Lully: Les divertisments de Versailles

Considering his historical importance as the founder of French Baroque opera, it is perhaps surprising that Jean-Baptiste Lully has not received the same degree of attention on disc as his rivals and followers. The revival of French Baroque music which has been such a phenomenon over the last two or three decades has only rarely paid him much attention. Listeners seem to find the harmonic daring of Marc-Antoine Charpentier or the incredible colour and imagination of Jean-Philippe Rameau far more to their taste. Lully's suave, well-crafted music is often dismissed as bland beside the music of these figures and that of Lully's English follower, Purcell. But as this well-filled (78 minutes) disc of extracts from the whole range of his stage music demonstrates, Lully was a considerable and innovative composer in his own right. If you are new to Lully, this is the ideal place to start.