Jean Rondeau MELANCHOLY GRACE

 

MELANCHOLY GRACE

Jean Rondeau BACH DYNASTIE

                                                                BACH DYNASTIE

Thomas Dunford / Jean Rondeau BARRICADES

                                                                  BARRICADES

Jupiter / Thomas Dunford VIVALDI

In founding the Jupiter ensemble, the lutenist Thomas Dunford wanted to ‘rediscover the spirit of chamber music in the Baroque repertory. Jupiter operates in a kind of fraternity, as if we had always known each other... Vivaldi’s highly contrasted music demands precisely this natural response – almost like improvisation’. Lea Desandre speaks of a ‘search for colour and almost limitless inflections. This music was the “pop” of the eighteenth century’. The Franco-Italian mezzo, named ‘Révélation lyrique’ (vocal newcomer of the year) at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2017, performs arias from operas including Il Giustino, Juditha triumphans, Il Farnace and Griselda, as well as the famous ‘Cum dederit’ from the Nisi Dominus. The programme also includes four concertos, for lute in D major, for lute and violin, for bassoon in G minor and for cello in G minor. In addition to Thomas Dunford on lute, Peter Whelan on bassoon and the cellist Bruno Philippe, also a ‘Révélation’ at the Victoires de la Musique (2018), this flamboyant programme features Jean Rondeau on harpsichord and organ, Cecilia Bernardini and Louis Creac’h (violins), Jérôme Van Waerbeke (viola) and Douglas Balliett (double bass).

Jean Rondeau SCARLATTI Sonatas

 

For his third Erato album of harpsichord music, Jean Rondeau turns to Domenico Scarlatti and some 20 of the often-dazzling sonatas that the Neapolitan composer wrote during his years at the royal court in Madrid. Imbued with the spirit of the dance, they are works that Rondeau uses “to tell a story for the people who will listen to an album from beginning to end … An artist must consider how he tells his story, how he can stimulate the public’s curiosity.”

Nevermind CONVERSATIONS

Nevermind is made up of four young musicians and friends whose passion for early music and for the influence of jazz and traditional music stimulated them to form an ensemble whose virtuosity is equalled only by their youthful impetuosity and their love of fine music . . . For its first disc, Nevermind tackles the treasures of the Baroque in the shape of two totally neglected French composers.

The first one, Jean-Baptiste Quentin, a dessus de violon at the Académie Royale de Musique (forerunner of the Paris Opéra), was a habitué of the Parisian salons, where he frequented Rameau among others. The second, Louis-Gabriel Guillemain, studied in Italy before joining the court musicians at Versailles. Sometimes whimsical and often very complex in Guillemain, invariably lucid and classical in Quentin, their style nonetheless presents a common feature: the dominance of the Italian idiom.

Alpha Classics continues its discovery of young talents with this project conceived by the inspired musicians of Nevermind. Their credo is to introduce the widest possible audience to the riches of music that has been too long ignored.

Jean Rondeau BACH Imagine

The fashionable French harpsichordist Jean Rondeau, who has studied jazz as well as classical music, here offers a Bach recital that's something of a mixed bag. Only two of the pieces, the Italian Concerto, BWV 971, and the Suite in C minor, BWV 997, appear in their original forms; the rest are transcriptions, and one, Johannes Brahms' one-hand piano version of the Chaconne from the Partita in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004, is a daring choice on the harpsichord. In that work there are perhaps hints of Rondeau's jazz training, and the implacable build of the variations is perhaps lost. Rondeau's name surely brings to mind the French Baroque, and his opening movements, with ornaments powerful and glittering, suggest Couperin. He has a lot of power and drive, and he brings out the antiphonal structure of the Italian Concerto, significantly the only work on the program not in the French style, clearly and brilliantly. The result is an exciting program, even if one that's a bit unorthodox, and Rondeau is clearly a talent whose future directions and harnessing will be fascinating to watch. His power and intensity can speak for themselves and did not need help from the engineers, who produce a rather harsh sound from the old Notre-Dame du Bon Secours hospital in Paris. (James Manheim)

Jean Rondeau VERTIGO

France’s leading young harpsichordist performs works by two masters of the French Baroque. No surprises there, perhaps … but the harpsichordist in question is Jean Rondeau and the album is called Vertigo. It conceives the harpsichord in vividly theatrical terms.

In November 2015, Rondeau was named Solo Classical Instrumentalist of the Year by the Académie Charles Cros when he received its Grand Prix, France’s most prestigious award for classical recordings. That was for his first Warner Classics album, Imagine, which he described as “an exploration of all the possibilities that lie in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and in the harpsichord.” BBC Music Magazine clearly enjoyed the discovery, saying: “Rondeau is a natural communicator, unimpeded by the imperative to score academic points ... Make no mistake – this is an auspicious debut.”

Vertigo takes its name from a dramatic, rhapsodic piece by Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer, who, along with Jean-Philippe Rameau, forms the focus of this album. If Rameau (1683–1764) is the better-known composer today, especially admired for such operatic masterpieces as Hippolyte et Aricie and Platée, the younger Royer (1705–1755) was also a major figure in his time, rising to become master of music at the court of Louis XV. Both Rameau and Royer excelled in keyboard music and in works for the stage. As Jean Rondeau says: “These two illustrious composers battled for the top spot at the Opéra.” He describes them as “two magicians, two master architects, amongst the most wildly imaginative and brilliant of their era … Two composers who also tried to capture echoes of grand theatre with the palette offered by their keyboard.”

This is the 24-year-old harpsichordist’s starting point for the album: the relationship between the spectacle and extravagance of French Baroque opera – with its myths, magic, ballets and elaborate stage machinery – and the imaginative worlds evoked by ten fingers on a keyboard. Rondeau is keen to point out that the harpsichord, as a popular domestic instrument, could bring the thrill of the opera into people’s homes – much as Liszt’s piano transcriptions of Wagner did in the 19th century. Equally, he is an eloquent advocate – in both words and music – of the extraordinary descriptive, narrative and expressive scope of these two composers’ keyboard writing.

In the 16 tracks on Vertigo he creates a dramatic structure, paying homage to the form of the opéra-ballet with a prelude (which includes an ouverture à la française) and three entrées (acts): the first honours Poetry, the second Music and the third Dance. Beyond such legendary figures as the Greek Muses, it introduces characters like the Simpletons of Sologne, a gruff band of sailors, surging Scythians and Zaïde, the beautiful Queen of Granada.

And what of Vertigo itself, which features in the second entrée? This is what Rondeau has to say: “According to the encyclopedia it is a fantaisie – but it is a fantaisie to the power of ten! … It concentrates a CinemaScope movie into five short minutes; Royer gives us an opera in three hundred seconds. It is all there – with nothing borrowed from his stage music; there is even a dizzying cascade at the cadence, my personal homage to Alfred Hitchcock [a cultural idol in France and a key influence on such nouvelle vague directors as François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol], even though he has nothing to do with the matter in hand … just for the fun of it.” (Presto Classical)