CHARLES DESMAZURES (1670-1736): Pièces de Simphonie - Suites No. 1 in E Minor & No. 3 in C Major/Minor.

Description: This is a real find for collectors of the French orchestral suite à la Lully, which was Telemann's model for his voluminous œuvre in that genre. Apparently owing their existence entirely to the accident of a royal bride being stuck in Marseilles (where the composer was organist at the cathedral) due to bad weather, Desmazures wrote seven of them to entertain her and her train. The two here have 11 and 16 movements respectively and are brim-full with tart, characterful colors (the oboes particularly tasty) as performed by a band of 18 mostly Catalonian period-instrument musicians on a label new to us. Vespres d'Arnadi; Dani Espasa.