Luogo e data di registrazione		Cedernsaal, Schloß Kirchheim, (Germany) - 1973
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Recording Supervision		Dr. Thomas Gallia | Paul Dery
	Engineer		Sonart, Milano
	Prima Edizione LP		Harmonia Mundi (Basf) | 49 21705-1 | 2 LPs - durata 43' 00" - 41' 16" | (p) 1973
	Edizione CD		Deutsche Harmonia Mundi | LC 00761 | GD 77059 | 2 CDs - durata 66' 01" - 68' 09" | (c) 1990 | ADD
	Cover Art		Farceurs italiens & français (c. 1600)
	Note		-

The 17th century in France was the “grand siècle" of a classical art in the strict sense of the word. In the observance of the three Aristotelian unities of time, place and action, in the refined elegance of the language, the grammatical order of which had its origin in the 16th century, finally in the control over the passions Corneille’s and Racine’s dramas and Molière‘s comedies demonstrated how much they kept to classical ideas. Music was not an art expressing human passions, but rather a dignified or an elaborate and gay decoration. In France dramatic music was closely connected with dancing, first of all with courtly dancing, then with ballet. Since the 16th century the special form ofthe ballet de cour had existed, favoured by the French liking for an orderly elegance, for a society moving in exact geometrical forms. The ballet de cour consisted of a varying number of Entrées, that means sequences of dances and explanatory verses, the so-called Récits, that were spoken or sung. That is why the Entrées were not only presented purely instrumentally, but were accompanied by polyphonic choirs and solo-songs with lute accompaniment, the Airs de cour. The new development of the ballet de cour is continued by Molière’s works who, together with Lully, writes the new comédies-bullets, one of them a poet und actor entering into the heritage of the Commedia dell'arte, the other one a dancer and organizer. The cooperation with Molière, already tested for some years, reached its prolific climax with lhe triad of the years 1669/70: Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, Les Amants magnifiques, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Lully created a wreat musical form now combining all the elements of the ballet de cour in a new style of the French opera. Social criticism and smiling at the frailty of men, however, were banished from these operas, the heroes of a mythical history ruled, giving an example of the greatness of the all-magnificent King of Versailles even on stage. When Lully came to the French court, he lound the famous orchestra of the Vingt-quatre violons du roi. This form of the orchestra, that was a little clumsy, was given up by Lully in favour of a smaller star orchestra, in which the outer parts were now dominating in an extraordinary manner. La Petite Bande takes over just the same instrumentation (and the name) of the Lully-orchestra: 6 violins and 4 oboes for the first voice, 2 altos for each of the ,,parties”, 4 violoncellos and 2 bassoons for the fifth voice. The instruments of the Petite Bande consist of a great number of French original instruments of the 17th and the early 18th century and of some Old Italian instruments.