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    Blondeau: Quatuors / Quatuors Ad Fontes
    Alpha

    Blondeau: Quatuors / Quatuors Ad Fontes

    CD · 1 disc

    $8.99
    Composer
    BLONDEAU
    Artist
    Quatuor Ad Fontes
    Released
    Sep 01, 2007
    From experience, I have learned to have high expectations whenever I am dealing with a CD released by Alpha. In every single disc I have gotten from them so far, I note extreme care in all the aspects of production: exquisite art design, a beautiful detail of an excellent painting on the cover, informative liner notes (always including a lengthy explanation of the aforementioned painting itself, which never ceases to delight me!), exciting repertoire, marvelously performed and equally well recorded.

    The present CD is no exception to the rule, and it has an extra bonus: it presents a very curious and almost unknown version of three Beethoven sonatas, skillfully transcribed by Pierre-Auguste-Louis Blondeau, who published them in 1808–09, for the benefit of the refined amateur. I would tell you more about this forgotten master, but you know what? You should really get this CD, and read the text: it will not only give you a very good idea about the composer and his artistic milieu, as well as a step-by-step commentary on the movements of each sonata (Michelle Garnier-Panafieu wrote the liner notes), but will also provide you with a knowledgeable article (by Denis Grenier) on the painting by Marie Éléonore Godefroid which graces the cover. To hear Beethoven in this new guise is fascinating and fun. At the same time, a surprise and an experience in déjà vu. No matter how much Beethoven himself used to condemn such transcriptions, somehow the music fits very well for the string quartet, and engages our interest right away. Evidently, a large part of the merit belongs to the musicians of Quatuor ad Fontes, who play with real zest and just the right touch of grittiness. After hearing the CD, I wondered whether I would not find the original version of these works a little bit subdued, from now on.

    This is a very good recording, which should be valuable to anyone who loves Beethoven, as well as for those who hate him (maybe they will enjoy Blondeau more than they do the Viennese master). It is a must for all who are interested in the early Romantic period, or in transposition, or in string quartet repertoire, or who simply want to acquire a beautifully presented CD as a gift to someone special. In short: for practically everybody!

    Laura Rónai, FANFARE
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  • Blondeau: Quatuors / Quatuors Ad Fontes

    Blondeau: Quatuors / Quatuors Ad Fontes

    Alpha Sep 2007
    1 disc
    CD
    $8.99
    • Mersenne's Clavichord
    Divine Art

    Mersenne's Clavichord

    CD · 1 disc

    $19.99
    Composer
    COUPERIN RACQUET FEVIN
    Artist
    Terence, Charlston
    Released
    Nov 13, 2015
    Considered one of the leading early-music specialists in Europe, Terence Charlston introduces a unique instrument in his new release Mersenne's Clavichord, a clavichord built to plans and specifications by Marin Mersenne in his 1636 treatise Harmonie Universelle. This collection includes primarily French compositions of the 16th and 17th centuries, and Charleston vividly demonstrates the now rarely heard sound-world of the instrument which was so familiar to the composers of that day.
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  • Mersenne's Clavichord
    Sold Out

    Mersenne's Clavichord

    Divine Art Nov 2015
    1 disc
    CD
    $19.99