Perrin

Some of the Baroque releases on Canada's ATMA label have stuck close to established molds, but this one by the young Québécoise harpsichordist Catherine Perrin breaks them all. Perrin's career is unusual in itself; while many performers of early music stick to the specialized circles of players who do the same, Perrin has parallel careers as a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio host, contemporary music performer, and musical theater enthusiast. Perrin subtitles her disc "Five Centuries of Preludes on the Harpsichord," but she intends something slightly different: an examination of the prelude as a musical idea. In her booklet notes she quotes writer Michel Chion, who situates the prelude in a space of unique freedom, "a privileged position in the vanguard," unleashed by "the fact that it occurs before the time has come to be serious or definitive.

Catherine Perrin's Ah! Vous dirai-je maman is a recital to show off the sound of a 1772 Jakob and Abraham Kirckman harpsichord, a dual-manual instrument with a pedal mechanism that allows the performer to switch from loud to soft stops quickly. She chose pieces that are contemporaneous with the instrument, which are almost always performed either on a fortepiano or modern piano, but they don't sound out of place on this harpsichord, just different. It has a light, elegant sound, not thickly metallic, and gives a lighter character to the music. Being a harpsichordist and not someone who has first learned these works on the piano, Perrin doesn't try to force anything out of the instrument that it can't produce.