Topic: Louis Couperin

[milk]

No not English, If you listen to English musicians like Egarr, Davitt Moroney and Colin Booth, they’re not really like him in the later recordings. Still less so Mahan Esfahani and Thurston Dart.

Tilney wrote a book on the unmeasured prelude. If you look at Alessandrini’s notes on Louis Couperin he has some interesting things to say about these preludes, which he basically thinks are a bit like toccatas in Frescobaldi’s Bk 2 - several different sections each of which has its own emotional feel.

Right. I was probably thinking of some silly caricature of Englishness. Is Mahan Esfahani good in this genre? I should check him out. And I need to listen more to Alessandrini too. I've never gotten over the awe I felt for Sempe's Couperin. Maybe it's because it was one of the first I'd heard. Nothing ever matches it and I only wish Sempe would record more Bach some day. I really like Skip Sempe's solo keyboard recordings.

[Mandryka]

Right. I was probably thinking of some silly caricature of Englishness. Is Mahan Esfahani good in this genre? I should check him out. And I need to listen more to Alessandrini too. I've never gotten over the awe I felt for Sempe's Couperin. Maybe it's because it was one of the first I'd heard. Nothing ever matches it and I only wish Sempe would record more Bach some day. I really like Skip Sempe's solo keyboard recordings.

You could plot performances of Louis Couperin’s measured music on a 2D chart. The y axis showing how turbulent and flamboyant the music is made to sound - sudden unexpected changes in tempo and mood (as opposed to noble, gracious.) The x axis showing how melodic (as opposed to contrapuntal) the music sounds - whether one voice interrupts  another to make scrunchy chords and interrupt the flow.

Alessandrini is noble and contrapuntal; Egarr is flamboyant and contrapuntal; Verlet . . . is melodic and noble. I’m starting to appreciate Verlet much more than before.

 Not sure about any of this!

[milk]

You could plot performances of Louis Couperin’s measured music on a 2D chart. The y axis showing how turbulent and flamboyant the music is made to sound - sudden unexpected changes in tempo and mood (as opposed to noble, gracious.) The x axis showing how melodic (as opposed to contrapuntal) the music sounds - whether one voice interrupts  another to make scrunchy chords and interrupt the flow.

Alessandrini is noble and contrapuntal; Egarr is flamboyant and contrapuntal; Verlet . . . is melodic and noble. I’m starting to appreciate Verlet much more than before.

 Not sure about any of this!

Verlet has a couple of recordings, right? There's one with a very mean-tone sound - kind of moody and dark...wait, no, I'm thinking of Froberger. Do you think she takes Froberger differently or is it in line with her conception of baroque music? Or did she change during her career? I seem to remember the Froberger as really spicy and off-kilter.

[dissily Mordentroge]

Verlet has a couple of recordings, right? There's one with a very mean-tone sound - kind of moody and dark...wait, no, I'm thinking of Froberger. Do you think she takes Froberger differently or is it in line with her conception of baroque music? Or did she change during her career? I seem to remember the Froberger as really spicy and off-kilter.

I recall going into shock the first time I was exposed to Wanda Landovska’s Couperin mangled on one of her blunderbuss Pleyel 'Grand Modèle de Concert' harpsichords. Encountering these peculiar recordings again today for the first time in decades they almost sound strangely manic and contemporary. Warning: The graphics in the link below however are just as likely to induce epilepsy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1hm64X9ANo

[bioluminescentsquid]

I recall going into shock the first time I was exposed to Wanda Landovska’s Couperin mangled on one of her blunderbuss Pleyel 'Grand Modèle de Concert' harpsichords. Encountering these peculiar recordings again today for the first time in decades they almost sound strangely manic and contemporary. Warning: The graphics in the link below however are just as likely to induce epilepsy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1hm64X9ANo

I don't think Landovska played Louis Couperin (the better couperin ). But here's a wonderfully strange version of L. Couperin's Fis minor Pavane on a Pleyel harpsichord, by a student of hers. https://youtu.be/du8yRywaqcE?t=3096

[Mandryka]

Verlet has a couple of recordings, right? There's one with a very mean-tone sound - kind of moody and dark...wait, no, I'm thinking of Froberger. Do you think she takes Froberger differently or is it in line with her conception of baroque music? Or did she change during her career? I seem to remember the Froberger as really spicy and off-kilter.

Three Froberger recordings, all made at different times, I’ll try and make some sense of what she does some time soon. There are 5 volumes of Louis Couperin by her, a big survey project.

[milk]

Three Froberger recordings, all made at different times, I’ll try and make some sense of what she does some time soon. There are 5 volumes of Louis Couperin by her, a big survey project.

The one that stood out as odd and interesting to me is "Froberger ou l'intranquillité" - which from the title promises something. I think it's a very interesting recording but I wonder if it's different than what she'd done previously. 
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and day there's something maddening in this performance, even frightening.

[Mandryka]

A new release, this month I think, and well worth a listen not least for a beautiful transcription à la Ste Colombe le père of a suite by Louis Couperin for thee viols, which makes him sound almost the equal of Ste. Colombe himself.