About
Daphnis et Chloe is the work that was to add Joseph Bodin de Boismortier to the roll call of the history of music in a most determined fashion. First performed in Paris in 1747 – a time when the tragedie lyrique, the genre which Lully had brought to its peak, was already in evident decline – Daphnis et Chloe is a pastorale within which lurks a ballet with a bergere storyline, and which is blessed with a plot which, although mythological in content, is of great lightness; this neatly matched the taste of the nobility of the time and even more so that of Madame de Pompadour with its recreation of an idealized pastoral world. This recording by some of the greatest specialists of French Baroque opera, Herve Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel, was made in Metz in December 2001.