Quelle drôle d’idée a Mondonville ! D’après une fable de La Fontaine, aussi cruelle que tragique, il écrit un livret charmant, à la fin heureuse, et compose une aimable pastorale. Ici, contrairement à la fable, point de noblesse de cour mais celle du cœur : Daphnis, jeune berger se meurt d’amour pour Alcimadure, coquette villageoise éprise de liberté qui le dédaigne. Jeanet, frère de la belle, tente de la convaincre qu’il est le bienaimé idéal. Le loup qui terrorise le village s’en mêle. Tout va-t-il s’arranger à la fin ?

For approaching a century and a half in France – across the reigns of Louis XIV, XV and XVI – the Palace of Versailles played host, both indoors and outdoors, for an extraordinary sequence of dramatic musical performances. Un Opéra pour trois rois, conducted by György Vashegyi, represents the legacy of that time, a specially constructed operatic entertainment drawn from works by composers from Lully to Gluck, commissioned – and even, on occasion, performed – by kings, their queens and inamoratas.

The eighteenth century is probably the most extraordinary period of transformation Europe has known since antiquity. Political upheavals kept pace with the innumerable inventions and discoveries of the age; every sector of the arts and of intellectual and material life was turned upside down. Between the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the revolution of 1789, music in its turn underwent a radical mutation that struck at the very heart of a well-established musical language. In this domain too, we are all children of the Age of Enlightenment: our conception of music and the way we ‘consume’ it still follows in many respects the agenda set by the eighteenth century. And it is not entirely by chance that harmonia mundi has chosen to offer you in 2011 a survey of this musical revolution which, without claiming to be exhaustive, will enable you to grasp the principal outlines of musical creation between the twilight of the Baroque and the dawn of Romanticism.

« Pour le mélomane d’aujourd’hui, ces Sonates de l’Oeuvre III, élégantes comme un conte de Diderot, une toile de Boucher ou une « folie » en style rocaille des environs de Paris, demeurent un précieux témoignage du goût d’un public esthète et exigeant qui, ne l’oublions pas, faisait l’admiration et l’envie de la plupart des cours d’Europe. » (Christophe Rousset)

When churches were closed by clerical ordinance on special feast days, Parisians of the mid-18th century went instead to Concerts Spirituels of music ranging from grand motets to intimate chamber music. Mondonville's contributions are exceptional for their unusual timbral mix. They include a dozen Pièces de clavecin avec voix ou violon, the harpsichord parts designed not as continuo infill, but fully self-sufficient, while nonetheless accompanying violin and soprano soloists. Three of them here create a rare and arresting soundscape.

The artistic director of the ‘Concert Spirituel’ from 1752 to 1762, Mondonville was one of the most fashionable composers in Paris due to his ‘grands motets’. However, it was in the field of chamber music that he was a real innovator. In creating the sonata for harpsichord with violin accompaniment, he paved the way for a form soon to be raised to sublime heights by Mozart and Beethoven. By giving the harpsichord accompaniment to the human voice Mondonville carried the experiments to its utmost limits.

Orchestre baroque français, dirigé par le flûtiste, hautboïste et chef d’orchestre Hugo Reyne, La Simphonie du Marais défend depuis plus de 30 ans le répertoire musical des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, en tissant des liens uniques et particuliers entre le public, l’histoire, la musique et les autres arts.

'Titon et l'Aurore' is an opera in three acts and a prologue by the French composer Jean-Joseph de Mondonville which was first performed at the Académie royale de musique, Paris on 9 January 1753. The authorship of the libretto has been subject to debate; Mondonville's contemporaries ascribed the prologue to Antoine Houdar de la Motte and the three acts of the opera to the Abbé de La Marre. Titon et l'Aurore belongs to the genre known as the pastorale héroïque. The work played an important role in the so-called Querelle des Bouffons, a dispute over the relative merits of the French and Italian operatic traditions which dominated the intellectual life of Paris in the early 1750s.

Les fêtes de Paphos (The Festivals of Paphos) is an opéra-ballet in three acts (or entrées) by the French composer Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville. The work was described as a ballet héroïque on the title page of the printed score. Each act had a different librettist. Les fêtes de Paphos was first performed at the Académie royale de musique, Paris on 9 May 1758 and was a popular success. Mondonville recycled material from two of his previous operas for the first two acts, namely Erigone (1747) and Vénus et Adonis (1752), both originally composed for Madame de Pompadour's Théâtre des Petits Cabinets. The title of the work is explained in the preface to the printed score. Paphos was a city in Cyprus sacred to Venus, the goddess of love. "Reunited on the island of Paphos, Venus, Bacchus and Cupid decide to enliven their leisure in such a pleasant location by celebrating their first loves, and this gives rise to the following three acts and the title Les fêtes de Paphos."

Joseph Casanéa of Mondonville, a native of Narbonne who died on the hilltops of Belleville, in Paris, was as well-known in his day as Jean-Philippe Rameau and far more celebrated. He conducted the famous Concert Spirituel and his grand motets combine emotion with a dance-like theatricality in perfect harmony with the decorative spirit of Sevandoni, the architect and decorator of Saint-Sulpice and of Saint-Bruno in Lyon.