Topic: Louis Couperin

[Mandryka]

Here's one for Milk

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/KY3lY1ZVup8" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/KY3lY1ZVup8</a>

[milk]

Here's one for Milk

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/KY3lY1ZVup8" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/KY3lY1ZVup8</a>

Indeed! That’s a pleasure. Guitar kind of equals everything out and make baroque sound like Impressionism.

[Mandryka]

I think this is absolutely fabulous and rather original for the “rhetorical” way he plays the preludes, it’s something he mentions in the booklet but when you hear it in action it has quite an effect. He thinks, basically, that LC’s preludes have nothing to do with lute music and everything to do with Italianate toccatas, apparently it’s an idea he’s filched from Moroney. In practice that means that the music is clearly punctuated into large sections, each of which has its own role to play in the overall oration, making explicit.

the necessary punctuation marks, not evident in the writing, which, in addition to highlighting a change of character, oblige the player to contrive pauses of varying length in order to clarify the structure of the discourse.

Alessandrini has thought hard about the dances too, about tempo, and he plays them with much more nobility than virtuosity - but it’s thrilling to hear partly because of the sound of his harpsichord ( I have no idea what it is, as far as I can see the booklet neglects to tell us.)  The impression is of something dramatic, operatic,  but seriously so, like Corneille or Racine.

That’s a good way to explain this interpretation in words, it’s the musical equivalent of a French tragedy.

Anyway, whatever, it’s a source of great pleasure

[Mandryka]

Listening again to the complete LC from Egarr I'm struck by the enormous variety of music, and having it all arranged in little suites by key makes me think of WTC. You could maybe the talk about the complexity of the C major music, the tenderness of the D major music and so on. In some of the suites I'm reminded of D'Anglebert, in others Froberger. What I would really like is more information on dating, style and influences: I once read a comment of Davitt Maroney's which suggested that very little is known.

Anyway LC is a composer who I think is satisfying when approached by means of a complete set, and this one by Egarr is imaginative, improvisatory, light, resonant, bold. Richard Egarr can sometimes make the voices collide to produce music of great expressiveness and turbulence and complexity. And at other times he knows how to take you by the hand and lead you through a simple flowing river of melody. And Egarr really can make his quill plectra make soul music: the dynamics and colours and textures are astonishing.

And listening to the first CD again this evening, first time in two years,  what I’m hearing most clearly is how dramatic Egarr’s conception is, with large theatrical gestures flamboyantly swaggered, it’s very good, but it’s the sort of thing I would have expected from a thespian like Rousset than Egarr.

[k a rl h e nn i ng]

And listening to the first CD again this evening, first time in two years,  what I’m hearing most clearly is how dramatic Egarr’s conception is, with large theatrical gestures flamboyantly swaggered, it’s very good, but it’s the sort of thing I would have expected from a thespian like Rousset than Egarr.

Nice!

[Mandryka]

Karen  Flint is one of my favourite musicians in Chambonnières and Jacquet de la Guerre and maybe Lebegue too, but this Louis Couperin integral didn’t do much for me when it was released. So I thought I’d better give it another chance.

And as a result I’ve become slightly clearer about what she’s up to.

1. She’s playing Louis Couperin as if he wrote character pieces in the style of François Couperin. The emphasis in these performances is not on the drama nor the counterpoint, it is on the distinct feeling, sentiment, character that each piece expresses. And from that point of view she’s pretty successful.

2. She  plays this music in a highly civilised way. That’s to say, there’s a sort of fluid elegance to what she’s about with Louis Couperin. There’s nothing which would ruffle the feathers of any noble salonista, no asperities, no jolts.

3. She uses very little rubato, maybe none at all. And when you’re used to rubato it’s a challenge to adjust to her style.  it would be wrong to think that they lose out in lyrical expressiveness, she shows very well that this music is melodically expressive. It’s just that the pulse is so steady it becomes a bit boring from that point of view, ponderous even when the tempos are slow. I wonder if anyone thinks this is a good idea.

The harpsichords are recorded closely. Maybe that’s what they sound like when you’re playing them or sitting inside them, but they don’t sound like when you’re in the audience of a recital. If you turn the volume down it’s a pleasure to hear.