De Visée & De Viau – La Conversation

Recommended by Répertoire
5 in Diapason
Best of the Month in Amadeus (Italy)

The works of Théophile de Viau combine strange yet concrete imagery with intensely expressed human emotion, resulting in the extreme spiritual and sensual tension characteristic of the Baroque period. Although his compositions were typically Baroque, it was not until the second half of the seventeenth century that de Viau’s Conversation – the title is to be understood in the précieux seventeenth-century sense – was written in accordance with the rules of rhetoric. Like an orator, the musical performer must master every possible rhetorical technique in order to embellish his discourse. In this Conversation, Vincent Dumestre has made selections from the eloquent musical works of Robert de Visée in response to texts read by Eugène Green.

Cast:
Eugène Green speaker
Vincent Dumestre theorbo

Programme :
Robert de Visée and Théopile Viau: Sonnet, Sacrez murs du soleil; Prelude in G minor; Allemande; La Conversation; Courante; Quand tu me vois baiser tes bras; Sarabande; Sonnet, Je songeois que Phyllis; Musette en rondeau; Sonnet, Chère Isis; Ode, Un corbeau devant moi; Prelude in A minor; Chaconne; Lettre à son frère et menuet en sol majeur; Prelude, allemande, courante, sarabande, minuet in E minor; La mort de Pyrame.
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Buy this record: ALPHA 003