Timbres

Buxtehude’s Opus 1 and 2 Sonatas for violin, viola da gamba and harpsichord belie the composer’s common image as austere and sober. They instead delight the listener with what Johann Mattheson, writing in 1739, called their « unfamilar progressions, hidden ornamentation, and ingenious colourations ». It comes as no surprise to learn that the sonatas were a great success when they were first published in Germany in the 1690s, in the midst of the fashion for the ‘stylus fantasticus’ (described by Athanasius Kircher in 1650 as “…especially suited to instruments. It is the most free and unrestrained method of composing, it is bound to nothing, neither to any words nor to a melodic subject. It was instituted to display genius, and to teach the hidden design of harmony and the ingenious composition of harmonic phrases and fugues.")

Сatalogue officiel de timbres-poste 1849-1999 Belgique, Congo Belge, Ruanda-Urundi, Zaïre, Rwanda, Burundi, Europa et idées européennes.
Celui-ci en est à sa 44e édition et recense les pièces qui pourraient, très bientôt, faire bonne figure dans votre collection. …

For their third disc, Les Timbres return to French chamber music (after Pieces of Harpsichord in Concerts by Rameau-Flora, Diapason d'Or in 2014). In great company, the ensemble offers a version particularly rich in colors of this opus that Couperin publishes in 1722 following his Third Book of harpsichord pieces. He gives four suites of dances for several instruments, typically French, destined for small concerts for the aging king who loves to hear these dances that have given him so many pleasures in his youth. From the intimacy of one or two instrumentalists to the greatness of ten musicians, this is a festival of …. timbres (!) That invites you to this new recording of this splendid work by Francois Couperin.

This disc offers a trio of orchestral works by Dutilleux which are not otherwise available together, and it scores highly for including the first recording of the 1991 revision of Timbres, espace, mouvement (1978).