Gluck: Don Juan & Semiramis

A year before his pinnacle opus, Orpheus and Eurydice, Gluck was already largely renewing another musical genre, the ballet, by adapting in 1761 a play by Molière for the Viennese public: Don Juan. Another ballet, Sémiramis, would follow the next year, these two works innovate in that they offer a coherent narration where all the resources of the orchestra are put at the service of expressiveness. Jordi Savall and the Concert des Nations restore all the colors and remind us that a quarter of a century before that of Mozart, another outstanding personality haunted the stages of Europe with all the evocative power of which music is capable.