After being superintendent of the music of Duke of Maine, son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, or rather his eccentric wife Anne-Louise-Bénédicte de Bourbon-Conde, who in their field of Sceaux was enthroned as the queen of bees amid a court of artists and wits to whom it awarded the title of "Knights of the honey Fly", Jean-Joseph Mouret, born in Avignon in 1682, was conductor of the Opera ( 1714-1718), music director of the Italian Opera (1716-1720), cantor at the King's Chamber, and as such responsible for organizing the musical celebrations of the coronation of Louis XV (1722), and finally Director of Spiritual concert (1728-1731), all poor and crazy to finish among fathers of Charity in Charenton in 1738.
Amiable and elegant composer, was nicknamed "the musician graces", author of operas, ballets, "Entertainment", of "serious Airs and drink," Mouret is always strangely forgotten by Baroque musicians and record companies - as incidentally, Jean-Baptiste Morin, of which only the great entertainment "Stag Hunt" (Fontainebleau, 1709) was republished.
This CD is, as I know, the only one where you can hear the "Fanfares for trumpets, violins, oboes and timpani", dedicated to the Prince of Dombes, son of the Duke of Maine and the "Suite scrums symphonies hunting horns, "created Hötel de Ville in Paris in the presence of Louis XV. As for the "Suite symphonies of Amadis," it is hardly less rare than the "French Suite" due to an anonymous disciple of the Incomparable Monsieur Lully.
Despite the age of the recordings, I put five stars because of the virtual absence of Mouret to the disc, but also the debt of gratitude that all baroque music fans have much to Jean-Francois Paillard at Erato for the work they did in their time to make us.
