Rameau’s output of nearly 50 solo harpsichord pieces may be of a conveniently and enticingly manageable size – it can be fitted on to two or three CDs, depending on how many repeats you make – but a recording of it is not to be undertaken lightly. Alongside the charming and tuneful (Menuets, ‘Les sauvages’) and the whirlingly virtuosic (‘Les cyclopes’, Gavotte et doubles), there are pieces of considerable weight and inward reflectiveness, such as ‘Les soupirs’ or the enigmatic ‘L’enharmonique’. Demanding stuff, then, but nobody could accuse Blandine Rannou of failing to take the task seriously.
This attractively presented box-set offers more than the average integrale, for as well as including the six ensemble Pieces de clavecin en concerts, the recording sessions in Rameau’s home town of Dijon were attended by an essayist, a musicologist and a painter, all of whom have contributed to the finished product. The result is some strong artwork (a response mainly to Rameau’s exotic side), and over 30 pages of reading matter. The musicologist’s effort is informative if not always terribly communicative, but his words are not half as baffling as those of the essayist, a Proust scholar who tells us, among other things, that ‘the investment of the body tends towards impersonality, however populated the interpreter’s solitude. One could speak of an erotics of disappearance’. I would ask ‘disappearing where?’, but I think I know the answer already.
But, of course, you really want to hear about the musical performances. Well, here too Rannou’s approach is respectful and considered, most noticeably in the longer slow pieces, which she likes to make very long and very slow indeed. These are bold statements (the Allemande from the Nouvelles Suites takes a staggering 11 minutes, while other numbers such as ‘Les tendres plaintes’, ‘Les soupirs’ or ‘Entretien des muses’ are just as unhurried), with Rannou clearly living every last note and ornament. For the listener, however, it can become a test of patience, especially when her application of inegales – those subtle, unwritten rhythmic asymmetries that are so characteristic of French baroque music – is rather rigid. Where she does better is either in pieces requiring a straightforward weight of sonority and the occasional enlivening, Scarlatti-like rhythmic kick (Rigaudons, ‘Les sauvages’, ‘L’egyptienne’) or in pretty little pieces like ‘Les tricotets’ or ‘La joyeuse’, where a natural delicate line and a good harpsichordist’s touch are her principal qualities. She also conjures an unexpected and fascinating world of conversational birds and thinking chickens (and that takes imagination!) in her measured approach to ‘Le rappel des oiseaux’ and ‘La poule’, while her virtuosity is also well up to standard in the variations of the Gavotte et doubles and ‘Les niais de Sologne’. The Pieces en concerts are disappointing by comparison; Rannou and her colleagues do not sound bedded in as a group, and, in music that can really sparkle and delight there is a lack of clarity, almost a tiredness, to their performances.
Since no other set offers the Pieces en concerts, Rannou’s main rival in the complete Rameau solo harpsichord stakes must be Christophe Rousset’s Gramophone Award-winning set for L’Oiseau-Lyre (12/91), an early recording for him but one which already shows his qualities of natural and undemonstrative musicianship (none of Rannou’s extremes of slowness here) backed up by exquisite technique. Rannou’s Rameau certainly has some ideas worth hearing, but for me Rousset remains a safer first choice