Following on the success of their widely acclaimed Music & Arts release J.S. Bach: Sonatas for Flute and Harpsichord, Stephen Schultz (Baroque flute) and Jory Vinikour (harpsichord) are joined by Alexa Haynes-Pilon (viola da gamba), and Mindy Rosenfeld (Baroque flute) in superlative performances of François Couperin’s four Concerts Royaux; works which stand among the pinnacles of the Golden Age that was French music during the reign of Louis XIV. This state-of-the-art recording was produced and engineered at Skywalker Sound by two-time Grammy Award winner Jack Vad (2012, 2021).

REVIEWS:

This set is essential for its simple grace. The annotator, Gonzalo Ruiz (an excellent oboist who doesn’t play here), explains King Louis XIV’s restrictions on sharing this royal court music until he was old. He allowed it to be published just before he died, but Couperin had composed it many years earlier. There are four suites. Couperin didn’t specify the instrumentation for this chamber music beyond some general suggestions. Ensembles make their own arrangements to suit their personnel and strengths...Anything with theorbo or archlute usually pleases me with a satisfying low-bass crunch. But there is nothing wrong with this more sparing arrangement or performance by the Schultz team.

Some of the pieces are played entirely by Vinikour as harpsichord solos, or with his harpsichord starting them and other players soon joining in. Haynes-Pilon sometimes plays the bass line with her viol, sometimes up in the violin range. The two wooden flutes have beautifully pure tone, and Schultz and Rosenfeld phrase gracefully with them. The pieces sound splendid here as elegant and lightweight entertainment, of the kind that would soothe a stressed king and please his guests. It’s not too fast (like Musica ad Rhenum’s) or too stern (like Rousset’s), but just right.

-- American Record Guide

Johannes M. Bogner dedicates himself here to the famous Préludes non mesuré by Louis Couperin. These unrhythmic pieces represent the zenith of free playing on the keyboard instrument in the 17th century. Their enigmatic notation requires accomplished, but above all inspired, performers. In his recording, the musician used a copy of a harpsichord by Vincent Tibaut, which uses bird feathers as keels. Johannes Maria Bogner, born in Linz, is an Austrian classical harpsichordist and harpsichord teacher. Johannes Maria Bogner studied with Liselotte Brändle, Kenneth Gilbert and Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and at the State University of New York in Stony Brook, USA, with Arthur Haas. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has performed with Camerata Salzburg, Musica Antiqua Köln and Les Musiciens de Louvre throughout Europe, the United States, Canada and Israel. Bogner has also been harpsichordist of L'Orfeo Baroque Orchestra for 20 years - since its foundation - with whom he plays around the world.

For the first time ever in the history of piano recording, Pierre Chalmeau immersed himself into the fascinating world of Louis Couperin, François’ uncle. Louis Couperin is considered as a key figure and the founder of the French school of harpsichord. His Pièces de clavecin constitute the gem of 17th century French music. Introduced to the piano by his pianist and conductor father, Pierre Chalmeau began his training at the CNR in Paris where he obtained a first prize in piano and chamber music in 2002. In addition to his solo work, he performs in the Notamo Duo alongside clarinetist Carjez Gerretsen, wherein they explore the great German cycles.

Francois Couperin, known as ‘le grand’, won renown when, at the early age of 25 in 1693, he was appointed to a high position in Louis XIV’s private chapel. In the following years he compiled the core of his greatest works, the four monumental Pieces de clavecin, which represent the apex of his compositional mastery with a refined use of counterpoint and a galant taste for embellishments and rich, often subtly melancholic characterization. This album features eight preludes from Couperin’s L’Art de toucher le clavecin to create small suites that freely use pieces from the first two books of the Pieces de clavecin.

This is volume 9 in Centaur's traversal of the Complete keyboard works of Couperin, performed on harpsichord by Mark Kroll. Mark Kroll has performed Couperin's works throughout his long performing life. He has performed on four continents as a harpsichordist and fortepianist, in both solo recital and as a collaborative chamber musician. Highlights include an appearance as the official guest of the city of Barcelona; featured soloist in Germany’s Regensburg Early Music Festival, France’s Festival Ambronay and the Bordeaux Hummel Festival; performances and lectures in Beijing and Shanghai; two concerts for the Czech Republic’s Prague Spring Festival; and recitals at Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Foundation, Rome’s Conservatorio Santa Caecilia and Associazione Musicale Romana, Poland’s Dni Bachowski, and Slovenija’s Radovljica Festival. Mark Kroll has been one of the few harpsichordists to devote a significant part of his career to the contemporary literature for the instrument. He has commissioned and premiered a large number of works, and released several recordings of this repertoire.

This is volume 5 in Centaur's recording of the complete Pieces de Clavecin, performed on harpsichord by Mark Kroll. Mark Kroll has made a specialty of Couperin throughout his long and distinguished career. Mark Kroll has performed on four continents as a harpsichordist and fortepianist, in both solo recital and as a collaborative chamber musician. Highlights include an appearance as the official guest of the city of Barcelona; featured soloist in Germany’s Regensburg Early Music Festival, France’s Festival Ambronay and the Bordeaux Hummel Festival; two concerts for the Czech Republic’s Prague Spring Festival; and recitals at Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Foundation, Rome’s Conservatorio Santa Caecilia and Associazione Musicale Romana, Poland’s Dni Bachowski, and Slovenija’s Radovljica Festival. This recording was made on a 1978 Franco-Flemish style double manual harpsichord by William Hyman and D. Jacques Way at the Harpsichord Clearing House, Rehobeth, Massachusetts.

A marvelous celebration of long-standing musical partnerships in one of the pinnacles of the sacred vocal art from the French Baroque comes with a new recording of the Leçons de ténèbres by François Couperin from Les Nouveaux Caractères, directed from the keyboard by Sébastien d’Hérin. This Glossa release features the French vocal pairing of the ensemble’s co-founder, soprano Caroline Mutel and mezzo Karine Deshayes, an active participant in many of the recordings devoted to the ongoing renaissance of French nineteenth-century music to add to her bel canto skills, yet who still retains her love and technique for the Baroque. Indeed, when the ensemble was founded, one of the first fellow artists to agree to perform with them was Deshayes, and a concert in Versailles, dating back over a decade, saw Deshayes, Mutel and d’Hérin join forces for these three Leçons de ténèbres. From the mid-seventeenth century onwards the monadic leçons de ténèbres spread from Italy into France, and the genre was taken up by François Couperin, a leading advocate of the union of the two national styles. His surviving composition in this genre dates from 1714 and provide the singers with powerful opportunities to reflect the moving and harrowing texts taken from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, no more so than in the demanding duetting in the Troisième Leçon. Instrumental and vocal music feature highly in Les Nouveaux Caractères’ programmes even if, in recent years, it has focused on Baroque opera – a Glossa Purcell Fairy-Queen, Leclair, Colin de Blamont, Campra, Rousseau, and a Glossa Rameau Les Surprises de l’Amour. This new recording adds instrumental music from Couperin and his uncle Louis to grace the vocal pearls.

This is Volume 6 in Centaur's complete traversal of the keyboard works of Francois Couperin, performed on harpsichord by Mark Kroll. Mark Kroll has performed works by Couperin throughout his performing life. Recording the complete works is a passion of his, and it shows in these remarkable recordings. Mark Kroll has performed on four continents as a harpsichordist and fortepianist, in both solo recital and as a collaborative chamber musician. Highlights include an appearance as the official guest of the city of Barcelona; featured soloist in Germany’s Regensburg Early Music Festival, France’s Festival Ambronay and the Bordeaux Hummel Festival; performances and lectures in Beijing and Shanghai; two concerts for the Czech Republic’s Prague Spring Festival; and recitals at Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Foundation, Rome’s Conservatorio Santa Caecilia and Associazione Musicale Romana, Poland’s Dni Bachowski, and Slovenija’s Radovljica Festival.

Nowadays, the work of François Couperin is commonly associated with harpsichord music of the turn of the Baroque and Classicism. His elaborate miniatures and suites, plenty of brilliant ornaments, are now almost inextricably linked to the canonical harpsichord repertoire. The album by Dorota Cybulska-Amsler makes us aware, however, that François was not the only composer in the Couperin family. As the artist points out, names of members of the Couperin family, originating from the Chaumes-en-Brie region, are already in documents from the 16th century. In 1586, Mathurin Couperin (ca. 1569–ca. 1640), is still making a living mainly from farming, but he obtains the right to practice music for remuneration. His son, Charles I (1595–1654) is going to be the founder of a musical dynasty.

COUPERIN: CONCERTS ROYAUX NO 1

Artistic salons had begun thriving in Paris at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Their history started in the early seventeenth century with Madame de Rambouillet’s Chambre bleue, which offered its regulars a lively exchange of views on current events in politics, the arts and science, while also serving as a venue for conversations on “love, friendship, a sense of duty, reputation, virtue and taste.” Music was an inseparable element of salon life. It was performed by both high-caliber artists and amateurs, and was the subject of heated debates, controversies and polemics. A gradual return of life to Paris, and the fresh breath of freedom that characterized the final years of the reign of Louis XIV and the ensuing period of regency in particular had created an environment, in which French composers opened themselves up to the music of various nations. The present release features chamber works by Jean-Fery Rebel, Antoine Forqueray, Louis-Antoine Dornel, and Francois Couperin, performed by the {oh!} trio.