William Gray Beyer

When he published his two Apothéoses in memory of two great masters of music in 1724-25, François Couperin was asserting his desire to promote a meeting of the French and Italian styles – from a very Gallic point of view, naturally. The idea was to convince the French Muses that henceforth one could say sonade and cantade in their language – a strategy already pursued in the much earlier La Sultane and La Superbe. But, far from blindly imitating his idols, Couperin takes inspiration from their styles and adapts them to his own brio. The result is a delight for all to share with the musicians of Gli Incogniti and Amandine Beyer, whose first harmonia mundi recording this is.

During his first years in the service of the Esterházy princes, Joseph Haydn had every opportunity to show what he was capable of accomplishing as both instrumental soloist (on violin or keyboard) and composer; in fact, all his concertos, most of which date from the 1760s, offer a glimpse of a brilliant artist who gradually moved away from the style galant by inventing a new musical dialogue soon to become the Classical style.