Under the sky of Paris
French Baroque music
F. Couperin – Marais – Lambert – Rameau
Myriam Arbouz, soprano (not 27th September at 1 pm)
Finnish Baroque Orchestra
The concert stages are taken over by the court of the Sun King and Rococo style Paris when the Finnish Baroque Orchestra and French soprano Myriam Arbouz take the audience on a French Baroque adventure. This area of Baroque music has largely been overshadowed by the Italian and German styles, but now it presents itself in all its glory with everything from intimate court songs by Michel Lambert to opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau.
The musical life in France during the late 17th century and early 18th century was labelled by centralised power and strong institutions: the most significant ones were the imposing musical machinery of the court in Versailles, the churches of Paris, the Royal Academy of Music that produced opera, and the concert suite Le Concert Spirituel.
The French Baroque expression overflows with dainty dance rhythms, imaginative harmonies and delicate ornamentation of soft-sounding instruments. Well-known viola da gamba master Marin Marais, “The Angel”, represents poetic instrumental music at its most French. François Couperin, on the other hand, was honoured with the nickname ”The Great”. His production culminated in the extensive collection of sonatas and suites Les Nations, The Nations. The piece depicting the composer’s homeland will be performed in this concert.
The king of French Baroque was stage music. The concert ends with a cross-section of the popular opera Les Indes galantes by Jean-Philippe Rameau. True to its French style, there are plenty of dance scenes. In the spirit of the Enlightenment, the opera glorifies the nobility of cultures outside of Europe, but its four exotic love stories also reminds us of modern romantic anthology films.
Duration: 1 h 45 min (incl. intermission)
The concert in Helsinki Music Centre is a shorter concert without intermission and soloist, and it is part of Avanti!’s, UMO’s, and FiBO’s joint concert series AUF. The other concerts in the series are UMO's Blue Notes on Silver Screen – jazz in cinema on Wednesday 7th November at 1 pm and Avanti!'s Old and gay on Monday 19th November at 1 pm.
In FiBO’s brochure, the date for the Riga concert was 6 December. However, the date has been changed to 4 December.
Pauliina Fred introduces the concert at the House of Nobility on 21 October from 17–17.30.