Luogo e data di registrazione		Polydor, Studio, Paris (Francia): - 19-23 maggio 1964 * - maggio 1969
	Original Editions		- Archiv Produktion | 198 333 | 1 LP | (p) 1964 | ANA | * - Deutsche Grammophon | 139 431 | 1 LP | (p) 1969 | ANA
	Edizione "Codex"		Archiv Produktion "Codex" | 453 169-2 | durata 74' 22" | LC 0113 | 1 CD | (p) 1996 | ADD | stereo
	Executive Producer		Dr. Manfred Richter
	Tonmeister (Balance Engineer)		Hans-Peter Schweigmann
	Cover		Allegorical representation of an angel blowing a trumpet (detail)
	Art Direction		Fred Münzmaier
	Note		Original-Image-Bit-Processing - Added presence and brilliance, greater spatial definition

ORIGINAL EDITIONS 1 LP - 198 333 - (p) 1964 1 LP - 139 431 - (p) 1969

Treasures from Archiv Produktion’s Catalogue A rare and valuable collection of documents is the pride of any library or archive. CODEX, Archiv Produktion’s new series, presents rare documents in sound from 50 years of pioneering recording. These recordings have been digitally remastered using original-image bit-processing technology and can now be appreciated in all the richness of their original sound-image. They range from the serene counterpoint of a Machaut, the intensely spiritual polyphony of a Victoria, to the imposing state-music of a Handel. For the artists on Archiv Produktion recordings, a constant aim has been to rediscover the musical pulse of past times and to recreate the spirit of past ages. In this sense each performance here - whether by Pro Musica Antiqua of Brussels in the 1950s, the Regensburg Domchor in the 1960s, or Kenneth Gilbert and Trevor Pinnock in the 1970s - made a vital contribution to the revival of Early Music in our time. CODEX highlights recordings that were unique in their day, many of them first recordings ever of this rare and remarkable repertoire, now appearing for the first time on CD. A special aspect of the history of performance in our century can now be revisited, as great moments from Archiv Produktion’s recording history are restored and experienced afresh. Dr. Peter Czornyi Director, Archiv Produktion MUSIC FOR "LE ROI SOLEIL" The importance of Louis XIV as patron of the arts can hardly be overstated. At an early age Le Roi Soleil revealed shrewd judgement in his choice of the musicians, artists, writers and intellectuals whom he wished to mould and to colour the cultural life of his court. What king lavished greater benefits, showed better taste or distinguished himself with finer establishments? asked Voltaire, when writing about Louis, in the mid-18th century. What king, indeed - for by the 1660s Versailles was not merely a court but a veritable way of life, and the determining factor in all that was the question of having good taste, the much discussed bon goût of the time. “Qui peut nommer certaines couleurs changeantes, et qui sont diverses selon les divers jours dont on les regarde? De même qui peut définir la cour?” (A court is like certain changeable colours, which vary according to the different lights they are exposed in He who can define these colours can define the court.) Thus wrote Jean de la Bruyère, the first social critic in French literature, in his famous work Caractères (1694). It is an analogy which, perhaps better than any, warns us against taking all aspects of the legendary grandeur of Versailles at face value. MICHEL-RICHARD DE LALANDE was one of the most gifted composers who served Louis XIV; and he became, like Lully before him, a favourite of the monarch, assuming control over almost all key musical functions at court. His Simphonies pour les soupers du roi are dance suites assembled, mainly by Lalande himself, from music belonging to his opéra-ballets. The earliest and most important source of this vast collection of pieces is one assembled by Philidor the elder, in 1703. Others, with additional music, followed in 1715, 1727 and 1736; this last mentioned, in an unidentified hand, was said to have conformed with the composer’s last wishes and is the source from which Suite No. 4 of the set has been taken. As the title suggests, these pieces were performed during the king’s suppers; but a sub-heading is more particular in this regard: they were symphonies “Qu’il faisait exécuter tous les 15 jours pendant le Souper de Louis XIV, et Louis XV” (played each fortnight during the suppers of Louis XIV and Louis XV). Altogether, there are 20 short pieces subdivided into three groups. The first and last groups feature trumpet and drums as well as the strings, oboes, bassoons and harpsichord continuo which characterize the standard orchestral components of the time. The central dance group omits brass and timpani but includes a beguiling Sarabande for soprano and strings from the ballet Les Folies de Cardenio (1720) in which the future Louis XV danced. Also included on the present recording is the Sixth Suite, entitled “Premier Caprice”, which consists of free orchestral pieces unrelated to the dance. JEAN-JOSEPH MOURET was born in Avignon but spent most of his working life in Paris. For a time he directed the orchestra at the Paris Opéra and at the Théâtre Italien as well as being a member of the king’s Musique de la chambre at the Versailles court. In 1728 he became director of the recently established public concerts in Paris, the Concert Spirituel. Mouret wrote foremost for the stage but also contributed two suites of “symphonies” to the legacy of French Baroque orchestral music of the period. The first of these suites carries the title Fanfare pour des Trompettes, Timbales, Violons et Hautbois, and was dedicated to a former pupil of his, the Prince de Dombes, eldest son of the Duchesse de Maine. It dates from 1729 and was described by Mouret as “fitting for war and the noble training which it stands for”. The composer himself directed a performance of the suite at the Concert Spirituel in the same year. The second suite is differently scored from the first, calling for two hunting horns as well as violins, oboes and basso continuo. It, too, was issued in 1729 when it was performed in the presence of the king at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. The music of both suites, if lacking the imaginative flair and distinctive instrumental palette of Rameau, for instance, is nevertheless vivacious and engaging. MARC-ANTOINE CHARPENTIER, among the greatest composers of 17th-century France, was never directly associated with the French court. Ill health prevented him from competing, in 1683, for one of four positions of sous-maître at the royal chapel which had recently become vacant; but Louis XIV nevertheless thought highly enough of his ability to award him a pension. After returning from Italy, where, during the 1660s, he had studied in Rome, Charpentier embarked upon a varied musical life. He sewed Mlle de Guise, for whose private musical establishment he wrote many works, collaborated with the playwright Molière, composed sacred music for the Dauphin’s chapel, taught music to Philippe, Duke of Chartres (later Duke of Orléans and Regent of France), became music director of the principal Jesuit church, Saint-Louis, in the rue Saint-Antoine, and, finally assumed the post of maître de musique at the Sainte-Chapelle du Palais. Charpentier composed four settings of the Te Deum canticle of which that in D major (H. 146) is the most celebrated, above all for its dazzling introductory Prelude, en rondeau, for wind and strings. ANDRÉ-DANICAN PHILIDOR was a member of a prominent musical family which was active in France from the reign of Louis XIV until the French Revolution. André entered the king‘s service as a versatile instrumentalist in 1659, playing the crumhorn, trumpet marine (a prodigiously long, bowed monochord, sounding only in natural harmonics), oboe, bassoon and timpani. Nowadays, this member of the family is chiefly valued as the copyist of the precious Philidor Collection of sacred music, operas, ballets and piéces d'occasion - much, though not all, of which is by the Philidors themselves - undertaken in his capacity as the king’s music librarian. His Marche à quatre timbales dates from 1685, when the fame of the Versailles court was at its height. Between 1661, when Louis XIV appointed him surintendant de la musique et compositeur de la musique de la chambre, and his death in 1687 JEAN-BAPTISTE LULLY was the most powerful musician in France. Though his compositional craft was conservative, it was none the less influential in establishing a style that was distinctively French, providing composers of the next generation with a foundation on which to expand, adjust and eventually to transform. Lully’s most notable and enduring achievements lay in the sphere of opera, where he assimilated earlier forms of dramatic entertainment with a newly developed recitative modelled on the declamation of French classical drama. The result, a product of that reason, logic and order so fundamental to the French way of thinking during the 17th century, was to prove both popular and, for almost a century, resistant to fundamental change. The Airs de trompettes, timbales et hautbois (LWV 72) is a dance suite composed by Lully in 1686 “by order of the king for the carousal of Monseigneur [the Dauphin]”. Carousals were royal tournaments during which the spectacle of riding prowess was punctuated by musical interludes. Lully’s suite, consisting of a dazzling Prélude for five trumpets and four oboes, Menuet, Gavotte and Gigue, must have given lustre to the occasion, at the same time epitomizing our traditional, though perhaps one-sided view of the court of the Sun King at its zenith. Nicholas Anderson