Very excited that our world-première recording of Rameau’s Anacreon (the one of 1754) is out this month. It’s the first studio recording of a Rameau opera in the UK for 30 years! Thank you Stephen Carpenter and the OAE; Anna, Agustin and Matthew for singing so wonderfully; Andrew, Claire and Matt and all the Signum team; and all the modern-day Ramistes whose generous support has helped make it happen.
An important landmark – 4 stars
‘Debussy conducted a version of Rameau’s one-act Anacréon back in 1909, but it has taken the scholarly ingenuity of Jonathan Williams and a major collaboration to revive it in our time. This Rameau project, involving Oxford University and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, shows how integrated research and performance have now become. The music here is well worth restoring: the instrumental dances full of burbling flutes, whooping horns and beating drums show Rameau as thoroughly contemporary in his vivid imagination… an important landmark.’
Nick Kenyon in the Observer (October 4, 2015)