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La Danse

Martin James Bartlett

Classical - Released January 26, 2024 | Warner Classics

Hi-Res Booklet
Maurice Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin has sometimes been paired with music by its namesake, naturally enough, but here, pianist Martin James Bartlett expands the concept a bit, adding Rameau at the beginning, some little two-piano pieces by Reynaldo Hahn and Ravel's apocalyptic La valse as a grand finale. The result is that he looks outward from the neoclassic world, catching the memorial function of Le tombeau de Couperin (the work's six movements memorialize friends of the composer killed in World War I) and carrying overtones of the whole world that vanished with the war. The inclusion of the pair of two-piano pieces from Le ruban dénoué by the intensely nostalgic Hahn intensifies the mood. Bartlett's tone is measured, avoiding sentiment and holding to an elevated aesthetic. His La valse has an impact that is all the greater in this context. Ravel denied that this work was a symbolic representation of the decline of the old central European culture or of anything else, but one might rejoin that he did not have to realize it for this to be so. Hahn plays the work in its single-piano arrangement, made by Ravel. This is not often heard, due not only to its sheer difficulty but also because of its swirling density. Having introduced the second piano of Alexandre Tharaud in the Hahn works, Bartlett could easily have kept it on for the Ravel. However, his decision was intelligent; the single-piano arrangement has an overwhelming quality that works very well here. This is an unusually cohesive and powerful program, beautifully performed, and the album landed on classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Haendel : Water Music, Rodrigo

Marc Minkowski

Symphonic Music - Released September 27, 2010 | naïve classique

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Stereophile: Record To Die For
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Couperin: Concerts Royaux

Pierre Gallon

Classical - Released March 15, 2024 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet
François Couperin's Concerts Royaux were keyboard dance suites from 1714, preceding those of the set known as Les Goûts Réunis. Couperin wrote them for a single keyboard but noted that they could also be performed by a small ensemble, and the many available recordings of the pieces have availed themselves of both options. This one by Pierre Gallon and Matthieu Boutineau, however, is unique; it is for two harpsichords, with a few continuo additions from theorbo and Baroque guitar. The suites are presented as versions for two harpsichords; these are not credited to anyone but have been created by the performers. The reasoning for this, as presented in the booklet, draws from the ideas that Couperin, even if he did not suggest this option, clearly imagined the instrumentation as flexible, that Couperin did suggest a two-harpsichord option for the Apothéoses for chamber ensemble, and that harpsichord works by the composer Gaspard Le Roux were said by the composer to be playable on two harpsichords. These factors do not quite prove the point being made by the performance, and this recording might better be regarded as an elaboration on Couperin's music. In some pieces, the two players each perform the bass line, distributing the rest of the music between them, and this creates a rich, monumental sound that differs quite a bit from the usual intimate detail one associates with Couperin. The effect is intensified by Harmonia Mundi's booming church sound environment, which doesn't correspond with what Couperin imagined, either. It is true that those who want the versions Couperin himself approved have plenty of major recordings to choose from, and this one is genuinely novel. The bottom line is that a bit of sampling will inform listeners as to whether they find the approach convincing or not.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Vertigo (Rameau - Royer)

Jean Rondeau

Classical - Released February 19, 2016 | Erato - Warner Classics

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or - Choc de Classica
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Moyreau: Complete Harpsichord Music

Fernando De Luca

Miscellaneous - Released March 25, 2022 | Brilliant Classics

Hi-Res Booklet
The first-ever survey on record of the complete surviving output by a significant contemporary of Rameau: a missing piece in the jigsaw of the French Baroque. Christophe Moyreau (1700-1774) was born and died in the city of Orleans, and perhaps one reason why he never attained the fame of contemporaries such as Couperin and Rameau was that he never occupied posts in the French capital. Too much of his career is still shrouded in mystery, but he listed his occupation as "organist" in the marriage register of his home church in 1726 – becoming father to 11 children over the next 18 years – and at some point he became titular organist at the important Church of Saint-Aignan before taking up the post as organist of the cathedral in 1737. It seems to have been the lengthy restoration of the cathedral’s organ which prompted Moyreau in 1753 to gather together much of his previously composed music into six books of Pièces de clavecin. He published them in two volumes during a lengthy period of what would otherwise have been enforced inactivity; he also wrote and issued a small but influential teaching manual in the same year. The 126 separate pieces in the six books are remarkably varied in style but consistent in quality of invention. There are dances and character-pieces, organised into long suites, but also standalone overtures, sonatas and a solo concerto. The last of the suites concludes with a grand evocation of the bells of Orleans which has become his best-known work. The second volume includes six "simphonies" for harpsichord, also recorded here by Fernando de Luca, making this set by far the most comprehensive collection of Moyreau’s music ever released. © Brilliant Classics
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Marin Marais: Pièces de viole, Livre I

Atsushi Sakaï

Classical - Released November 26, 2021 | Aparté

Hi-Res Booklet
Marin Marais is one of the most important figures of the French baroque. At once a virtuoso on the viola da gamba, a composer and a teacher, Marais left behind a varied body of work that displays strikingly abundant inspiration. Five Books of viol music punctuated his life. Published between 1686 and 1723, these collections for solo and accompanied viol not only offer a remarkable synthesis of the practices of the time; they also bear witness to the development of the instrument. Marais’ frequently intimate music, a far cry from Courtly splendors, calls up an imaginary world of light and shadow. Atsushi Sakai has launched a series of recordings of this unique collection of pieces. This album, the first, is devoted to Book I, a transitional work that confirms the ornamented refinement of the “style françois”. Viola da gambist Marion Martineau and harpsichordist Christophe Rousset join Atsushi Sakai on this adventure, recreating the trio that stood out so brilliantly in their Forqueray and Couperin albums. © Aparté
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Haendel : Suites, Chaconne, Mouvement isolés

Anne Queffélec

Classical - Released February 1, 2006 | Mirare

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J'écoute Bach et Haendel avec ma maman

Anne Queffélec

Classical - Released December 3, 2012 | Mirare

Booklet
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Jacquet de La Guerre: Complete Harpsichord Works

Francesca Lanfranco

Classical - Released January 26, 2018 | Brilliant Classics

Booklet
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J.S. Bach: Miscellaneous Pieces for Harpsichord

Pieter-Jan Belder

Classical - Released September 28, 2022 | Brilliant Classics

Hi-Res Booklet
Over a career spanning more than 30 years, the Dutch harpsichordist and conductor Pieter-Jan Belder has become renowned as a Bach interpreter with his surveys in concert and on record of the keyboard and orchestral masterpieces such as The Well-Tempered Clavier, the Brandenburg Concertos and no fewer than three recordings of the Goldberg Variations. On this album, recorded in 2020 and 2021 on a modern Titus Crijnen copy of a Ruckers model, Pieter-Jan Belder turns to the overlooked corners of Bach’s early writing for the harpsichord. These include standalone fugues, fantasias and suites based on themes by contemporary composers such as Reincken and Albinoni. Nevertheless, there is no sense of routine or technical exercise about them. The pieces here are almost all extrovert, playing to the strengths of the young Bach as a performer as well as composer, and already demonstrating that confidence which would go on to mark his mature compositions. An appreciation of French flair is discernible in the F minor Suite, BWV 823 and elsewhere, but the dominant influence is the keyboard writing of Girolamo Frescobaldi, whose toccatas and canzonas were studied by Bach from an early age. The better-known pieces here include the sober and songful Aria variata, BWV 989 with its courtly French theme, and the E-flat Prelude, Fugue and Allegro originally written for lute, but which also finds a happy home on the harpsichord. The most famous but also most uncharacteristic piece is the mysterious Capriccio on the departure of a beloved brother which appears to be a work of Bach’s late teenage years, though no definite corroborative proof of its commission or purpose has yet come to light. Rather, it seems unique in Bach’s output as a humorous parody of styles and emotions. © Brilliant Classics
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Regards de femmes

Marie-Catherine Girod

Classical - Released August 27, 2021 | Mirare

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Was the golden age of the piano that of defeat for female composers ? If they occupied an important place in ancient and baroque music, the bourgeois society which emerges from the Enlightenment limits their access to the conservatory and to the quarry. Marie-Catherine Girod explores this key moment and reveals to us the talent of the resistance fighters of the classical and romantic periods, and of the first modernism, those whose history has retained the name, such as Fanny Mendelssohn or Clara Wieck-Schumann, or of whom she is rediscovery today, like Louise Farrenc, Mel Bonis, Héléne de Montgeroult, Amy Beach or Lili Boulanger. © Mirare
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Un concert pour Madame de Sévigné

Marc HantaÏ

Classical - Released June 7, 2010 | Flora

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D'Agincour: Pièces de clavecin, 1733 - Vol. 1

Stéphane Béchy

Classical - Released January 28, 2022 | BY Classique

Hi-Res Booklet
An organist at the Chapelle Royale de Versailles alongside François Couperin, François d’Agincour rubbed shoulders with the likes of Scarlatti, Bach, Handel and Rameau. Lesser known than his famous counterparts, this Normandy-born musician, who later moved to Paris, never created any operas or grandiose motets that could have established him as one of the greats in the musical hall of fame. Instead, he left behind a collection of organ pieces that has yet to be published, a few arias and this beautiful Livre de Pièces de clavecin from 1733 that was dedicated to Queen Marie Leszczinska, the wife of Louis XV… which is just glorious.In the style of François Couperin, this collection is divided into “orders” (not “parts” or “suites”), and piqued the interest of organist and harpsichordist, Stéphane Béchy. A native of Normandy himself, he has directed the Conservatoire et l’Orchestre de Caen and founded the International Organ Festival in 2000. He is the head organist at Saint-Merry in Paris and a pupil of Marie-Claire Alain, Olivier Baumont and Davitt Moroney. He is also the director and founder of La Dive Musique, a baroque music festival in the Rabelaisian highlands near Seuilly.In this first volume, which was intimately recorded in 2018 in a small rural church in La Sagne (Switzerland), Stéphane Béchy delightfully recreates the tenderness and melancholy of the 17th century on a harpsichord. The instrument was built in Switzerland by Frédéric Jean-Mairet in 2003, based on a model by Jean-Henri Hemsch, and the soundboard was also painted with 17th century designs. This album is proof that music’s long history is dotted with a number of talented, even genius, creators whose work has been lost to time… thank god we have musicians like Stéphane Béchy to show us what we’ve been missing. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Vertigo

Jean Rondeau

Classical - Released February 19, 2016 | Erato - Warner Classics

Booklet

Marais: Folies d'Espagne - pièces inédites

Jonathan Dunford

Classical - Released January 1, 2000 | Universal Music Division Decca Records France

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Marin Marais - Pièces de viola, Volume 2

Jerome Hantai/Alix Verzier/Pierre Hantaï

Classical - Released February 22, 2001 | Warner Classics

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Boëllmann: Organ Music

Piet van der Steen

Classical - Released February 26, 2021 | Brilliant Classics

Booklet
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Marais: Pièces en trio

Pascal Monteilhet

Classical - Released January 1, 1994 | naïve classique

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Pieces for bass Viol

Jérôme Hantaï

Classical - Released February 7, 2005 | Warner Classics