Baroque keyboard music strikes again

... in the form of Rameau. Kenneth Gilbert's 1970s recording is excellent. Perhaps the finest music I have heard.

 

Have you listened to Christophe Rousset's 1992 Rameau recital? Possibly the best recording of Rameau's pieces de clavecin.

 

Hi this is my first post here - after I read pe-zulu's comment regarding Chorzempa's WTC (an old post I know, but something I simply couldn't find elsewhere on the web) I've decided that I've got to register and make my contributions. Ok, now for something on topic: I think I prefer Noelle Spieth's complete Rameau on the Solstice label to that of Rousset

 

Welcome Masolino,

I have heard many fine things about Ms. Spieth but was unable to find any available recordings by her on Amazon (US). Would particularly like to hear her Francois Couperin cycle. However, now that I am in Asia, I suppose it would be almost impossible to find it here.

In respect of Rameau, has anyone heard the complete cycle by Frederick Haas on Calliope? Strangely enough, I came across a shop here - Malaysia, where I'll be for the next four months - offering the set for 140 bucks (although it was supposed to be a 2 for 1 promotion). Classical music in this region is very expensive, sometimes absurdly so. They have most of the new stuff in Tower Records but they are very highly-priced. I suppose foreigners would consider it worth it, the exchange rate being approximately RM4 to USD1 and RM7 to one pound sterling.
Local enthusiasts, however, may find it an expensive hobby. Food and climate are very good, though.

 

Dear Sn66

You can (at least teorethically) order Spieth's F. Couperin here. It seems to be the only available complete F Couperin set at the moment.

http://www3.fnac.com/search/quick.d...1977b3&text=spieth&category=classic&x=38&y=16

Do you know the other recordings she has made? I only own (and know) her Weckmann CD, which is beautiful and suitable free in style.

Regards,

 

Complete F Couperin sounds overkill - he was not that good.
Robert Casadesus was big on Rameau, btw.

 

I am afraid you are right. On the other hand Sn66 recommended me Rousset´s Couperin. The complete set is out of print, but I have ordered an available two-(or three)CDs extract from his set. Maybe this is enough for me, maybe it makes me want more. Time will show. Honestly I was never before seriously attracted to F. Couperin, and I know very little of his music, but the insistent warm words about him in this forum make me curious.

 

Thank you kindly, sn66.

Here in Taipei, Ms Spieth's complete Couperin is supposed to be available for NTD$4200 or USD$130 approximately. Since I already have all Olivier Baumont's set and three quarters of Rousset's (sans Livre I) it may take me a bit of debating with myself before I will allow more cash stashed on Couperin. For me, Mr Couperin might as well be called Mr Chameleon for his harpsichord music is so evasive emotionally it can sound different things to me at different times (same performance!) and nice pieces can turn to boredom when the listener is not inspired. Not really the composer's fault I guess.

 

I don't have Ms Spieth's Weckmann recording (alas missed it when it was last available here) but own, apart from her Rameau, a Soler disc and a Sweelinck disc from her. All exhibit the same traits as you describe...the music simply flows in her hand. Must confess that I am really tempted by her Couperin even though it is pretty expensive, and I already have a lot of Couperin from Baumont and Rousset

 

Well to me Couperin's music for the clavicin can be alluring or irritating depending on the listener's mood. It's so non-assertive but insistent at the same time, often we have a problem with how to engage with it properly. The one Couperin performance on the piano that had succeeded to imprint on me is from, surprise!, Wihelm Kempff. He has a very "soft" (some would say "lame" ) playing style and I think it suits the music like a match made in heaven. Too bad he played mostly Bach.

 

Dear Bat: Why are you so keen on such trenchant judgements? One could also say that abot Bach - the whole Orgelbüchlein is overkill, most 'lighter' preludes and fugues are not worth listening to repeatedly, most of Mozart's early symphonies and even sonatas are really nothing special and we could even argue the same about some of the early Beethoven sonatas.

Might buying the entire cicle of Bach organ music considered overkill (most of the partitas - not Sei gegrüsset Jesu Gütig) are boring in the highest degree, his first attempts to copy Buxtehude are mostly bad, and the former preludes and fugues are just difficult to listen to (he keeps hammering notes in the same key, then, after about 10 minutes, he modulates to the dominant for another terribly long period and again, back to the main tonallity).

However, it is actually very interesting to listen to the way he developed. First Pachelbel influence, then Buxtehude influence, later Vivaldi influence. And then, for the very end of his life, counterpoint and almost a sensibility style influence (check the prelude in f minor of II WTC or simply the Schüblers.

Of course one may want to select the period or the pieces one prefers. But does that mean that 'Bach was not that good'?

Couperin's music is very subtle. It goes from the deepest passions nd statelyness of Louis xiv to the lighter vein of later French culture. However, as it also happens with Rameau's suites, there are old traits in his more 'recent' style.

I know I defend Couperin a lot and, as a matter of fact, do not know his music very well. But what I can say is that it is worth repeated listening. First you think there is nothing, then you go on to discover beauties, then treasures, and you ask yourself how could he reach such depths of psychological understanding. It is the art of subtle understatement that moves you in the end: very deep emotion flows in these apparently simple pieces.

Much the same happens with the inventions and symphonies of JS Bach. At first, they seem exercises (well: they are, and every Bach player was confronted with them when rather young, so some of them stick to one as horrible boring recollections). With repeated listening, some of them are plain beautiful.

As to versions. I really don't know. I have one volume of the Gilbert integral, but sound is distorted (a kind of tremolo as if the harpsichord is an organ with a cracked windchest), and I cannot really listen to it. Spieth I do not know. Rousset's I only know from the two CD set pe-zulu mentioned, and I must say I was not really enthralled.

But, to cut a long story ... long, anyway -it is too late and I am not editing this ... I would urge people to listen carefully. It is indeed subtle, but very moving. He said something like this: J'aime beaucoup plus ce qui me touche à ce qui m'émeut, which I think can be translated by 'I rather prefer toutching to emotional music'. That might, perhaps, help to understand his music.

 

I think he said that "I prefer that which moves me to that which astonishes me". Couperin certainly bears repeated listening.

However, I prefer Rameau's (and Scarlatti's) music which have more melodic invention. Pianists have noticed that and played Scarlatti (and sometimes Rameau) for decades.

Of course an artist must be judged by the quality of their best works, not by the average quality of the whole output. Moroney's record is a selection of the finest pieces (according to Moroney) and I am not (at least yet) enthralled.

 

'J'aime beaucoup mieux ce qui me touche que ce qui me surprend', that's the correct quotation.

I only know of one Couperin record by moroney: he plays a piece by Couperin and after that one that refers to it. I don't recall the name - something as Hommage à Monsieur Couperin.

It is played on original harpsichords and, what is more, in very low diapason (a whole tone below the modern one). The sound of a harpsichord tuned so low is very charming and very becoming to Couperin's music.

Rameau's music has been mentioned by Bat, in connection with Kenneth Gilbert. I have his set, but sound is very odd: the acoustic is very dry and the harpsichords recorded from rather far away - and almost without brilliance.

But I must say that, bar the sarabandes, allemandes and rondeaux I usually do not like Rameau.

As for Scarlatti, as I have already said, I simply cannot bear his music on the harpsichord: the sound just irritates me, more or less like when I listened, in my youth, to the Singer sewing machine my parents had in the attic. It becomes bearable (just bearable) when it is played softly and tenderly on the modern piano. But I know my taste is very different from most people: I like modality or even infinite modulation, but I detest the way tonality evolved in the 2nd quarter of the 18th Century.

 

Dear all,

The 2-cd set by Rousset is actually a very good representation of Couperin's harpsichord pieces; you get almost all the important orders. And this is a very rare instance in which I have to disagree with RdS. I feel that Rousset's interpretation is quite superlative. As I have mentioned earlier, my favourite book is probably Book 4, especially the last four orders. Pieces like Les Vieux Seigneurs, Les Dars Homicides, L'Amphibie, La Visionnaire, La Convalescente, L'Epineuse, L'Exquise and Les Chinois, in fact, all the pieces from Orders 24-27, and quite a few from the Orders 20-23, are masterpieces. If the earlier books were adventurous, playful, graceful and sometimes even frivolous, this is Couperin at his most disillusioned and melancholy, yet also noble and defiant. And Rousset captures everything, the angularity of L'Arlequine, the nobility of L'Amphibie, the melancholy of L'Epineuse etc. Granted, Leonhardt did not record any pieces from the last book and I haven't heard Spieth, but Gilbert is surpassed, and I would really salute an interpretation that betters Rousset's. He is not always successful in his recordings eg, his Froberger and Scarlatti, but in this instance, he excels.

There is also a selection of Francois Couperin by Blandine Verlet (2-disc) available. I haven't got it because it has too many pieces from Book 1 and too little from Book 4 (this is not to say that Couperin's earlier works are that inferior and in fact many people would disagree with me, most consider Books 2 and 3 better; I must admit that there are fabulous orders from the three earlier books eg, Orders 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 15, 18).

Dear Masolino, does Baumont compare with the best interpretators of Couperin? I have listened to his Book 3, and am not fully convinced. Technically, he is assured but there is a certain jerkiness apparent, perhaps a result of his tendency to overphrase. And he does not go very deep, his Les Folies Francoises lacking the psychological depth and contrasts inherent in Rousset's excellent reading. He also does not stricly observe repeats, for instance, in the otherwise wonderful Les Fauvetes Plaintives and some other pieces. However, some of the slower pieces are very well played, with a certain delicateness and languor that sometimes eludes Rousset. And he is more adventurous with embellishments in repeats, although perhaps Couperin would not approve as he left very strict instructions in regard to this.

Opinions?

Regards.

 

Hello sn66,

I guess I am in a minority to prefer Baumont over Rousset in F. Couperin, but certainly Baumont has been spoken for elsewhere
http://groups.google.com.tw/group/r...odd+Couperin+arpeggio&rnum=1#404505957a7b4f0c
and I think the comment there ("Couperin's clavecin music is arpeggio oriented") makes good sense to me. Considering how much French harpsichord music of the period was influenced by lute and harp playing styles I am convinced by Baumont's efforts (e.g. fussier phrasings) to make the music sound different. If anything, I think Rousset makes too much heavy weather of the score, which is certainly not the composer's intention given the number of enigmatic titles he gave and his preference for light yet articulate touches over more deliberate intepretations in music.