Musica Antiqua offer here a CD potpourri of their previously recorded French chamber music, taking its name from Titon du Tillet's apotheosis of the writers and musicians of the Grand Siecle. Marais, Rebel, Couperin and Blavet do indeed receive mention in the various editions of Le Parnasse francois; Leclair and Corrette might have, had they died before the final edition appeared in 1760. That said, had Musica Antiqua set about assembling a musical representation of Parnassus from scratch, they might have chosen quite different works.
The Sonnerie, beloved of viol players, is far from being Marais's finest work; nor is it beautifully played by comparison either with other recordings or with the more recently recorded tracks on this CD. Reinhard Goebel attempts to elevate the violin part to the status of the viol's and succeeds only in misshaping it. And Marais's echo effects are ignored.
By all accounts, Rebel was an able violinist, but he is a minor composer. Even the fatuous programme note here cannot compensate for the dearth of musical invention in the Tombeau de Monsieur de Lully. Nevertheless, the opening of the lentement and the viol recits are beautifully and stylishly played by Charles Medlam, even if much of the rest is marred by heavy-footed ornamentation emanating from the violin.
By contrast, Couperin's La Sultane is a forgotten masterpiece—forgotten by the master himself, too, since he never chose to publish it. Like the sonatas and suites of Les Nations (1726), Couperin's D minor sonade en quatuor is scored for two treble instruments and two bass ones; here it is realized on two violins, two bass viols and harpsichord. However, the opening movement plunges the listener into a richly sustained texture of suspensions on a scale unknown in Couperin's published works. Here and again in the air tendre Medlam's command of French viol style distinguishes his execution of the agrements (in particular the enfle or swell) from that of the other string players.
With Leclair's Op. 13 No. 2 the listener is transported forward 50 years and from Versailles to the Duke of Gramont's chateau at Puteaux. This three-movement ouverture belongs to a collection of incidental music cast in trio texture and composed for the duke's theatrical entertainments. In the first movement Musica Antiqua are at their best contrasting double-dotted phrases with tender asides, then gracefully rendering the fugal section. Unfortunately, they mistake the Italianate second movement with its repeated-note bass for a French air and lavish unwanted enfles that only serve to sap its vitality.
Blavet's Concerto, his only surviving one, merits inclusion here as an early French flute concerto, a genre he popularized at the Concert Spirituel. It is unabashedly Vivaldian, with brisk ritornellos and cadenzas in the outer movements and a more intimate trio for flute, violin and continuo in between. The flute playing is shapely but the tempo of the first movement is not always under control.
The record traverses from the sublime, in Couperin, to the ridiculous, with Corrette's last concerto comique. This was originally intended as entr'acte music at the Comedie Francaise. Its first movement is based on ''Les Sauvages'' from Rameau's Les Indes galantes, which Goebel plays with panache. After a pizzicato second movement, reminiscent of a music box, the final variations again display his virtuoso technique.'