Hello, and welcome to the March 2011 edition of Ars Antigua Presents, a free monthly podcast of music from the Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical eras. Today we’re featuring a suite of instrumental music from Jean-Phillipe Rameau’s opéra-ballet Les Indes Galantes, first performed at the Paris Opéra in 1735. In it, we hear the allure that anything exotic had for so many Baroque artists and composers, as a story of Cupid seeking out love in distant climes is told. After an overture, representatives of four nations make their entrance onto the stage- the Turks, the Incans, the Persians, and native Americans. Though Rameau never traveled to any of the foreign lands he depicts, he nevertheless had a grand time depicting the ways in which their citizens universally fall victim to Cupid’s machinations.
In this performance from the Music Institute of Chicago, we’ll hear violinist and leader Garry Clarke direct the Baroque Band. Jean Phillipe Rameau’s first suite from Les Indes Galantes.
Podcast length: [14:52]