You probably missed the limited UK screening of the film Le Roi Danse. I only just made the last showing at the Mayfair Curzon in London. It is a film about the historical relationship between Louis XIV and his superintendent of music‚ Jean­Baptiste Lully over four decades of the 17th century. Also prominent in the film are the actor­playwright Molière‚ with whom Lully collaborated on comédie­ballets during the 1660s‚ and Lully’s rival Robert Cambert. Real events are recreated broadly chronologically in beautifully maintained period settings; so‚ for the most part‚ is the music. No one can be absolutely sure when many of these dance tunes were written or first used by the composers‚ and while the director‚ Gérard Corbiau‚ clearly took sound advice‚ he hasn’t shirked from exercising occasional cinematic licence. The film begins and ends in 1687‚ when Lully dramatically impales his foot with his staff while beating time for a performance of his Te Deum and‚ after considerable suffering‚ dies from the complications. I am reviewing the CD here‚ and not the film‚ so won’t dwell on the astonishing array of conducting techniques employed by Lully’s interpreter‚ Boris Terral‚ or the absurdity of giving helmeted soldiers violins and recorders to play – especially as they have no discernible impact on the recorded performances. As one might expect‚ most of the music is by Lully himself and is intended for choreographed dancing drawn from his early ballets de cour‚ his highly entertaining middle­period comédie­ballets and finally his propagandistic tragédies lyriques. The music of Lully’s contemporaries is represented by two dances of his predecessor on the violin‚ Jacques Cordier‚ a single air de cour of his father­in­law‚ Michel Lambert‚ and an air and a récit from Cambert’s 1671 opera Pomone. All the selections‚ snatched from their original context‚ sit somewhat uncomfortably‚ and the booklet essays do little to allay this impression. Indeed‚ no texts are provided for the vocal items. And if you thought to find dances by Lully’s most formidable French contemporary‚ Marc­Antoine Charpentier‚ or his faithful lieutenant‚ Marin Marais (memorably revived in the 1991 film Tous les matins du monde)‚ you will be disappointed. With all the fine native French period ensembles available today it is perhaps odd that the producers chose to work with foreign musicians. This was a lost opportunity. Reinhard Goebel and Musica Antiqua Köln are highly skilled and experienced period players‚ but they aren’t specially known for their performances of French music and in general fail to do justice to the spirit of the music. The performances tend towards the pedestrian rather than the balletic: their sturdy and four­square renditions of the dances convey neither the wit and frisson of the dancing slaves and monkeys‚ ‘Frivelins’ and ‘Polichinelles’‚ nor the elegance and refinement we usually attribute to the stylised rituals at the court of the Sun King. The cross rhythms and hemiola effects that abound in the dances (for example in those attributed to Cordier) are understated here and‚ unusually for Musica Antiqua Köln‚ the tempi seem on the slow side‚ presumably to suit the dancers in the film. Also open to debate is the violinist’s ornamentation in ‘Le Sommeil’ from Atys (which‚ if I’m not mistaken‚ was played in the film by Lully – accompanied by several soldiers in full regalia – posted outside the king’s sumptuously appointed campaign tent during a nocturnal romp with a royal mistress). But don’t let me put you off: the film is a fascinating foray into docu­drama and the CD a bon souvenir.