ANTOINE DAUVERGNE (1713-1797): Hercule mourant.

Description: Unlike the comédie-ballet by this composer offered last month, this 1761 work is one of the last tragédie lyriques to grace French stages. While plainly in the line of such works dating back to Lully, Dauvergne also innovates in the harmonic complexity and rhythmic variety of the sometimes dense orchestral accompaniments of the airs and recitatives. His orchestral dances and interludes are also quite original, each perfectly calibrated to the onstage action they depict. The epithets most used by contemporaries to describe this work were "virile", "sombre" and "noble". 2 CDs. Andrew Foster-Williams (bass-baritone), Véronique Gens (soprano), Emiliano Gonzalez Toro (tenor), Edwin Crossley-Mercer (baritone), Les Chantres du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, Les Talens Lyriques; Christophe Rousset.