SKU: BA.BA05822-01

ISBN 9790006567454. 33 x 26 cm inches. Preface: Brown, Bruce Alan.

To conclude Series II (Dance Dramas) from the Gluck Complete Edition (GGA), this volume of Christoph Willibald Gluck's earliest contributions to the genre comprises six ballet scores from 1759 (La Promenade, Les Jardiniers, Les Turcs, Les Savoiards, Les Amours de Flore et Zphire, and Le Suisse) as well as the ballet music for Les Vendanges, which dates from 1761. These works belong to the compositions – also called Krumau ballets because of their musical transmission – which Gluck created in Vienna between 1759 and 1765 for the court theatres in Laxenburg and Schönbrunn as well as the Kärntnertortheater, and which are to be attributed to him as a ballet composer around the middle of the 18th century in Viennese theatre life based on the considerations presented in the general preface.

Together with volumes II/3 to II/5, ballet music by Gluck is available whose sources come from the former Schwarzenberg court archive in Ceský Krumlov, Czech Republic, and which until the Velvet Revolution of 1989, lay behind the Iron Curtain remaining largely inaccessible and unexplored by Western scholars. These volumes reflect two fundamental developments in Gluck research: on the one hand, they provide a significantly expanded, historically more accurate idea of what it meant to compose for the ballet in the 18th century; on the other hand, they bring to light an immense treasure trove of sources formerly of Viennese provenance.

In addition to the detailed introduction by this volume’s editor on the ballet choreographies of Gasparo Angiolini and Carlo Bernardi, on the formation of the ballet troupes of the Viennese theatres in Gluck's early years there, on ballet types and genres, as well as a detailed account of the individual titles, the volume includes a general preface to volumes II/3 through II/5 by Bruce Alan Brown, which discusses Gluck's ballet music in Vienna in general as well as the development of research into this genre. Extensive illustrations (partly from the so-called Durazzo Collection) with reference to the choreographies enrich the discussions. The ballet works, which have survived in only one source each, appear in print for the first time in this volume of the Gluck Complete Edition.

About Barenreiter Urtext

SKU: BA.BA08893

ISBN 9790006567560. 33 x 24.3 cm inches. Text: Duplat de Monticourt, Pierre-Jacques.

This edition unites all the purely instrumental parts of Rameau’s comdie-ballet “Les Paladins” for performance as a suite in the concert hall.

In view of the wealth of the work’s musical treasures and the stylistic innovations – similar to the “Borades” – the rather frosty reception of the premiere series in the spring of 1760 seems completely incomprehensible to us today. It led to this stage work not being performed again until well into the 20th century. The story that the comdie-ballet tells is based on a fable by La Fontaine, “Le Petit chien qui secoue de l’argent et des pierreries” (i.e. “The little dog who shakes silver and stones”). In medieval Veneto, the guardian Anselme undermines the love affairs of his ward Argies. Scenes of tragic expression are contrasted with folk-comic ones; and last but not least, the sexually ambiguous fairy Manto may have caused difficulties for the bold work at the Paris Opra.

This critical edition is based on the corresponding volume issued in the series “Opera omnia Rameau” (BA 8870-01). Since “Les Paladins” remained unpublished during Rameau’s lifetime and was also not included in the “Œuvres complètes”, this is the first edition of the work. It satisfies both scholarly demand and the practical needs of musicians.

The orchestral parts are available on hire.

About Barenreiter Urtext