Re-Imagined

?This programme is the Re-imagining of Rameau as Organist: not removing any works from the harpsichord repertory, but allowing some of them, arguably the more theatrical, to take on a new life and identity as organ music. An additional spur to re-imagining Rameau in this fashion is the practice, enjoined by the composer himself, of making orchestral arrangements of harpsichord pieces, and harpsichord pieces of orchestral works; genres were fluid. The keyboard works in this recording are drawn, with just one exception, from Rameau's two major harpsichord collections, the Pieces de clavecin of 1724 and the Nouvelles suites de pieces de clavecin of 1729/30. Keyboard pieces with distinct programmatic identities have been selected, leaving to one side the rather more abstract dance movements. Edward Higginbottom