A rare find, between the West and the Far East

This is a very surprising album: it is a recording of Baroque music concerts that were given in the eighteenth century to the Forbidden City. From the previous century in fact, the Jesuits were in regular contact with the palace of the Chinese emperor. The emperor, lover of baroque music, asked the musicians to reside at his court to compose y and y interpret their music, what did the musicians mainly associated with the Jesuit order as Teodorico Pedrini, Charles Ambleville or Joseph-Marie Amiot.

This album features compositions of these two composers: Teodorico Pedrini and Joseph-Marie Amiot, sent respectively by their king to seal ties with the Chinese empire.
The most successful compositions, for my taste, are those of Joseph-Marie Amiot: they are in the form of short pieces called "Chinese entertainment" and attempt a synthesis between the already exceptionally successful advancement of the European composition " Baroque "of the time (we are in the 1770s, but the form is not that of the compositions then produced in Europe at the same time) in a rather pronounced Asian taste where the use of the flute, erhu ( stringed instrument violin close) or the cello fleurtent certainly with European rhythms, but already footprints of this relative slowness in the composition so characteristic of Asian music.
The compositions of Pedrini, first in number (oddly the album credits that while he has 5 Pedrini compositions Amiot) are a more conventional bill: they are played with "European" instruments such as the harpsichord and fall more clearly in the vein of Italian productions of the late seventeenth / early eighteenth. Although particularly successful, their charm does not operate with the same efficiency as those of Amiot, which reflect an absorption capacity ("fusion" we would say today) because truly remarkable successful. So we listen to the compositions of Pedrini as beautiful baroque compositions without their outside Europe really distinguishes them from other productions of the same period.

I did a little long, I apologize, to present the best this album of rare quality and exceptional originality, on the borders of the European Baroque music and Chinese music from the same era.
I have since found two other albums, always interpreted by all 'XVIII-21 - Music Enlightenment' under the direction of Jean-Christophe Frisch, who explore the same vein: one is called "Mass of the Beijing Jesuits "and did this time - to my satisfaction - showcases the compositions of Joseph-Marie Amiot; the second is called "Vespers of the Virgin in China" and has a greater variety of composers. Nevertheless, these three albums, "Baroque Concert in the Forbidden City" remains my favorite, necessarily for the famous "Chinese Entertainment" Amiot which alone merit edition.