Orchestral Suite Note
Suite for orchestra
Overture (from Zaïs)
Menuets 1 & 2 (Platée)
Airs 1 & 2 (Platée)
Menuets 1 & 2 (Zoroastre)
Chaconne (Les Indes galantes)
Program Notes by Martin Pearlman
French composers from Berlioz through Debussy, Ravel and Boulez have been known for their imaginative and virtuosic orchestration. Rameau is widely considered the first in that lineage, a tone painter who, according to one of his contemporaries, "never had a model or a rival." Yet he never wrote a purely orchestral work. All of his orchestral music comes from his operas, which are filled with extraordinary dance music and, of course, overtures. This suite brings together an overture and several dances from his operas.
The overture to Zaïs is one of the most original and surprising opera overtures of the 18th century. It depicts the primordial chaos and the separate elements -- earth, air, fire and water -- trying to combine into an ordered universe. It begins with a solo muted drum, followed by confusing fragments of music in unrelated keys, until the various elements coalesce into a brilliant fast music. The Menuets from Platée are built on a drone "in the style of a hurdy-gurdy," as Rameau creates an unusually beautiful orchestral color using only string instruments. The following pair of Menuets, with light, flowing lines in piccolos and violins, is from the opera Zoroastre.
The great Chaconne that ends this suite is the dance that ends Les Indes galantes. The length and grand conception of this famous dance left the original choreographer at a complete loss for what do with it, until Rameau outlined for him what he expected. It was a narrative dance, rather than a dance in an old traditional form. Rameau, the revolutionary, was pointing the way to the type of ballet that would be seen soon afterwards in the operas of Gluck and later composers.