Sophie Yates

Sophie Yates - Tombeau: German Harpsichord Music of the Seventeenth Century (1998)

Sophie Yates - Tombeau: German Harpsichord Music of the Seventeenth Century (1998)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 396 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 172 Mb | Artwork included
Classical | Label: Chandos (Chaconne Series) | # CHAN0596 | Time: 01:14:46

A fascinating collection of German harpsichord music from one of the instruments finest exponents, Sophie Yates. The German composer Johann Jacob Froberger is the central figure in this collection and he was probably the most significant influence in the development of a distinctive, German style of writing for keyboard instruments. He wrote some twenty-five toccatas of which the two on this album are of very different character; the earlier one is very contrapuntal in style and makes use of a chromatic theme, whilst the other is written in a feer, more improvisatory style, and is harmonically very daring. Sophie Yates writes in her sleeve notes that she wished to include some of the darker more sensual suites, of which the C minor Suite is one of the most striking. Froberger is a colourful composer, and these varied suites, consisting of the usual dance numbers of the day, are most enjoyable. Johann Kaspar Kerll was similarly an innovator and is represented on this album by an impressive Passacaglia which places great demands on the player, Johann Pachelbel is probably most famous as a composer of sacred works and, of course, the ubiquitous Canon in D. Of his instrumental music, the Hexachordum Apollinis is his most well-known work, which comprises a set of six arias with variations, of which the last one is recorded here. George Böhm is best remembered for his influence on other composers, particularly J S BAch.

Sophie Yates - Rameau: Pieces de Clavecin, Vol. 1-2 (2000-2004)  Music

Posted by Domestos at Sept. 11, 2017
Sophie Yates - Rameau: Pieces de Clavecin, Vol. 1-2 (2000-2004)

Sophie Yates - Rameau: Pieces de Clavecin, Vol. 1-2 (2000-2004)
EAC Rip | FLAC (image+.cue, log) ~ 409.69 Mb (Vol1) + 427.89 Mb (Vol2) | 02:24:04 | Scans included
Classical | Country: UK | Label: Chaconne

One of the world's preeminent harpsichordists, Sophie Yates is known for her critically acclaimed performances of Baroque music. Universally praised for her profound understanding of Baroque style, Yates is also admired for her refined touch and discreet virtuosity. Indeed, critics have often lauded Yates for subordinating her enormous virtuosity to stylistic and aesthetic concerns. As a specialist in French Baroque music, Yates masterfully captures the elusive style of French Baroque keyboard performance, perfectly conjuring up the enigmatic atmosphere of distant intimacy heard in pieces by Couperin and Rameau. Commenting on her album French Baroque Harpsichord, critic Robert Haskins admired Yates' subtle renditions of Couperin's music. "In her readings of Les Idées heureuses, she savors the melodic quality of the ornamentation and the stately but fluid rhythms to marvelous effect."
Sophie Yates - Johann Christian Bach: Six Sonatas, Op.5 (2009)

Sophie Yates - Johann Christian Bach: Six Sonatas, Op.5 (2009)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 410 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 160 Mb | Artwork included
Classical | Label: Chandos (Chaconne Series) | # CHAN0762 | Time: 01:07:48

Johann Christian Bach's sonatas belong so much to the domain of the fortepianist that we forget how terrific they can sound on the harpsichord; they are by turns rhythmically engaging, almost jazzy, witty, sparkling, and expressive. By most accounts Bach played both instruments with equal facility and did not leave us a stated preference for one over the other, indeed if he had one. Sophie Yates has done very well to remind us with her superb Chandos recording Johann Christian Bach: Six Sonatas, Op. 5, that the London Bach need not be heard on fortepiano to be experienced to his best advantage; one may make the case that Bach's sonatas benefit to some extent from the brightness of the older instrument. Yates is the first artist to record Bach's Op. 5 as a set on the harpsichord; the only other complete recording of Op. 5 has been done on fortepiano, yet these sonatas are most commonly heard individually or mixed up with the later, "Welcker" Sonatas, Op. 17. Although they are difficult to individually date, Bach's Op. 5 was published in 1766 and all six are thought to date from his first four years in London; in her notes, Yates correctly observes the impact of Thomas Arne on Bach's style and of the general English approach to melody. Luckily in Bach's case the Italian manner had already held sway for some time by his arrival in London in 1762, so the learning curve was not a tough road to hoe for the Padre Martini-educated master.
Sophie Yates - La Sophie: Popular Harpsichord Music of the 18th Century (1996)

Sophie Yates - La Sophie: Popular Harpsichord Music of the 18th Century (1996)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 430 Mb | Total time: 71:43 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Chandos | # CHAN 0598 | Recorded: 1995

This collection of 18th century harpsichord music brings together works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Jacques Duphly, Francois Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau, George Frederic Handel, Louis-Claude Daquin, and Guiseppe Domenico Scarlatti. The pieces go together nicely, not least because of the way in which Sophie Yates plays them.

Sophie Yates - Armand-Louis Couperin: Pieces de Clavecin (2005)  Music

Posted by Designol at June 18, 2024
Sophie Yates - Armand-Louis Couperin: Pieces de Clavecin (2005)

Sophie Yates - Armand-Louis Couperin: Pièces de Clavecin (2005)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 490 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 189 Mb | Artwork included
Classical | Label: Chandos (Chaconne Series) | # CHAN 0718 | Time: 01:19:49

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.

Sophie Yates - English Virginals Music (1995)  Music

Posted by tirexiss at July 2, 2025
Sophie Yates - English Virginals Music (1995)

Sophie Yates - English Virginals Music (1995)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 01:10:40 | 466 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Chandos | Catalog: CH0574

Sophie Yates follows her French and Iberian collections (11/93 and 11/94) with an English one, an overview of the period that ended in the 1620s after the death of Byrd, its central figure, Gibbons and Bull, though Tomkins delayed the stylistic rigor mortis for another 30 years. The anonymous My Lady Carey's Dompe and Aston's Hornepype provide quasi-improvisational precursors (though they are not so placed in the programme) of the ubiquitous divisions upon whatever, including Byrd's or Aston's Ground – he looked both backwards to Aston and sideways to Dowland and Harding in writing divisions on their works.

Sophie Yates - Fandango: Scarlatti in Iberia (1998)  Music

Posted by ArlegZ at Aug. 3, 2023
Sophie Yates - Fandango: Scarlatti in Iberia (1998)

Sophie Yates - Fandango: Scarlatti in Iberia (1998)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 420 Mb | Total time: 69:11 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Chandos | # CHAN 0635 | Recorded: 1998

The Spanish and Portuguese influence in Domenico Scarlatti’s rhythms and, perhaps to a lesser extent, melodies are distinctive features of his keyboard style. Sophie Yates has chosen these evocative gestures in Scarlatti’s sonatas as determining characteristics of her recital Fandango – Scarlatti in Iberia. In fact, only four of the 13 items in her programme are by Scarlatti himself, the remaining pieces being by José Larrañaga, Seixas, Sebastian Albero y Añaños, and Soler, whose colourful ‘Fandango’ concludes her disc. Readers who know their Scarlatti will not need to be reminded either of the bold originality or of the wonderful variety of colours and sentiments present in his harpsichord sonatas.
Sophie Yates - The Pleasures of the Imagination: English 18th Century Music for the Harpsichord (2016)

Sophie Yates - The Pleasures of the Imagination: English 18th Century Music for the Harpsichord (2016)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 501 Mb | Total time: 75:20 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Chandos | # CHAN 0814 | Recorded: 2012

Collections of Baroque keyboard music are often focused on famous French and German composers, so there's comparatively little available on CD of English harpsichord music of the 18th century, aside from recordings of works by Henry Purcell and George Frederick Handel. Considering the rarity of its material, Sophie Yates' 2016 album on Chaconne, The Pleasures of the Imagination, holds a certain appeal because its selections haven't been dulled by excessive anthologizing. While some of the composers' names may ring a bell, such as John Blow, Jeremiah Clarke, Thomas Arne, and Johann Christian Bach (the "London Bach"), their contributions here will be unknown to most listeners, while William Croft, Maurice Greene, and Richard Jones are known only to specialists in the period.
Sophie Yates - Bach: Transcriptions of Concertos by Vivaldi & Marcello (2013)

Sophie Yates - Bach: Transcriptions of Concertos by Vivaldi & Marcello (2013)
EAC Rip | Flac (Image + cue + log) | 1 CD | Full Scans | 508 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Chandos | Catalog Number: 796

This recording brings together all the arrangements for harpsichord by Bach of instrumental concertos by his Italian contemporary Antonio Vivaldi, adding those of one concerto each by the brothers Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello. They are performed by Sophie Yates who has made a series of solo CDs for Chandos, many of which have won international awards. She has been described by Gramophone as ‘hugely talented’ and by BBC Music as playing ‘with exceptional poise’.
Sophie Yates - French Baroque Harpsichord: D'Anglebert, Rameau, Couperin, Forqueray (1993)

Sophie Yates - French Baroque Harpsichord: D'Anglebert, Rameau, Couperin, Forqueray (1993)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 391 Mb | Total time: 71:21 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Chandos | # CHAN 0545 | Recorded: 1992

Sophie Yates began her career by winning the international Erwin Bodky Competition at the Boston Early Music Festival, and as a result she was invited to tour and broadcast throughout the eastern states of America. She now performs regularly around Europe, the United States and Japan, and has also worked in Syria, Morocco and Western Australia. Known for her affinity with the French baroque, the music of the Iberian Peninsula and English virginals music, she has performed on most of the playable virginals surviving in Britain and is working on a long-term project to collect a book of contemporary English pieces for this instrument.