Armand Amar Human

The New Grove Dictionary has entries on 10 musically active members of the Couperin dynasty, of whom Armand-Louis is, chronologically speaking, the eighth. Born in 1725, he was the son of one of the great François Couperin’s cousins, and held a number of organ posts in Paris, including the virtually family-owned one of St Gervais, on the way to Vespers at which he was killed in a road accident just a few months before the Revolution. According to accounts he was a likeable man whose life was led free from strife and uncorrupted by ambition, and it is not fanciful to say that such are the qualities which inform his harpsichord music. Mostly rather rangy character pieces, though with a sprinkling of dances, they show the bold textural richness of the later French harpsichordist-composers, if without the galloping imagination of figures such as Rameau, Balbastre or Royer. Instead, they prefer to inhabit a contented rococo world, into which they bring considerable professional polish. If that makes the pieces sound predominantly ‘pleasant’, well, so they are… as agreeable a body of solo harpsichord music as any. But they are not vapid and neither are they easy, and we can be grateful that this selection has fallen to a player as technically assured and as musically sympathetic as Sophie Yates.

French musician Jean-Patrice Brosse is a versatile performer on both harpsichord and organ. In his discography of over 50 recordings, he has concentrated on French music, exploring the works of such composers as Couperin, Dandrieu, Corrette, Agincourt, and Balbastre. He has also made a number of thematic recordings, such as Le Clavecin au siècle de Louis XIV, Battles at Versailles, and A Concert of Bird Music at Versailles. Brosse is artistic director of the Festival du Comminges and directs the ensemble Concerto Rococo.

Gustav Leonhardt (30 May 1928 – 16 January 2012) was a Dutch keyboard player, conductor, musicologist, teacher and editor. He was a leading figure in the movement to perform music on period instruments. Leonhardt professionally played many instruments, including the harpsichord, pipe organ, claviorganum (a combination of harpsichord and organ), clavichord, fortepiano and piano. He also conducted orchestras and choruses.