24 Mesures (2007)

Helly, Didier, Marie et Chris, sont quatre âmes en souffrance : l’une prostituée droguée séparée de son fils, l’autre fâché pour toujours avec un père impossible, la troisième avec sa mère, le dernier plein de rancœur et de rage. Ces accidents de la vie leur donnent une fêlure, une fragilité psychologique, dont ils tentent de se défaire au cours d’une nuit, celle du réveillon de Noël…

Although less well known than his nephew François, Louis Couperin was one of the finest and most influential keyboard composers of the seventeenth century, his music mixing elegance, refined lyrical expressiveness, structural clarity and a touch of noble melancholy in a way that is always interesting and frequently powerful. These qualities suffuse the movements of his many suites, most notably perhaps in the slower ones–the eloquent préludes non mésurés (in which the music is only half notated, so as to allow the performer to exercise his improvisatory skills), the expansive allemandes, and perhaps above all in the gripping repetitions of the concluding chaconnes and passacailles–but on this disc it is also represented by a moving Tombeau lamenting the death of the lutenist Blancrocher. Laurence Cummings is a neat and intelligent player whose sound technique enables him to make the best of the resonant yet gentle sonorities of his instrument, and he is well recorded. A must for harpsichord enthusiasts, and a real bargain for all.