Jean-Fery Rebel was a contemporary of Couperin, Campra, Marais and Monteclair and was among those composers who lent real distinction to the comparatively unsung period of French baroque music between Lully's death and the full flowering of Rameau's genius. Dating from 1737, Rebel's Les elemens operated as a choreographed symphonie when it was staged as an afterpiece to Lully's Cadmus et Hermione at the Paris Opera. Rebel, like Couperin and, later Leclair, became fascinated early in life by the Italian sonata style only turning to ballets such as this one, later on.
In Les elemens the composer, in accordance with intellectual trends of the time, evokes Natsre in many of its movements; and at times it is quite startlingly vivid as you will hear at once in the harmonically confused opening measures of the overture. This is a representation of Chaos in which Rebel unites all the notes of the harmonic scale single cluster of sound. It is an effect both extraordinary and thrilling and Marc Minkowski makes the most of it in a vibrant, admirably sustained charivari. Nothing which follows reaches quite the same inventive peak as this extraordinary movement though the suite upholds a fairly high degree of musical interest throughout. Each element is allotted its tied bass notes, Water by upward and downward scale passages on the flutes, Air by reiterated piccolo trills and Fire by brilliant string passagework.
The second of the suites on this delightful disc, like Les elemens, has both a programmatic and choreographic purpose. Les caracteres de la danse is an earlier piece dating from 1715 and consists of a compendium off some of the most popular dances of the tome, skilfully interlocked to form a single unit. There is not a superfluous note in Rebel's remarkably concise scheme and not a dull second. Among the many delights here are the Courante, bearing a close affinity with that of Bach's C major Orchestral suite (BWV1066), a graceful Chaccone and a Rigaudon calling to mind a similar piece in Boismortier's later suite de ballet (from 1747) Daphnis et Chloe.
Third on the disc but earliest in respect of composition is a touching and beautifully written three-part sonata Le tombeau de Monsieur de Lully. Italian and French manners interweave rewardingly in this heartfelt lament for Louis XIV's redoubtable ''surintendant de la musique''. Here and throughout the programme the performances are first-rate. Minkowski has an increasingly well-drilled band and its playing on this disc deserves praise. The extrovert nature of ''Le Cahos'' of Les elemens on the one hand, the graceful gestures of Les caracters de la danse and the sorrowful outbursts of the Tombeau on the other, show Rebel to have been a composer with a wide expressive range at his command. All is well documented and superbly recorded. A splendid achievement and a 'must' for all who love music of this period.'