Jean Rondeau - Vertigo: Rameau, Royer (2016) [CD Rip]

The impossibly appropriately named young harpsichordist Jean Rondeau offers some reflections in the booklet to this Erato release about the role of the harpsichord in a musical world dominated by big theatrical spectacles. But really it's all about wild, loud, and fast harpsichord music of a programmatic bent by Jean-Philippe Rameau and his much less familiar successor Pancrace Royer, the director of the king's music chamber for Louis XV. With Rameau you are still in the realm of the court dances and character pieces perfected by François Couperin, however far he may stretch the model. In the pieces recorded here, Royer largely dispenses with these in favor of pieces that attempt to reproduce the blood and thunder of operatic scenes on a mighty castle harpsichord that is worth hearing in itself. The program includes perhaps Royer's most famous piece, Le Vertigo (track eight), which lives up to its name with odd modulations and full-chord keyboard effects that make it sound like a whole Vivaldian orchestra is holding forth. You could also sample La Marche des Scythes (track ten), with its pedal point at the beginning bringing to mind a column of Eurasian warriors in an implacable advance. This is fearlessly experimental virtuoso music, and Rondeau is up to its challenges. Christophe Rousset and the younger generation of Italian harpsichordists are Rondeau's direct ancestors, but he goes by them in terms of speed and flash. You might find it all slightly over the top, but it's an album of Baroque keyboard music unlike anything else that has been attempted, and it is most certainly not dull. Erato's recording work at the harpsichord's own Château d'Assas emphasizes and renders clearly its glittering power. -- James Manheim