Piaces de Clavecin en Concerts (1741)

SACD release

"What makes these performances of Rameau's five suites is Trevor Pinnock's abundant and irresistible rhythmic élan. His spirited playing and his feeling for Rameau's eloquent phrasing calls forth ready responses from Rachel Podger and Jonathan Manson, the two other members of this well-balanced trio."
***** Five Stars BBC Music Magazine (Jan 03)

"Podger coaxes a lyrical flexibility out of her violin, its singing qualities enhanced thanks to a restrained but tellingly sweetening use of vibrato - one which also enables her to play more consistently and blessedly in tune than almost any other baroque fiddler currently in business."
- Gramophone

One of the most striking features of Rameau's only collection of ensemble chamber music is that it seems less a tantalising essay in what French chamber music might have yielded - had Rameau not sought the bright lights of opera - than a singularly inspired genre of musical images whose significance resides almost exclusively in its own inimitable terms. The magical elusiveness of these works, so deliberately enigmatic, encourages us to ponder the significance of titles such as 'Le Vézinet' (as it happens, a forested suburb of Paris with a pleasure garden). We may hear a glistening carrousel but Rameau's aqueous imagery reflects unending shards of light to ravish our senses.