DESCRIPTION:
- Composer: Jean-Philippe Rameau (25 September 1683 -- 12 September 1764)
- Orchestra: Orchestra of the 18th Century
- Conductor: Frans Brüggen
- Year of recording: 1992

Les Indes Galantes {The Gallant Indies}, suites from the opéra-ballet for orchestra, written between 1735-1761.

Prologue.
00:00 - 01. Ouverture
02:55 - 02. Entrée des Quatre Nations
05:32 - 03. Air pour les esclaves africains
07:04 - 04. Air vif
09:05 - 05. Musette en rondeau
10:25 - 06. Air pour les amants et les amantes
11:33 - 07. Air pour deux Polonais
13:21 - 08. Menuets I - II
15:57 - 09. Contredanse

Le Turc généreux.
17:54 - 10. Ritournelle pour le Turc généreux
18:53 - 11. Forlane des matelots
20:51 - 12. Tambourins I - II

Les Incas du Pérou.
22:32 - 13. Ritournelle pour les Incas de Pérou
23:39 - 14. Air des Incas
25:52 - 15. Air pour l'adoration de soleil
28:15 - 16. Gavottes I - II

Les Fleurs.
30:53 - 17. Ritournelle pour la fête persane
31:57 - 18. Marche
34:01 - 19. Air pour Zéphire
35:07 - 20. Air pour Borée et la Rose

Les Sauvages.
36:40 - 21. Air pour les Sauvages
38:20 - 22. Chaconne

The eighteenth-century fascination with exotic lands and peoples was largely sentimental and uninformed. The picturesque peasants, mythological characters and fabulous monsters that so long inspired French composers are replaced by scenes and character dances from distant countries, all suitably domesticated and prettified for home consumption.

Such entertainments found perfect expression in the French opera-ballet, an elaborate art-form combining vocal and instrumental music and dancing much admired at the Versailles court of King Louis XIV. However, in this, his second stage work, Rameau does not appear to have had a popular success, though he made a quick recovery: in a preface to a revised edition in 1735 he wrote: "The public's having seemed less satisfied with scenes of the Indes Galantes than with the rest of the work ... I am here presenting only the Symphonies intermingled with [orchestral versions of] some of the sung airs ... out of which I have shaped four large Concerts in different keys". It is in this form that it is now heard.

Not surprisingly little of dramatic coherence remains, and the suites can safely be regarded as lively examples of the light, informal series of short, contrasting movements that made up the Baroque suite, or Concert, in France, except that in this case it includes songs and dances by African slaves, "Savages", a Persian march, a Polish song and a "slow air for the Incas of Peru" interspersed with more conventional movements.

With its traditional five-part homophony and distinctive use of color and clarity it bears the distinctive marks of Rameau at his most inventive. Written mainly as a popular entertainment rather than a royal occasion, the formal graces of French "court" music of the time are less prominent than cheerful, uncomplicated but very memorable tunes.