Glossa: GCD921613

Les Grandes Eaux Musicales 2007

All tracks recorded between 2000 and 2006

This music serves as the soundtrack to the Les Grandes Eaux spectacle which takes place in the parks at Versailles from April to September. Over the past twenty years concerts have been given to the accompaniment of the numerous, and spectacular, fountains in full 'flow'. For 2007, celebrating the ensemble's 20th anniversary, Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel have been asked to present a musical spectacle to capture the grandeur of the age.Their selection, produced by Glossa, embraces composers such as Charpentier, Desmarest, Boismortier and also that dominating figure of Jean-Baptiste Lully (with previously unheard extracts from Lully's tragédie en musique Proserpine). Accompanying the recording there is a fascinating article about the theatre, dance and music-making that used to take place under the patronage of the French kings and their court during the reign of Louis XIII and his successors. Nor has the visual exuberance of the times been ignored in the sumptuous packaging, which includes historical pictures of the fountains.