French Harpsichord Music

The concept behind the work called Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario is to take as much as possible of William Walton's score for Laurence Olivier's 1943 film and interpolate suitable excerpts from Shakespeare's play to make an hour-long concert work for speaker, chorus, and orchestra. Though it demands all your attention, the high quality of the result thoroughly rewards it, clearly and intelligently combining the two mediums in a single, arresting form.

George Frideric Handel - Trio Sonatas Op. 2 & Op. 5
Academy of Ancient Music - Richard Egarr
EAC+LOG+CUE | 2xWV: 768 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Harmonia Mundi # HMU 907467.68 | Country/Year: Europe 2009
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque

…The double-CD set, which marks the last volume in Harmonia Mundi's effort to record all of Handel's opus-numbered publications, can nevertheless be strongly recommended.

Those habituated to ‘historical sensitivity’ in performance are likely to get the vapours from this remastered 1970 recording. All modern instruments replete with full-throated wobble, it’s a blast from the past, but nevertheless well worth the hearing for the superb imagination of the composers involved. Courbois’s Dom Quichotte is a real gem and there is much else to enjoy throughout this collection.

French composers increasingly turned to the elaborate charms with which their Italian colleagues were winning the favor of the music public. They blended their own precise and strict style with the Italian gusto, as we hear on this CD.

This world première recording, with a first-rate cast, brings to light a major work of the French operatic heritage. Pyrrhus by Pancrace Royer (also noted for his very fine – and virtuosic – harpsichord music) was first performed early in the reign of Louis XV. It is one of the twenty-one tragédies lyriques on the subject of the Trojan War that were performed at the Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opéra) between 1687 and 1730.