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For those wanting to find out more about the great 18th Century French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau, Opus Arte's new DVD, Il Convertendo, is a good place to start.
To those in the know, Rameau, a contemporary of Handel and J S Bach, is as great a composer as those two masters. To the rest of us, he is relatively unknown but maybe the time is coming when Rameau will be reinstated and we'll all get to know a lot more about him. Il Convertendo could well make a small contribution to that.
The Motet Il Convertendo is performed by Les Arts Florissants under their Musical Director William Christie. The soloists are Nicolas Rivenq, Sophie Daneman, Jeffrey Thompson and Olga Pitarch. It's a beautiful work, with the final movement Euntes ibant et flebant, a fugue on Psalm 126, particularly moving. Footage of the performance is interspersed with shots of the venue, the stunning Saint-Louis des Invalides Church in Paris.
The documentary The Real Rameau was made by Reiner E Moritz. A good half of the commentary, basically input from a couple of music academics, is in French with subtitles. The remainder, in English, consists of interviews with music practitioners, chief among whom is William Christie. He offers much enthusiasm for and insight to Rameau's world. There are briefer contributions from Laurent Pelly, John Eliot Gardiner, Andrei Serban and Robert Carsen. Soprano Barbara Bonney makes a fleeting appearance, commenting on the sexiness of the music, and then later a more significant one doing what she does best in an extract from Les Boréades.
Less successful than the expert talk is footage of a couple of French actors in modern dress sitting having a drink and speaking the words of Rameau's nephew and Diderot as though they were their own. Their contribution didn't add much for me and, I must say, this kind of attempt to bring history to life leaves me cold. I'm not sure whether I'd have been more or less irritated if they'd been doing it in 18th century costume, although that might have varied the programme a little because there is a bit too much of "talking heads". The documentary shows some tantalising snippets from Rameau's operas Platée, Les Indes galantes, Les Paladins and Les Boréades (all from other Opus Arte releases) and I'd like to have seen more.
There's an interesting marketing issue with this DVD. Opus Arte opting to name it Il Convertendo indicates that the DVD is a performance of the motet, with some additional features included. As a newcomer to Rameau, I might have been more tempted to buy it had they promoted the accompanying documentary first, with the performances as added extras. The motet is nearly 24 minutes long and the documentary more than 57 minutes. Length isn't everything but it does mean that the packaging focuses on the shorter of the two.
Whichever is the main feature, the filler is a performance of three Pièces de Clavecin en concert. William Christie explains in the documentary that these are essentially harpsichord pieces expanded to include obbligato instruments (violin, viola da gamba and, in one of them, flute). These pieces are delightful. I particularly enjoyed the lively third one (appropriately named La Rameau). With 14 minutes of chamber music, the overall running time of the DVD is 97 minutes.
Watching Il Convertendo certainly makes me want to hear more of Rameau's music and even to buy the operas on DVD. It therefore serves as a useful taster to the world and work of this unacknowledged French master.
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