Concertgebouw Orchestra plays Handel and Rameau

Emmanuelle Haim

You imagine yourself in the court of Louis XIV or George I: the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm, plays works by two Baroque masters who became court composers. Rameau made the Sun King dance. Handel's Water Music for a royal boat trip on the Thames was an instant hit. His moving solo cantata Il delirio amoroso is sung by the Dutch soprano Lenneke Ruiten, who returns a few weeks after her debut with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Rameau and Handel

The contemporaries Rameau and Handel were extremely popular and wrote a lot of music commissioned by kings, nobles and high-ranking clergymen. At the French court of Louis XIV, Rameau wrote operas, such as the successful tragedy Dardanus . Rameau incorporated a lot of dance music into it, because the Sun King loved to dance. As a twenty-two year old, the cosmopolitan German Handel composed Il delirio amoroso based on the lines of poetry of a cardinal he met in Rome. He later became court composer for George I, the music-loving Elector of Hanover who was proclaimed King of England.