Tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen concludes his trilogy dedicated to hautes-contre with "Legros, haute-contre de Gluck". Joseph Legros (1739-1793) was a singer at the Paris Opéra, renowned for his extraordinary musical abilities, wide range and brilliant high notes. “His contemporaries appreciated the fact that his vocal delivery was not forced and that his taste was less mannered than that of his predecessors. His pronunciation was perfect and his face pleasing, although he did not cut a graceful figure and his stage acting left something to be desired” writes Benoit Dratwicki, of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, which is a partner in this series… Legros sparked renewed interest among modern composers for the haute-contre voice.

The term ‘brunette’ refers not only to a young woman with brown hair, but also to a musical form that was highly fashionable from the late seventeenth century to the early eighteenth. The genre evolved from the air de cour, extremely popular in France since the beginning of the seventeenth century. The compositional process, however, remained very similar: to write a short, tender song, dealing with themes of love or nature, which could be sung alone or accompanied by a harmonic instrument. The late seventeenth century also saw the appearance of an instrument that soon became a favourite of composers and amateur musicians: the German flute, now called the traverso or Baroque flute.

The term ‘brunette’ refers not only to a young woman with brown hair, but also to a musical form that was highly fashionable from the late seventeenth century to the early eighteenth. The genre evolved from the air de cour, extremely popular in France since the beginning of the seventeenth century. The compositional process, however, remained very similar: to write a short, tender song, dealing with themes of love or nature, which could be sung alone or accompanied by a harmonic instrument. The late seventeenth century also saw the appearance of an instrument that soon became a favourite of composers and amateur musicians: the German flute, now called the traverso or Baroque flute.

Reinoud Van Mechelen and his ensemble A Nocte Temporis continue their ‘Haute-Contre Trilogy’ with Rameau’s favourite singer, Pierre de Jéliote, probably the finest haute-contre in history. (Reminder: this is a high tenor voice, not to be confused with the countertenor!) Rameau wrote an enormous amount of music for Jéliote, who was not only a singer but also a guitarist, a cellist and even a composer. The album pays tribute to this native of the Béarn region, who was born in 1713 and died at the ripe old age of eighty-four, with a selection of airs by Rameau (from Hippolyte et Aricie, Les Fêtes d’Hébé, Platée, Castor et Pollux, Les Boréades) but also by Dauvergne, Colin de Blamont, Mondonville, Rebel and Francoeur. Though some are well known, others are much more rarely performed today.