French Harpsichord Music

Fans of harpsichord music are likely to be enchanted by A French Collection, which includes 17 pièces de clavecin from the Baroque repertoire, performed by Skip Sempé. Each piece, from Duphly's lovely Les Grâces to Balbastre's turbulent La Suzanne, is charming in itself, and taken together they form an attractive cross-section of French harpsichord music from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Sempé has been a prominent early music interpreter, both a soloist and ensemble leader, with a long line of recordings dating back to 1990.

Landowska's custom made harpsichord was a giant beast, with a powerful, percussive sound and a variety of available registrations that she exploited to the maximum. She was trying to get the attention of people who had Rachmaninov in their ears, and today her playing would seem over the top if it weren't so intelligently put together. The Dances of Poland album is definitely an oddity, but the pulsing rhythmic power of Landowska's playing makes the music work surprisingly well. Hear the very first work on the album, Michal Kleofas Oginski's Polonaise No. 1 in A major, "Farewell to the Fatherland" – a rousing work that sounds like a predecessor of Chopin's "Revolutionary" Etude.

It's not at all clear whether this release delivers the promised Polish harpsichord music, but the music contained herein is nonetheless interesting. Composer Józef Elsner was born in 1769, and the sonatas and dances on the program come from a pair of publications that appeared in 1803 and 1805. Harpsichordist Urszula Bartkiewicz argues in her own notes (in Polish and English) that either a harpsichord or a piano might have been used for this music, but she cites no evidence that a harpsichord would have been a common choice for ambitious works like the sonatas here at this late date.

This unique harpsichord recital by Trevor Pinnock charts two incredible musical journeys four hundred years apart. Inspired by the travels of Antonio Cabezón, the sixteenth century organist and composer, Pinnock’s programme weaves a path not only through Cabezón’s life but also through his own enviable career. In celebration of his seventieth birthday, Pinnock has chosen a personal selection of works that evoke vivid memories from different stages of his life.

French harpsichordists from the time of Louis XV extolled the exhilaration and nonchalance of their harpsichord, which crackled and grumbled, but also sang of sentiment like an opera orchestra. They broke away from dance suites through pieces de caractere (character pieces), a French specificity that draws on portraits of the salons held by ladies of the upper classes. Sentimens and Tendres plaintes respond with an ornamentalist's talent to the bellicose progression of Cyclopes and Marche des Scythes! Clement Geoffroy performs a collection of this French harpsichord music that attains an exceptional level of subtlety and impetuosity, in the true "rocaille" style that marked its swansong.

The unprecedented expansion of music in the age of enlightenment
The eighteenth century is probably the most extraordinary period of transformation Europe has known since antiquity. Political upheavals kept pace with the innumerable inventions and discoveries of the age; every sector of the arts and of intellectual and material life was turned upside down.

John Kitchen - uniquely familiar with Edinburgh's internationally acclaimed collections of early keyboard instruments - turns his attention to the world's most famous harpsichord, the Taskin harpsichord. The reign of Louis XV was the period during which the harpsichord gained its greatest popularity in France, and this glorious 1769 instrument by Pascal Taskin would have been the preferred choice of any composer. Here its opulent lushness is captured in the ideal acoustics of Scotland's oldest concert hall, St Cecilia's Hall. The Hall is also home to the Raymond Russell Collection of Early Keyboard Instruments, which houses the Taskin harpsichord. The combination of instrument, venue, programme and performer creates a unique listening experience.

The complete harpsichord works by Clerambault and Marchand on one CD! LouisNicholas Clerambault and Louis Marchand are typical representatives of the French harpsichord style, flourishing in the first half of the 18th century. Their Suites (multi movement sequels of dance forms) are grand, stately, rhythmically free and featuring lavish embellishments, all in perfect accordance with the courtly life at Versailles, the palace of Sun King Louis the XIV.