Gluck, Rameau: Orchestral Suites

Two first-ever releases from 1965 Philips sessions of 18th-century music for the stage conducted by the supremely versatile Sir Charles Mackerras.

MORE INFORMATION

In 1964 Mackerras had conducted the UK broadcast premiere of Rameau’s Castor et Pollux, and the following year he made a selection of dance music from his own edition of the score, and took it into the studios with the London Symphony Orchestra. When compiling a complementary suite from Gluck’s opera based on the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, he also took an imaginative rather than academic approach, mixing music from both the original Vienna and the later Paris versions of the score in order to include all of its most affecting episodes such as the grand Overture and the quiet rapture of the Dance of the Blessed Spirits.

TRACK LIST

JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU (1683–1764)
Castor et Pollux: Ballet Music*

CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD GLUCK (1714–1787)
Orphée et Euridice: Ballet Music*

LUIGI CHERUBINI (1760–1842)
Anacréon – Overture°

DOMENICO CIMAROSA (1749–1801)
Il Matrimonio segreto – Overture°

London Symphony Orchestra
Sir Charles Mackerras

*FIRST CD RELEASE ON DECCA
°PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED