Hyperion UK
2004
François Couperin: Keyboard Music, Vol. 2 [Hybrid SACD]
About This Album
The keyboard music of François Couperin has a closed-in, deeply allusive, precise, rather claustrophobic quality that is much prized by those who really love it. Formally his short pieces (they are grouped into "ordres" and larger books, one of which, Book IV, is presented here) make use of the dances and grounds that are the common coin of the music of the early eighteenth century, but he gives them highly individual, often obscure names like Les Dars-homicides (The Fatal Darts), and, like Bach, specifies exactly how the ornamentation is supposed to sound rather than leaving it to the player. On a harpsichord, miked close up, it feels glittering and brittle. The Book IV pieces heard here date from late in Couperin's career; they add dense counterpoint to the mix and seem to show the influence of J.S. Bach.

Angela Hewitt, a pianist who has specialized in Bach's works, has turned her attention to Couperin in a three-disc series of which this is the second. She is a graceful and subtle pianist, with the kind of audible charisma that sets a mood and the chops to draw an audience into its gradual development. Hewitt has fully thought out a way of playing Couperin on the piano, creating a completely different effect from any harpsichord version.
Track List

25e Ordre For Harpsichord (Pièces De Clavecin, IV)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
21e Ordre For Harpsichord (Pièces De Clavecin, IV)
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
24e Ordre For Harpsichord (Pièces De Clavecin, IV)
11.
12.
26e Ordre For Harpsichord (Pièces De Clavecin, IV)
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
27e Ordre For Harpsichord (Pièces De Clavecin, IV)
18.
19.
20.
21.