Sebastien Dauce - Locke: Psyche - Import 2 CD

Credits:

Sebastien Dauce

Description:

England's first true opera: Matthew Locke's Psyche Substantial instrumental writing, choruses and solos throughout Sébastien Daucé's remarkable reconstruction is a notable achievement in itself Psyche, a major work from the earliest years of English opera, arrives on disc. Locke's Psyche (1675) was created in the wake of the enormous success of the French Psyché (1671), the collaboration between Lully, Molière, Corneille and Quinault. Determined that it should stand comparison with opera on the Continent, its creators mounted it with the utmost lavishness, not only in its drama, song and dance but in its stage machinery and scenery as well. The vocal writing, the instrumental parts and the choruses are all substantial and richly worked, making for consistently rewarding listening. The catalyst was Lully's Psyché, premiered in 1671, created at the personal instigation of Louis XIV and a triumph in France. Molière, Quinault, Corneille and Lully, the leading artists of the day, worked at its centre and completed the piece in a matter of weeks. The 1671 production is said to have employed several hundred people at enormous expense, but its success was on a comparable scale. Word of it crossed the Channel almost at once and the text was translated into English. In 1673, to celebrate the marriage of the Duke of York (the future James II), Thomas Shadwell, Matthew Locke and Giovanni Battista Draghi were chosen to create England's first opera on the basis of that English text. The premiere in February 1675 still shines in English history as one of the most important events in the history of English opera. The libretto and the score were both published in the same year, but since it was Locke who saw the score into print it contains none of the music assigned to Draghi, and that music is now lost. The libretto, however, gives detailed indications for each scene, covering the individual numbers, the instrumentation, the placing of the singers and even the repeats, so that when it is read against Locke's printed score the numbers absent from the score can be identified as Draghi's. Daucé first searched Draghi's surviving works for suitable replacements for the lost movements (mainly the instrumental music for the scene changes), but trial and error, including transposition, produced no satisfactory result. He therefore chose carefully from existing works by Lully and Locke to suit each scene, and on that basis completed his reconstruction of this English Psyche. (1/2) King International

Tracklisting:

1.Psyche~Act I: Overture
2.Psyche~Act I: Scene 1: A symphony of recorders and soft musick
3.Psyche~Act I: Scene 1: Pan & Nymphs: Great Psyche, goddess of each Field and Grove
4.Psyche~Act I: Scene 1: A rustick dance of Sylvans & Dryads
5.Psyche~Act I: Scene 1: Symphony of rustick musick representing an eccho
6.Psyche~Act I: Scene 1: Song of Ecchoes. Great Psyche shall find no such pleasure as here
7.Psyche~Act I: Scene 1: Dance for Ambition, Power, Plenty and Peace
8.Psyche~Act I: Scene 1: Entry of Envy
9.Psyche~Act I: Scene 1: Song of Envy & Furies Envy 'gainst Psyche
10.Psyche~Act I: Scene 1: Entry of the Princes Nicander & Polynices
11.Psyche~Act I: Scene 1: Symphony at the descending of Venus in her chariot drawn by doves
12.Psyche~Act I: Scene 1: With kindness I your pray'rs receive
13.Psyche~Act I: Scene 1: Symphony at the ascending of Venus in her chariot drawn by doves
14.Psyche~Act II: Act Tune: The temple of Apollo Delphicus
15.Psyche~Act II: Scene 1: Song of procession in the temple. Let's to Apollo's Altar now repair
16.Psyche~Act II: Scene 1: Son of Latona
17.Psyche~Act II: Scene 1: Dance of Priests
18.Psyche~Act II: Scene 1: To Apollo, our Celestial King
19.Psyche~Act II: Scene 1: Ceremony for Apollo
20.Psyche~Act II: Scene 2: Entry for Despairing Lovers
1.Psyche~Act III: Act tune
2.Psyche~Act III: Scene 1: Dance of Cyclops
3.Psyche~Act III: Scene 1: Song of Vulcan. Ye bold Sons of Earth
4.Psyche~Act III: Scene 1: Song at the Treat of Cupid & Psyche. All joy to fair Psyche
5.Psyche~Act III: Scene 2: Warlike dance with a consort of loud martial musick
6.Psyche~Act III: Scene 2: Song and dance of the Salij. Let us loudly rejoice
7.Psyche~Act III: Scene 2: Song of Praesul. Great God of War
8.Psyche~Act III: Scene 2: Warlike dance
9.Psyche~Act III: Scene 2: While we to Mars
10.Psyche~Act III: Scene 2: Venus & Mars meet in the Air in their chariots; his drawn by horses, and hers by doves
11.Psyche~Act III: Scene 2: Song of Venus & Mars. Great God of War
12.Psyche~Act III: Scene 2: Entry of Furies
13.Psyche~Act IV: Scene 1: Act tune: A stately garden belonging to the magnificent palace
14.Psyche~Act IV: Scene 1: Entry for Cupids
15.Psyche~Act IV: Scene 1: Song for two Cupids: Let Old Age
16.Psyche~Act IV: Scene 1: Dance of the statues, leaping from their pedestals
17.Psyche~Act IV: Scene 2: God of the River & two Nymphs to Psyche: Stay, stay
18.Psyche~Act IV: Scene 2: Symphony at the descending of Venus
19.Psyche~Act V: Act tune: Burning ruins of buildings, the throne of Pluto, and a
20.Psyche~Act V: Scene 1: To what great distresses