French Baroque Music
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CD Details
Composer: Francois CouperinComposer: Louis-Claude Daquin
Composer: Jean-Philippe Rameau
Edition: Music CD
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 2001-11-06
Music Label: Challenge
Soundtracks:
- Musette en Rondeau
Music reviews of French Baroque Music
Music Review: it all adds up to an endearing disc
Rating: 5 Stars
For obscure reasons this disc is listed on this website (rejoice!) but not its companion, Scarlatti Sonatas (19 of them) played by the same Mie Miki on accordion (lament!). You can find it under ASIN B0000245GN on the European sister companies (but as I write it is sold only on the German marketplace). I'll probably have to register some day as a seller just to get the Scarlatti disc listed and be able to publish my review (which I have written). Anyway, what I write in this yet-to-be posted review applies to the present disc, so I'll shamelessly plagiarize myself:
1. I love the keyboard Sonatas of Scarlatti - OK, change that to "the keyboard music of Rameau, Couperin and Daquin",
+ 2. I love transcriptions,
+ 3. I love the accordion.
Applied to Scarlatti, statement 1. needed no justification. In the case of the French baroque composers, I refer you to my recent reviews of the discs of Alexandre Tharaud playing Couperin and Rameau at the piano (Alexandre Tharaud plays Couperin ~ tic, toc, choc, Alexandre Tharaud plays Rameau). Couperin and Rameau's keyboard music (as well as Haendel's) has not been as much in the mainstream as the works of Bach and Scarlatti, possibly because, for various reasons, pianists have left them to the harpsichordists, hence limiting their appeal to the smaller posse of aficionados of the baroque (rather than music lovers at large). There have been exceptions of course - Marcelle Meyer in the early 1950s being the most glorious one, Les Introuvables De Marcelle Meyer vol. 2 - but they only confirmed the rule, and failed to set a trend of wider recognition and endorsement among pianists. Apparently the tides are turning, if Tharaud's discs are to be taken as heralds of ongoing developments; if so this is cause for rejoice, as the music, when played on the piano, sounds not inferior to the compositions of Bach and Scarlatti and offer similar joys.
As for transcriptions (and of course with all these composers, the piano itself IS a transcription, but one we are so accustomed to that it doesn't entirely sound as such) my taste may be one of a jaded music lover, but not only: I find that they shed new and often refreshing light on music that you may have heard too much, but also that they often offer new timbral possibilities and seductiveness that have an appeal of their own, independent of how much you've heard the composition.
As for my love of the accordion, I find that the instrument offers the best of two worlds: it has all the sharpness of attack and dazzling virtuosity of the keyboard instruments (harpsichord and piano), AND the long breath of the wind instruments, the ability to sustain sound from one note to another rather than fake it through resonance and decay time as with piano and harpsichord. Add to that the unique, lush timbral colors of the instrument. It sounds very much like the organ, but doesn't have the muddy, over-thick basses of that instrument. Because of all these qualities the accordion is a great instrument for contemporary music, but it turns out to be a great instrument for playing the classics as well, and this disc, along with its Scarlatti companion, proves it.
In fact, the Scarlatti is even better than this one, because Scarlatti's Sonatas are so exhilaratingly lively. Miki's choice of excerpts of Rameau, Couperin and Daquin has some of the dazzling warhorses - especially Rameau's L'Egyptienne, Le Rappel des Oiseaux, Tambourin, Les Tourbillons, Les Sauvages, La Poule, while the Daquin pieces have a delicious rustic quality to them that only the accordion could bring, evoking as it does the barrel organ, the fifes or the bagpipes - but also many more pensive and plangent ones, particularly in the Couperin selections. But it all conveys wonderfully, I find, a fine atmosphere of French 18th Century elegance, gallantry and preciosity. Adding 1, 2, and 3, you get an endearing disc, with a generous TT of 69:29.
And, if you are into the great classics played on accordion, make sure not to miss (and if you are not, I strongly advise that you try):
Bach Goldberg Variations by Stephan Hussong on Thorofon B000027AA9 (not listed here, see on the European sister companies)
Bach Goldberg Variations by Vayrynen on Alba (Goldberg Variations Played on the Accordion)
Bach Partitas 2, 3, 5 by Hussong on Denon (Bach: English Suites Nos. 2, 3, 5)
Bach Partitas 2, 4, three Chorales by Hussong on Denon (Stefan Hussong plays Johann Sebastian Bach)
Bach Inventions and Sinfonias by Janne R?tty? on Castigo, see European sister companies under ASIN B00006IQNV
Frescobaldi by Hussong on Thorofon (Stefan Hussong plays Frescobaldi)
Scarlatti by Teodoro Anzelotti on Winter & Winter (Vivi felice! Accordion Music by Domenico Scarlatti)
Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition by Friedrich Lips (with contemporary works) on Russian Disc (Pictures At An Exhibition (Mussorgsky, Boellmann, Banshchikov, Gubaidulina) - F. Lips (The Stars of Russian Bayan))
Mussorgsky Pictures Stravinsky Tango, 3 movements from Petrushka on 2 accordions by Crabb and Draugsvoll on EMI (ASIN: B000002SFD - ran out of authorized links!)
Antiquities (Bach Italian Concerto, Dowland, Isaac, Machaut): Nobuko Imai (viola) and Mie Miki on BIS (ASIN B0002ABTTY)
General CDs
- Styles > Classical
- Ballets & Dances > Baroque Dance Suites > Gigue
- Dances
- Musettes
- Chamber Music > General
- Featured Composers, A-Z > ( B ) > Bolcom, William
- ( C ) > Couperin, Fran?ois
- ( R ) > Rameau, Jean Philippe
- Forms & Genres > Short Forms > Character Pieces
- Historical Periods > Baroque (c.1600-1750) > General
- Classical (c.1770-1830) > Forms & Genres > Chamber Music
- Instruments > Keyboard > General
- Classical - Featured Composers, A-Z - ( C ) - Couperin, Fran?ois - General
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