The dedicatee of Beethoven’s violin sonata (Op 47), the French virtuoso Rodolphe Kreutzer (1766-1831) seems not to have ever played it in public. He worked at the French court under the patronage of Marie Antoinette in the mid-1780s; after the Revolution he wrote a series of operas for Paris, where he became first professor of violin at the Conservatoire inaugurated in 1795. His biblical tragédie lyrique La mort d’Abel, set to a libretto by Hoffman, was performed at the Paris Opéra in 1810; permission for its production was begrudgingly given by Napoleon, who disapproved of sacred subject matter in the theatre, and the opera was not well received: critics admired Kreutzer’s music rather more warmly than Hoffman’s libretto but vociferously complained about the infernal monotony of Act 2. For a revival in 1825, Act 2 was removed; this occasion sent the wildly enthusiastic Berlioz into hyper-emotional overdrive in a letter to Kreutzer: ‘O genius! I succumb! I die! Tears choke me!’

It is unlikely modern listeners will fully share the violence of Berlioz’s approval but the fine performance of Guy van Waas and Les Agrémens reveals music of imaginative colours and profuse sentimentality that sometimes sounds like a stepping-stone between Haydn’s Creation and Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust. The Overture and Adam’s opening scene evoke sunrise and the tormented angst of the world’s first dysfunctional family leads to a succession of pleasant arias. Méala conveys her anxiety about Cain’s dark moods in a delightful aria that recalls Grétry (‘J’attendais que l’aurore’, sung compassionately by Katia Velletaz), whereas Cain’s arrival introduces a bitter musical atmosphere conveying his brooding hatred of his family (‘Quoi! Toujours ton image est offerte à mes yeux’, sung powerfully by Jean-Sébastien Bou). In scenes conveying demonic intervention, the otherwise impeccable performance fails to pack the sort of punch one expects, but a compelling sleep scene for the anguished Cain (‘Doux sommeil’) achieves delicate pathos through its pizzicato strings and empathetic woodwind, and the opera concludes enchantingly with an apotheosis of Abel in a brief female chorus of angels accompanied by a heavenly harp. Ediciones Singulares deserves unequivocal admiration for enclosing the CDs within a beautifully printed hardback book containing not only the libretto but also six fascinating illustrated essays.