F Couperin - Les Nations, Pieces de violes
£14.20
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Label: Australian Eloquence
Cat No: ELQ4828544
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 2
Genre: Chamber
Release Date: 25th October 2019
Contents
Artists
Thurston Dart (harpsichord)Desmond Dupre (viola da gamba)
Dennis Nesbitt (viola da gamba)
Jacobean Ensemble
Works
Les NationsPieces de Violes 1728
Artists
Thurston Dart (harpsichord)Desmond Dupre (viola da gamba)
Dennis Nesbitt (viola da gamba)
Jacobean Ensemble
About
Dart and his colleagues recorded the pair of Suites de violes in 1957, the scores having only been rediscovered around 40 years previously, but they were enthusiastically promoted by the musicologist Wilfred Mellers, who declared them to stand as a highlight of Couperin’s chamber music. This album supports the contention of H. C. Robbins Landon, writing about Les Nations in 1973: ‘Unlike many musicologists, who are poor performers, Dart was a wizard at any keyboard. He was also an excellent director, as the present records attest’. Landon singles out his immaculately crisp rhythmic sense for special praise, as well as his scholarly attention to ornamentation, without which the French Baroque idiom soon dies.
Couperin’s cosmopolitan nature is nowhere more evident than in the four-volume collection of Les Nations, published in 1726 but composed during the previous 35 years. French and Italian styles mingle freely in these suites for trio-sonata ensemble. Made in London and 1958 and 1962, this was their first complete recording, and it was welcomed by critics as displaying all the facets of Couperin’s masterly contrapuntal writing with easy authority, and in an ensemble of two violins accompanied by a continuo of harpsichord and viola da gamba that would have been familiar to Couperin himself. In a 1965 interview, the director of L’Oiseau-Lyre was proud to point out that Dart and Marriner had spent two years editing the score of Les Nations for this recording.
‘Dupré plays sensitively, and is fluent and convincing in ornamentation. Dennis Nesbitt … plays his part firmly but never too obtrusively … the harpsichord [is] here played with style and refinement by Thurston Dart.’ – Gramophone, July 1958 (Pièces de violes)
‘This further instalment of Couperin’s chamber music by the Jacobean Ensemble is distinguished by the finesse of playing and a sense of style that is all too rare in modern recordings … The individual character of these pieces emerges vividly and naturally, and will surely give pleasure to all connoisseurs of French music.’ – Gramophone, November 1962 (Les Nations)
Jacobean Ensemble:
- Neville Marriner (violin)
- Carl Pini (violin)
- Desmond Dupré (viola da gamba)
- Thurston Dart (harpsichord & director)
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