Grieg: Cello Sonata - Grainger: La Scandinavie

It was a rainy October night in the Bugey. On October nights, it's always raining in the Bugey. It was around midnight. There were fifty of us, waiting in the cold, the wet and the rapt silence at the Ambronay Festival. All of a sudden, and without a sound, Jordi Savall was there, sopping wet in a white raincoat, like Bogart in Casablanca, holding onto a hard case shaped like a human body. Moving slowly, he drew out not a person but a viola de gamba, which he started tuning and stringing with the greatest care. And then the miracle descended upon the auditorium.

A favourite of Louis XIV, François Couperin (1668-1733) was the harpsichord superstar of the 18th century. At the time, the harpsichord was a prestigious instrument which was at the height of its fame (although it would return to obscurity in the following century), and Couperin revolutionised the way it was played, breaking a path that would later be trod by other virtuosos of the period like Dandrieu or Rameau. The Quebecois harpsichordist Olivier Fortin tells Qobuz the story of "Couperin the Great".

What do you mean, you haven’t heard about Mason Bates (yet)? He is one of the hottest names on the North-American music scene. Born in 1977, Bates is a symphonic and lyrical composer as well as an electro DJ (under the alias DJ Masonic) – two completely opposing genres which he takes great delight in mixing. Around half of his symphonic and lyrical work consists, in one way or another, of electronic sounds. The majority of these sounds are “every day sounds”, which are prerecorded and later put into a score. On the release date of his brilliant opera The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, Qobuz interviewed this extraordinary person.