Throughout the first half of the 18th century many French composers ventured into the composition of Cantatas, creating a vast repertoire of approximately eight hundred works in this particular genre. Unfortunately, even though this extraordinary group of compositions includes many excellent pieces, and even some masterpieces, it hasn’t as yet attracted enough attention from either musicologists or performers.

Modern performance editions and representative recordings are rare, and the majority of the repertoire remains totally unknown to the public nowadays. If Nicolas Bernier was the most prolific, having forty cantatas published, and Jean-Philippe Rameau the most famous – at least nowadays – the best composers of French Cantatas are without any doubt the ones represented on this recording.