Carole Cerasi

In her fine Gramophone Award-winning debut disc (of Pieces de clavecin by Jacquet de la Guerre), Carole Cerasi brought a sparkling immediacy and character to music usually the esoteric domain of a minority. Now, she turns her attention to six sonatas by CPE Bach in another recital of natural flair and discernment. The achievement is perhaps all the more striking in that this Bach son is an especially tricky customer: his light, unpredictable sensibilities depend on a strong undercurrent of logical reference, mainly a rhythmic and contrapuntal presence inherited from his father. Strong artistic instincts are the critical adhesive.

François Couperin - Complete Works for Harpsichord - Carole Cerasi (2018) {10CD Box Set Metronome METCD 1100}
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© 2018 Metronome Recordings | METCD 1100
Classical / Baroque / Period Instruments / Harpsichord

The 350th anniversary of François Couperin, the great French keyboard composer of Loius XIV court falls in November 2018 and we announce Metronome's largest release . Over a period of 12 intense months Carole recorded the complete harpsichord works of François Couperin. This 10 CD box set, containing nearly 12 hours of music, is performed on 6 different harpsichords, including two important antiques.

Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665-1729) - The Complete Harpsichord Suites - Carole Cerasi (1998) {Metronome MET CD 1026}
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© 1998 Metronome Recordings Ltd. | MET CD 1026
Classical / Baroque / Harpsichord

Elisabeth Jacquet (Couperin’s senior by three years) was a remarkable girl. A member of a family of musicians, at the age of only five she attracted the benevolent attention of Louis XIV by her harpsichord playing, and subsequently was taken under the wing of his favourite, Mme de Montespan. At 18 she married the organist Marin de la Guerre and became famous for the concerts she gave at her home, in which her powers of improvisation were greatly admired. She wrote trio sonatas, an opera (the first one by a woman to be produced in France), violin sonatas that include double-stopping, and two books of Cantates francaises on Old Testament subjects.

Thomas Tomkins - Barafostus Dreame - Carole Cerasi (2001) {Metronome MET CD 1049}
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© 2001 Metronome Recordings | MET CD 1049
Classical / Renaissance / Early Baroque / Period Instruments / Harpsichord / Virginals

The sound of plucked-string keyboard instruments, overtone-rich and complex, sometimes brilliant but rarely imposing, is one of the more distinctive and delightful artifacts of the Renaissance and Baroque, and if you enjoy the ringing resonance and sharply defined articulation of harpsichord and virginals, you'll find much pleasure in these performances of keyboard works of 17th-century English composer Thomas Tomkins.

Joseph Haydn - Haydn and the Art of Variation - Carole Cerasi (2009) {Metronome MET CD 1085}
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© 2009 Metronome Recordings | MET CD 1085
Classical / 18th Century / Period Instruments / Fortepiano / Clavichord

Historical keyboardist Carole Cerasi has an unusual background: Sephardic, Turkish, Swedish, and British, with French as her first language. Her Haydn readings here are just about as distinctive. They are challenging indeed, and rewarding as well. The cover bills the album as a study of Haydn and the art of variation, but that's only half the story. The other half is an entirely individual attempt to reimagine Haydn's sound world. It's based on the idea that that sound world was an intimate one that Haydn created his keyboard music, especially, for the rooms of a palace rather than for any kind of a concert hall at all.

Manuel Blasco de Nebra - Sonatas & Pastorelas - Carole Cerasi (2003) {Metronome MET CD 1064}
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© 2003 Metronome Recordings | MET CD 1064
Classical / 18th Century / Period Instruments / Fortepiano / Harpsichord

Manuel Orlandi Blasco de Nebra figures among the most talented musicians of the 18th century Spain. He studied in Seville and in Madrid. Son and apprentice of José Blasco de Nebra, the organist of the Seville Cathedral since 1735, he composed over 170 works for keyboard instruments, about 30 of which are still in existence. As well as his talent for playing the organ, the fortepiano and the harpsichord, Manuel Blasco de Nebra’s excellent prima vista (or sight-reading: the ability to perform a piece of music upon reading it for the first time) was well-renowned. Heir to Domenico Scarlatti in many respects, Manuel Blasco de Nebra was a creative genius whose life was too short – he died aged 34 – to get the recognition that he deserved; his compositions have since his lifetime been overshadowed by the reputation of Domenico Scarlatti.

Carole Cerasi - Treasures of the Empfindsamkeit (2014) {Metronome METCD 1091}
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© 2014 Metronome | METCD 1091
Classical / Period Instruments / Clavichord

Following up on her 1998 award-winning recording of CPE Bach sonatas, Carole Cerasi has turned, in her latest release, to that ultimate personal and rarefied musical instrument, the clavichord, to present a recital of profound musical utterances that epitomise the progressive musical style, Empfindsamkeit or 'sensitive style', so beloved of CPE Bach. Opening with one of his most astonishing works, the Fantasie in F sharp minor, she aims to illuminate this particularly expressive style, finding its manifestation in unusual corners of mainstream repertoire and placing contemporary composers in revealing context. Carole Cerasi had the great privilege to have access to the Hoffman clavichord of 1784 housed at Hatchlands Park, which has never before been recorded for commercial release.

J.S. Bach & the Möller Manuscript - Carole Cerasi (2002) {Metronome METCD 1055}
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© 2002 Metronome Recordings | MET CD 1055
Classical / Baroque / Period Instruments / Harpsichord

This is the fourth solo recording by Gramophone Award winner Carole Cerasi. Continuing her adventurous programming on disc, she has chosen a programme inspired by the Möller Manuscript, a manuscript compiled by Johann Sebastian Bach's elder brother Johann Christoph, with whom Johann Sebastian lived after the death of his parents in 1695. The 'Möller' manuscript is one of the most precious musical treasures from the lifetime of Johann Sebastian Bach, not least because it is one of the few sources of his early works that has a close connection with the young composer.

J.S. Bach - The English Suites - Carole Cerasi (2007) {2CD Set Metronome METCD 1078}
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© 2007 Metronome Recordings | MET CD 1078
Classical / Baroque / Period Instruments / Harpsichord

Recorded on a harpsichord by François-Etienne Blanchet II (Paris, 1757), restored and enlarged by Pascal Taskin (Paris, 1778), loaned by Kenneth Gilbert and recorded in the Musée des Beaux Arts, Chartres. From the rarified and somewhat recherché music of Blasco de Nebra, Carole Cerasi turns her focus on a masterpiece of the repertoire for keyboards with this new recording of the English Suites.

Domenico Scarlatti was born in 1685, the same year as J S Bach and Handel. Early life was spent in Naples and Rome where his father Alessandro held important posts. From 1719 he resided in Portugal, teaching keyboard to Maria Bárbara, daughter of King John V, whose marriage ten years later initiated a move to the Spanish court where he remained based until his death in 1757.