Search - Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jordi Savall, Le Concert des Nations :: Lully: L'Orchestre du Roi Soleil

Music to transport you to Versailles (and make you get up an

Duncan MacGregor | 07/18/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a stunning disc: if you don't know the music of the French Baroque it will convert you - if you know the music already the performance and interpretation will dazzle you. Lully wrote with what I hear as an incredibly modern sense of melody - his tunes (and most of the pieces are short) are instantly accessible to a modern ear and are impossible to shake off, but these are more than simply pop songs; they are layered and varied, from exuberance to melancholy, to resignation and tears, to delight. And why buy this one rather than another interpretation ? Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations combine technical virtuosity with a beautiful musicality that allows you to hear the layers in the music, and they play with a sense of joy, and at times wildness, that make me wish I could dance. It is easy to see France under Louis XIV purely as grotesque, as the parody we see so often in film or literature; the affectation, the wigs, the thick cracking make up, the gilt clothing and the rancid sweat, the inept aristocracy and the starving peasantry. Lully and Savall remind us that these were people, with fears and hopes and exuberance and joy, and the skill and passion in the writing and performance of this music transport me instantly to Versailles under the Sun King, and make it a place I love being.Lully: L'Orchestre du Roi Soleil"