Couperin

Fair Oriana: Divine Songs of Passion

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Divine Songs of Passion
Fair Oriana, with David Wright & Harry Buckoke
St Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield, London EC1A
13 April 2022
(and at Sands Films Music Room on 21 April)

As part of their Holy Week Mass and Music series of events, the historic church of St Bartholomew the Great in London’s Smithfield invited the soprano duo, Fair Oriana, to perform their programme Divine Songs of Passion. This well-constructed concert was based around François Couperin’s c1714 Leçons de ténèbres pour le mercredi saint, contrasted with music by d’Anglebert, Purcell, Pergolesi and Blow. The date of the concert was appropriate, as the only surviving part of the Couperin Leçons de ténèbres is the one for the Wednesday of Holy Week. The other two sets of three Leçons composed for the following two days are lost. Although the Lamentations of Jeremiah depict the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, they have long been associated with Holy Week.

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Couperin: Leçons de Ténèbres

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Couperin: Leçons de Ténèbres
Sophie Junker, Florie Valiquette, Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal, Stéphane Fuget
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS034. 53’03

Couperin: Leçons de Ténèbres, Motet pour le jour de Pâques
Lalande: Cantique Quatrième

This recording from the prolific label Château de Versailles Spectacles contrasts Couperin’s well-known Leçons de Ténèbres with his near contemporary Michael Richard de Lalnande’s Cantique Quatrième: Sur le Bonheur des Justes et le Malheur des Réprouvés and his own Motet pour le jour de Pâques: Victoria Christo Resurgenti. One of my biggest issues with this recording is the excessive vibrato from both singers. This not only causes intonation problems but, particularly in French Baroque music, wreaks havoc with the ornaments. One of the accompanying essays is a lengthy analysis of French ornaments, so it is surprising that more effort wasn’t made to keep the surrounding vocal texture reasonably pure toned so that the ornaments could be heard clearly. As it is, the ornaments often come over as just another wobble.

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Couperin: Pièces d’Orgue

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

François Couperin (1668-1733)
Pièces d’Orgue (1609)
Ed. Jon Baxendale
161 pages • ISMN 979-0-706670-00-3 (Hardback) • 979-0-706670-21-8 (Wire)
Lyrebird Music. LBMP–001

No description available.

This is a very welcome new edition of François Couperin’s 1690 Pièces d’Orgue. It is a revised version of the edition published by Cantando Musikkforlag in 2018, but is now issued under the Lyrebird Music label. There are several improvements on the layout of the earlier version,. which remains the only commercially available critical edition. One of the problems with Couperin’s Pièces d’Orgue is that it was not printed, but published in manuscript form. There is only one surviving copy of that original manuscript, but four other sources of it, with varying degrees of accuracy. Editor Jon Baxendale has revisited the five known sources to discover which is the most accurate.

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Ensemble Molière: Réunion des goûts

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Réunion des goûts
Ensemble Molière
Heath Street Arts
Heath Street Baptist Church and Livestream. 21 December 2021

No photo description available.

Lully – Ouverture from Psyché
Couperin – Sonade from L’Impériale, Les Nations 
Telemann – Quatuor No. 6 in E minor from Nouveaux quatuors en six suites
Charpentier – Suites from Le Mariage Forcé
Couperin – Chaconne ou Passacaille from La Françoise, Les Nations

The last concert in the 2021 series of the Heath Street Arts’ Tuesday Lunchtime Concerts (TLC) at Heath Street Baptist Church, Hampstead was given by Ensemble Molière under the title of Réunion des goûts. Sharing the stage with an enormous Christmas tree, their programme reflected the merging of French and Italian musical styles that had been pioneered by François Couperin and developed by Georg Philipp Telemann. It was initiated by Couperin in his L’Apothéose de Lully and Les Nations. Telemann continued the trend with his 1738 Nouveaux quatuors en six suites – the ‘Paris Quartets’.

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Le Clavecin Mythologique

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Le Clavecin Mythologique
Anne Marie Dragosits
L’Encelade ECL1801. 73’00

J-H. d’Anglebert: Les Songes Agréables d’Atys, Passacaille d’Armide, Les Sourdines d’Armide
F. Couperin: Les Satires, Ls Sylvains, Les Ombres Errantes
J.-P. Rameau: L’Entretien des Muses, Les Cyclopes
J.-B. Forqueray: Jupiter
P. Royer: L’Imagination, Allemande, La Sensible, La Marche des Scythes
J. Duphly: Médée, Les Grâces

One of the essential tasks for any musician or music promoter is putting together a programme that will make sense to the listener as well as providing a satisfactory ‘hook’ for the performer to share their musical wares. This recording (released in 2018) by the Vienna-based harpsichordist Anne Marie Dragosits presents us with a Suite mythologique consisting of music by composers covering the whole range of the French Baroque harpsichord school from d’Anglebert to Duphly, all based on the mythological world of antiquity. Continue reading →

Messe du Roi Soleil

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Messe du Roi Soleil
Lully – Couperin – Delalande
Chœur et Ensemble Marguerite Louise, Gaetan Jarry, organ
Château de Versailles Spectacles, CVS008. 53’13

The Château de Versailles Spectacles label continues with its series of recordings based on the music that might have been heard in the Royal Chapel. These recordings are presumably aimed principally at the tourists that, in more normal circumstances, flock to the Palace and its gift shops. On this occasion, there has to be a health warning to more serious CD buyers, not least because the premise for this recording is not really what it says on the tin. One thing this isn’t is a Mass for the Sun King, or indeed, any sort of Mass. Continue reading →

Ensemble Diderot: The London & Paris Albums

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

The London & Paris Albums
Ensemble Diderot, Johannes Pramsohler
London: Audax ADX13718. 66’10
Paris: Audax ADX13717. 65’13

Ensemble Diderot: The London Album | Audax ADX13718

Ensemble Diderot: The Paris Album | Audax ADX13717

ADX13718: The Trio Sonata in England before 1680
ADX13717: The Trio Sonata in France before 1700

The impressively energetic Ensemble Diderot continue their series of recordings (on their own label) with these two offerings, comparing and contrasting Trio Sonatas from London and Paris in the latter part of the 17th-century. There are several premiere recordings, some fine examples of the early history of the Trio Sonata, and a few oddities that are nonetheless worth recording, and listening to.

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François Couperin 350th Anniversary Concert

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Christ’s Chapel of Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift in Dulwich
14 Gallery Rd, London SE21 7AD

Sunday 8 July 2018, 7.45 – 8.30

Guirlandes Alleluiatiques
François Couperin 350th Anniversary Concert

Andrew Benson-Wilson

Extracts from François Couperin’s Messe pour les Couvents, contrasted with the final cycle of Charles Tournemire’s L’Orgue Mystique, ending with the extraordinary
Fantaisie sur le Te Deum et Guirlandes Alleluiatiques.

Played on the 1760 England / 2009 William Drake organ.

Christ’s Chapel is part of Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift,
which is next to the Dulwich Art Gallery. Free street parking.
10 minutes walk from West Dulwich station.
Admission free – retiring collection.
Organ details here.

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London Festival of Baroque Music 2018

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ 1 Comment

London Festival of Baroque Music
Treasures of the Grand Siècle
11-19 May 2018

The London Festival of Baroque Music (LFBM) is now in its 35th year. Previously known as the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music, it is London’s leading early music festival, not least for the number of non-UK performers that it has traditionally featured. Last year’s change in the management means that the executive director of the festival is now Richard Heason, director of St John’s, Smith Square, the festival’s principal London home. For the 2018 festival, he is joined by a guest artistic director, Sébastien Daucé. They are bringing to London a sizeable chunk of French music, musicians and culture under the title of Treasures of the Grand Siècle. Described as an “immersive exploration” of the music of the French Baroque from the time of the Sun King, Louis XIV and the Palace of Versailles, the festival features some 22 events over 9 days. It is a comparatively rare opportunity in the UK to hear French Baroque music performed by French musicians including, for the latter part of the festival, Sébastien Daucé’s own group, Ensemble Correspondances. Along with several other musicians performing, I first heard Ensemble Correspondances and Sébastien Daucé when I as reviewing at last years Ambronay festival, reviewed here.

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Le coucher du soleil

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Le coucher du soleil
A Weekend of Excessively Good Taste. Music of the French Baroque – 1
Instruments of Time and Truth, Edward Higginbottom, Robyn Allegra Parton
Kings Place, 25 November 2016

F Couperin: Sonate: La Pucelle, Première Leçon de Ténèbres, L’apothéose de Corelli;
Jacquet de La Guerre: Pièces de clavecin
Clérambault: Cantate Abraham
Leclair: Violin Sonata in C Major, Op 2/3
Mondonville: Pièces de clavecin avec voix ou violon: In decachordo psalterio, Regina terrae, Benefac Domine;
Rameau: Deuxième concert from Pièces de clavecin en Concert

The Kings Place year-long ‘Baroque Unwrapped’ series of concerts drew close to its end with a ‘A Weekend of Excessively Good Taste’, devoted to music of the French Baroque in a period where bon gout was the watchword. The concert by the Oxford based Instruments of Time and Truth, directed by Edward Higginbottom (an acknowledged expert on French music) looked at the increasing influence of Italian music after the rather musically insular period of the reign of the Sun King.

The concert opened and closed with François Couperin. His first trio sonata, La Pucelle (c1692), was written under an Italian pseudonym. His concluding L’apothéose de Corelli, was his more open attempt to show how the disparate Italian and French styles could, and should, be combined. The programme note quoted several comments from the time expressing the differences between the styles, including a reference to a lady of the Court of Louis XIV fainting with delight or terror at hearing an Italian inspired violinist playing his ‘rapid passages’. Louis XIV’s response to such Italian virtuosity was to invite a simple melody from a French violinist with the comments that ‘That is my taste’.

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Froberger: A Celebration

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Froberger: A Celebration
Benjamin Narvey, Adrian Lenthall, Tom Foster
British Clavichord Society
Art Workers Guild, London WC1. 19 November 2016

Image result for frobergerComposers with an eye for future recognition should ideally aim to die around the age of either 25 or 75, thereby gaining an anniversary every 25 years or so. Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-67) died aged 51, which means that he has anniversaries this year and next year, but not again for another 49 years. Hopefully the burst of interest in these two years will carry his name forward, as he is an often overlooked composer. But he was an enormous influence on keyboard composers from the 17th to early 19th  century, not least for spreading the Italian style of his teacher Frescobaldi around Europe, and assimilating various European musical styles into his own compositions, notably from France.

Although only two of his works were published in his lifetime, Froberger’s   Continue reading →

French Splendour & Italian Virtuosity

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

‘French Splendour & Italian Virtuosity in Baroque Music’
Michal Rogalski, oboe, Katarzyna Kowalik, harpsichord, Kate Conway, cello & viol
Music in New Malden. 9 October 2016

Whatever the success of their performing, academic, or teaching careers, for many musicians one of the most important aspect of their musical life is their involvement in local musical activities, for example, setting up and running local music festivals and events. An example of the latter is the Music in New Malden (MiNM) series of concerts, founded by Jane Booth and John Irving in 2009. Held in New Malden Methodist Church, the annual series of Sunday afternoon concerts feature professional musicians and generally focus on early music and historical performance. Admission is free, but there is a retiring collection for a range of designated charities, so far raising over £9000 for Macmillan Cancer Care, Dementia UK, Home Farm Trust, Princess Alice Hospice, Disasters Emergency Committee, Jessie’s Fund and others.

The 2016/17 series ranges from solo piano to a choir and orchestra. It opened on 9 October with a concert (by Michal Rogalski, oboe, Katarzyna Kowalik, harpsichord, and Kate Conway, cello & viol) comparing French and Italian compositional and performing style in the Baroque era. Attempts to bring these two styles together were the focus of many composers of the period. Continue reading →

Divine Noise – Theatrical music for two harpsichords

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Divine Noise – Theatrical music for two harpsichords
Menno van Delft, Guillermo Brachetta
Resonus RES10145. 74:26

Rameau: Platée Suite arr Brachetta; F. Couperin: Le Pais du Parnasse; Le Roux: Suite in F

You really do need to like the sound of the harpsichord to appreciate this CD, with its two powerful French harpsichords doing battle with each other and, on occasion, the eardrums. Guillermo Brachetta’s arrangement of pieces from Rameau’s Platée lasts about 50 minutes, and runs the whole gamut of the French Baroque vocal, instrumental and dance style. And it is an extraordinary style, aided by a very clever arrangement and the forthright and imaginative playing by Guillermo Brachetta and his former teacher, Menno van Delft. Continue reading →

London Festival of Baroque Music – Day 4/5

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

‘Women in Baroque Music’
St John’s, Smith Square & Westminster Abbey, 18/19  May 2015

SJSS 2I couldn’t get to the lunchtime concert on day 3 of the festival, but it was given by soprano Rowan Pierce and the young group Medici, under the title of ‘Future Baroque’, with music by Handel, Bach, Royer, Telemann, Corelli and Vivaldi. Unless I have missed something, this was another event that seemed to bypass the festival’s theme, although it did include as its final work Agitata da due venti, a surviving fragment from Vivaldi’s opera L’Adelaide and later also included in his Griselda, composed for the virtuoso soprano Margherite Giacomazzi.

‘Leçons des ténèbres’
Julia Doyle & Grace Davidson, sopranos,
Jonathan Manson, bass viol, Steven Devine, harpsichord, organ & director

The Monday evening concert (St John’s, Smith Square, 18 May) Continue reading →