Rachel Podger, Trevor Pinnock, Jonathan Manson - Rameau: Pieces de Clavecin en Concerts (2002) [SACD]

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.