While in France until the 18th century, mainly French music received and Jean-Baptiste Lully was held up as the French composer par excellence, came around 1700 increasingly Italian music in the context of a cultural transfer from Italy to France. Among them were mainly sonatas and cantatas. Composers around the music and the Italy enthusiast Philippe II d'Orléans, a nephew of Louis XIV, began to unite the 'Italian style' with the 'French Gôut'.
Video trailer on YouTube
Especially the resulting secular French cantatasare characterized by novel style mixtures ("goût réuni"), which expressively express predominantly pastoral and antique love stories in a broad spectrum of emotions.
The revival of the cantatas selected here is in addition to these first recordings also publicated here at euthentic edition as a critical issue: