Jean-Philippe Rameau
The opera Anacréon will be performed in its entirety for the first time in over 250 years tomorrow (9 November 2012), after an Oxford University academic reconstructed Rameau's score. Anacréon was composed by Jean-Philippe Rameau and first performed at Fontainebleu on 23 October 1754. Its hero is the Ancient Greek poet Anacreon. The recital, which will be performed by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Sheldonian Theatre, has been organised by Oxford University's Faculty of Music, Music at Oxford, St Hilda's College and Magdalen College. Jonathan Williams of Oxford University's Faculty of Music and St Hilda's College brought together manuscripts scattered across Paris' libraries to reconstruct the entire comic one-act opera. "The aim is to present, as far as is possible, Rameau's final thoughts on the score" - Jonathan Williams Williams said: 'None of the sources of Anacréon is complete so reconstructing the score required quite a bit of detective work searching Parisian libraries and piecing together the music from various scores and parts. To further complicate matters the few sources that do survive originate from three different productions of two different versions of the opera! 'I filled in any missing music (in a style hopefully indistinguishable from that of the composer).
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