French Harpsichord Music

Like Sebastian Bach and François Couperin, Sylvius Leopold Weiss came from and continued a musical tradition. His father was Johann Jakob Weiss, his brother was Johann Sigismund Weiss, and his son was Johann Adolph Faustinius Weiss. Also, like Bach and Couperin, Sylvius Leopold was the most famous member of his musical clan, and during his long and distinguished career he taught a number of students who would become exceptional lutenists, Adam Falckenhagen and Johann Kropfgans among them. Following demands created by his exceptional reputation, Weiss traveled extensively before he settled at the court of Augustus the Strong in 1728; he remained there for the rest of his life. Weiss and Bach certainly met on more than one occasion as the latter visited his son Wilhelm Friedemann and also had an interest in music-making at the Saxon court. As a performer, Weiss was considered the finest of his time and many believed that his ability as a lutenist rivaled that of Bach as an organist and Scarlatti as a harpsichordist. His Berlin colleague, Ernst Gottlieb Baron, mentioned to a “Weissian Method,” probably a reference to his astounding and masterful technique, not to mention his style. Hundreds of Weiss’s works survive, chief among them six-movement sonatas or partitas that follow the accepted blueprint for the genre, i.e., Allemande, Courante, Bouree, Sarabande, Minuet, and Gigue.

William Byrd - The Complete Keyboard Music - Davitt Moroney (1999) {7CD Set, Hyperion CDA66551/7}
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© 1999 Hyperion Records | CDA66551/7
Classical / Renaissance / Period Instruments

The Gramophone Award-winning artist, Davitt Moroney has spent more than fifteen years planning this momentous project and Hyperion are proud to be able to bring Davitt’s wealth of expertise and musicianship to the label. As an authentic complete survey of this music, six different instruments have been used for the recording – two different harpsichords, muselar virginal, clavichord, chamber organ, and the Ahrend organ at L’Église-Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, France (where the huge and high nave creates an echo that lasts for nearly fifteen seconds, not unlike the acoustic at Lincoln Cathedral where Byrd was the organist and master of the choristers).

This is an interesting performance of Bach's Italian Concerto and French Overture by the Russian-born German harpsichordist and pianist, Felix Gottlieb, made on the "Lindholm" harpsichord, recorded in 1984 in the USSR

Jean-François Dandrieu was born in August or September 1682 on rue Saint-Louis, Île de la Cité, Paris. He was the eldest of at least four children and showed such musical precocity that it is reported he played the harpsichord for Louis XIV and his court at the age of five. It can be assumed that his reputation led to great demand for his services as a performer, since he travelled outside Paris as a musician on several occasions. He was not the first musical Dandrieu: his uncle, Pierre, trained as a priest and organist in Angers. It is possible that it was he who organised Jean-François’s studies with the harpsichordist and composer Jean-Baptiste Moreau, a fellow Angevin and near contemporary.

Keith Jarrett - J.S. Bach, The French Suites (1993) {2CD Set, ECM New Series 1513/14}
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© 1993 ECM Records | ECM New Series ECM 1513/14
Classical / Baroque / Harpsichord

Jarrett plays brilliantly. Personally, I love Jarrett's playing; he is one of the most sensitive and lyrical of contemporary pianists, and his long illness has deprived us of what would surely have been a larger body of baroque music recordings. So make your own mind up. I highly recommend this collection to lovers of Bach, Jarrett and the diabolical harpsichord.

75 CD box set (with original jackets) is the first complete collection comprising all of Reinhard Goebel's recordings on Archiv Produktion. It shows Reinhard Goebel as a violinist, conductor, music scholar, and founder of his celebrated ensemble Musica Antiqua Koln. Featuring almost 30 years of recording history from the Neapolitan Recorder Concertos from 1978 to Telemann's Flute Quartets recorded in 2005.

75 CD box set (with original jackets) is the first complete collection comprising all of Reinhard Goebel's recordings on Archiv Produktion. It shows Reinhard Goebel as a violinist, conductor, music scholar, and founder of his celebrated ensemble Musica Antiqua Koln. Featuring almost 30 years of recording history from the Neapolitan Recorder Concertos from 1978 to Telemann's Flute Quartets recorded in 2005.