Roderick Swanston asks six leading performers of early music to reveal the personal element in their music-making.
5: William Christie
Twenty-five years ago, William Christie left his native America for an extended holiday in Europe. He has never gone back, and for many people he and his ensemble Les Arts Florissants are now more identifiable with the music of French baroque music than the French themselves! But far from being a latter-day Lully, he still finds himself an outsider in the highly politicised
French cultural scene. The programme includes excerpts from:
Francois Couperin Troisième leçon de tenebres
Rameau Hippolyte et Aricie
Schumann Scenes from Goethe's
Faust
Rameau Suite in D minor (1724)
Charpentier Le Reniement de Saint-Pierre
Rameau Castoret Pollux
Luigi Rossi Orfeo
Purcell King Arthur
Mozart Die Zauberflöte
Discs