial sewing machine'.
R3 FM (recorded)
Repeated Sunday 27th July 1300 R3
iPlayer
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