Les Boréades was the final opera of French Baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764). The story of the five-act tragédie lyrique is based loosely on the Greek legend of the sage and healer, Abaris the Hyperborean. Although the work was rehearsed at the Paris Opera in 1763, it was never performed. Rameau died the following year at the age of 80. (The first fully staged performance, led by John Eliot Gardiner, took place in July of 1982).
One of the most extraordinary excerpts from Les Boréades is an orchestral interlude from Act IV. It is music for a mythical procession, at once noble and sensuous.
Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson’s piano transcription of this music appears on his 2020 album, Debussy-Rameau. Here is an excerpt from the program note:
With its elegant touching melody and a rich resonant harmony of suspended 9ths and 11ths, it would be easy to mistake this piece for a late 19th century composition, perhaps a work by Mahler or Sibelius. It was, however, written nearly two centuries earlier by the great French Baroque composer, Jean-Philippe Rameau. Originally an orchestral interlude from his opera Les Boréades, the outstanding Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson has recorded his own transcription of it for piano. Rameau gave it the ponderous title of “The Arrival of the Muses, Zephyrs, Seasons, Hours and the Arts.” All these mythical creatures have something to do with the arts and the passing of time and Ólafsson has renamed his arrangement “The Art and the Hours,” recalling the Greek aphorism best known in its Latin version: ars longa, vita brevis. This can be loosely translated as “art takes time and life is short.”
Recordings
- Rameau: Les Boréades, Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre Amazon
- Debussy/Rameau: Vikingur Ólafsson deutschegrammophon.com
Featured Image: “Bust of Rameau” (1760), Caffieri