This collection of pieces in D is the longest in all the books of Couperin and contains several masterpieces. Grace and nobility seem to reign. In his official portrait Couperin has one hand on the score to “Les Idées Heureuses”. It is a work of sonorous nostalgia and melancholy. ” La Garnier” a tribute work, sings out in the tenor range of the harpsichord combining sensuousness and rhetoric in a most poetical homage. “La Terpsicore” delineates dance gestures and paints the muse of movement. Debussy in his preludes owes much to the spirit and genius of this piece. The dance movements live in the courtly world of the chateau (the gavotte and courantes) or the rough and tumble world of the barnyard or village square (rigaudon and passepied). There are suites within the suite (for Diane) and there is not one genre or character piece that is not inspired in its choices of delicate dissonance and voluptuous harmonies.
"For this recording, I have chosen Couperin at his most dramatic, powerful and often tragically brilliant. The Troisiême Ordre is a finely chosen selection of pieces in C minor and major. While Couperin may have had no specific overall architecture in mind for this selection, he is successful in offering us great variety, ranging from the classical theatricality of La Ténébreuse and the tender sighing of Les Regrets to the riotous clowning of Les Matelotes Provençales. Let us remember that when he gathered the music for his first book of harpsichord works, he was amassing selections from over 20 years of composing. This is truly a retrospective collection of harpsichord pieces."
Reduxer is a set of 11 incredible reinterpretations of songs from their award winning third album Relaxer, reimagined by a host of fans, friends and peers, including a globe-straddling cross-section of some of the world’s most influential and prolific hip hop artists and producers. Putting their own indelible vocals on the songs are, amongst others, Grammy-nominated US hip hop high flyer GoldLink, platinum-certified Parisian rapper Lomepal, Berlin powerhouse Kontra K, Dublin-born breakthrough rapper Rejjie Snow, Australian auteur Tuka, Puerto Rican rapper PJ Sin Suela and London’s acclaimed Little Simz.
Supreme among French composers of the Baroque era, François Couperin made his career at the court of Louis XIV. His creativity is manifest in his sacred music, chamber music and, above all, his abundant corpus of keyboard works, here presented complete in recordings by the harpsichordist Laurence Boulay in their first CD release. Interpretations on the piano come from such figures as Marcelle Meyer and Georges Cziffra, while other contributors to this collection, representing diverse schools of performance, include William Christie, Christophe Rousset and John Eliot Gardiner.
As the foremost representative of one of the most illustrious musical dynasties in history, Francois Couperin achieved distinction in every contemporary genre except opera. But it was in his pieces for the harpsichord that he revealed his personality – La Couperin, from the 21st Ordre, is a witty self-portrait (marked "with moderate vivacity"!).