Alongside the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles and the Palazzetto Bru Zane - Centre de musique romantique française, Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel pursue the rediscovery of forgotten lyrical works, this time with Andromaque (1778), André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry's only lyrical tragedy, this time with the music of the end of Le Siècle des Lumières.
Hervé Niquet, conductor
Karine Deshayes, Andromaque
Maria Riccarda Wesseling, Hermione
Sébastien Guèze, Pyrrhus
Tassis Christoyannis, Oreste
Matthieu Heim, Phoenix, Un Grec
Élodie Hache, Une Grecque
Edmond Hurtrait, Un Grec
Concert Spirituel's choir and orchestra
Les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles
(Olivier Schneebeli, direction musicale)
Recorded following the concerts of the 18th October 2009 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées(Paris) and of the 19th October 2009 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts (Bruxelles) during the « Grandes Journées Grétry » of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles and the festival « Les sources du romantisme français (1780-1830) » of the Palazzetto Bru Zane -Centre de musique romantique française
Known mainly for his light comic operas, the composer turned towards an increasingly heroic style in the vein of Méhul and Cherubini at the end of his career. The work testifies to the sensitivity of an era of change torn between nostalgia for the great hours of Louis XIV's reign and the cult of modernity and progress. It thus superimposes on the barely retouched text of Racine's Andromaque (1667), a music with already "romantic" ambitions, whose accents are truly unheard-of, and whose accents adorn the passions of the old classical age with a new relief. Never given again since its creation, Andromaque reveals today all the modernity of the French school on the eve of the Revolution and is undoubtedly one of the most singular and unexpected links between baroque and romanticism.
