Beaute Barbare

This album owes its title ‘Beauté barbare’ to Telemann who described the music he discovered during a trip to Upper Silesia in 1705 as existing ‘in its true barbaric beauty’. Did he mean ‘wild’? ‘Exotic’? In any case, the composer was fascinated: ‘An attentive observer could gather from [those musicians] enough ideas in eight days to last a lifetime.’ An equally passionate admirer of folk music, whose Serbian roots link him to these cultures, François Lazarevitch has conceived this wildly swirling programme that mixes Telemann (Concerto Polonois) and eastern European Romani music of the eighteenth century, thanks to a collection of dance tunes from 1730 that he has unearthed. ‘What is interesting for us as Baroque performers is to try to find in the pieces of “art music” everything that is not written down, namely the energy and “swing” of the folk dances. I like the music we play not to sound like early music’, says the flautist and founder of Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien, who are joined for the occasion by a cymbalom virtuoso and a wide variety of percussion instruments.

• Georg Philipp Telemann: Flötenkonzert TWV 51: D2; Les Moscovites aus Ouvertüren-Suite TWV 55: B5; Les Janissaires aus Ouvertüren-Suite TWV 55: D17; Mezzetin aus Ouvertüren-Suite TWV 55: B8; Rondo hanaquoise aus Ouvertüren-Suite TWV 55: E2; Allegro & Presto aus Trio h-moll TWV 42: H2; Suite of two hanacs TWV 45; Hanasky aus Ouvertüren-Suite TWV 55: E1; Suite of two Polonesie
  +Anonymus: Suite aus Uhrovska_Manuskript; Tanzsuite aus Uhrovska-Manuskript; Pozic mamo roz; Swiatowka; Dyz sem sla z kostela; Nisko slonko;
  Hora din caval; Taku sem ja galanecku dostal; Vitement - Braul Oltenesc; Veselo se dzivce