Chapuis

Michel Chapuis - Historic Organs: Marmoutier & St. Maximin
Andre Silbermann, Marmoutier / Jean-Esprit Isnard, St-Maximin
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 368 MB | Full Artwork: 68 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Harmonia Mundi # HMA 1901228 | Country/Year: France 1989; 1963 & 1970
Genre: Classical | Style: Organ, Baroque, Sacred

Michel Chapuis (born 15 January 1930) is a noted French classical organist and pedagogue. He is especially known as an interpreter of the French and the German Baroque masters and he is dedicated to historically informed performance. (…) He has produced numerous recordings matching early repertoire to historic instruments. His important recordings include the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach (1966), considered by many as one of best recordings of this oeuvre."

This set gathers the Bach recordings released by Michel Chapuis for the French label Valois (now Naive) between 1966 and 1970. These highly regarded recordings were reissued by Naive in 1999 and soon became unavailable again. Faultless registration, dramatic flair, dazzling technique and pinpoint clarity in counterpoint make these recordings a cornerstone of any Bach and organ discography. The booklet includes a detailed index by BWV numbers and another by alphabetical order of titles.

The three Leçons de Ténèbres pour le mercredy (Tenebrae for Wednesday) are the only ones by François Couperin to have survived: 'recitations' destined to accompany the Office of the Tenebrae during one of the nights of Holy Week. Couperin is one of the uncontested masters in this exercise fusing vocal virtuosity and deep religious feeling.

After her studies at music school, Moscow (1972–1980, diploma in Piano, Summa cum laude), Marina Tchebourkina graduated in 1984 from Academic Music College under the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (4-year cycle), where she recieved her diploma Summa cum laude in Music Theory, with specializations in Piano and in Organ…

This set gathers the Bach recordings released by Michel Chapuis for the French label Valois (now Naive) between 1966 and 1970. These highly regarded recordings were reissued by Naive in 1999 and soon became unavailable again. Faultless registration, dramatic flair, dazzling technique and pinpoint clarity in counterpoint make these recordings a cornerstone of any Bach and organ discography. The booklet includes a detailed index by BWV numbers and another by alphabetical order of titles.

Though he lived to be only 31, Nicolas de Grigny is remembered more than any of his contemporaries as epitomizing the French classical organ tradition. Technically and in his creative ideas Grigny demanded much more of his instrument (and his poor team of blowers!) than any of his predecessors, a fact that makes his works stylistically more akin to harpsichord than to organ practice at the time. In 1703, the year of his death, his wife published a first edition of his complete solo organ works, Premier Livre d’orgue (organists at the time typically composed only one or two books, then spent the rest of their lives improvising on them). A copy of this less-than-100-page volume eventually found its way to Germany and impressed a certain J.S. Bach enough that he reproduced it by hand for his own study.

The most significant composer for the French stage between Lully and Rameau, Campra was born in Aix-en-Provence in 1660. His father, an amateur violinist, provided him with his first music lessons, and while he was a slow learner at first, he did begin to show talent, and joined the choir of St. Sauveur in 1674. At one point he nearly lost his place in the choir when he was caught giving unauthorized performances in secular theaters on the side. In August of 1681 he became the music master at the church of Ste.