Luogo e data di registrazione		Lutherse Kerk, Haarlem (Holland) - 22/23 novembre 1989
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Recording Supervision		Wolf Erichson
	Engineer		Stephan Schellmann (Tritonus/Stuttgart)
	Prima Edizione LP		Nessuna
	Edizione CD		Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (BMG) | LC 0761 | RD 77924 | 1 CD - durata 71' 02" | (p) 1991 | DDD
	Cover Art		Heinrich Füger (Heinrich Friedrich), 1751-1818 "Selbstbildnis des Küstlers mit seinem Bruder Johann Gottlieb", c.1769, Berlin (Ost), Nationalgalerie
	Note		-

French Harpsichord Music - Rameau, Le Roux, Royer & Duphly In the second half of the 17th century, when the first concerts outside court circles were given in private houses, professional musicmaking beyond the confines of Versailles became properly organised for the first time. Well-known lutenists and harpsichordists invited friends, and colleagues (and soon after members of the nobility as well) to their homes, in order to present an especially gifted singer or keyboard virtuoso. These musical ‘soirées’ were initially organised by the musicians themselves, but soon began to be put on by various noblemen who regularly frequented the royal court. In this way, they were able to introduce music that they had heard in private at Versailles to a wider public. This development played a central role in making the harpsichord repertoire better known, and was of such great importance because music at court went into a kind of hibernation after the death of Louis XIV in 1715, for whom music represented an essential enrichment of French culture. It’s true that his successor Louis XV did rehabilitate the musical tradition at court, but he proved to be a patron with considerable shortcomings, regarding music as something of merely decorative value. This situation was alleviated during the gradual decline of royal patronage by two passionate music-lovers: Le Riche La Pouplinière - an industrious government minister who was wealthy enough to maintain one of the best orchestras of Paris, and could afford the services of composers and conductors such as Rameau, Stamitz and Gossec - and Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV, who actually put on her own private concerts, thus ushering in a new fashion in Paris which was adopted by many of the city’s distinguished families. In addition, public concerts were organised for the first time, with the agreement of the king: they took the form of so-called “Concerts spirituels”, which were inaugurated in 1725 in the Jardin des Tuileries near the Louvre. While Rameau was in charge for 22 years of the orchestra of the financier La Pouplinière, whose wife was one of Rameau’s ardent admirers, the “Concerts spirituels” were directed from 1748 to 1762 by his fellow harpsichordist Royer. It’s strange that Rameau wrote hardly anything else specifically for the harpsichord, apart from the “Pièces de clavecin en concerts” (1741), “La Dauphine" and the dances for “Les Indes galantes”, after he embarked on his career as an opera composer with the performance of “Hippolyte et Ericie” in the house of La Pouplinière. (At which time he was already fifty years old!) Rameauls 65 harpsichord works were published in four volumes in 1706, 1724, ca. 1726 and 1741. Whereas stylised dances appropriate to the music of the Grand siècle occupied pride of place in the first volume, the lion's share of the suites was taken in the later volumes by characteristic genre pieces. A similar change of direction, which was coupled with the adoption of Italian stylistic elements and in particular with the influence of sonata form (the true counterpart to the suite) can be observed in the harpsichord works of Rameau’s elder colleague, Francois Couperin. Rameau’s suites show him to be a master of the art of naturalistic characterisation, as for example in his rhapsodic piece “Les Tourbillons": he described this work in a letter as a depiction of “clouds of dust whirled up by gusts of wind”. Rameau's more contemplative side emerges most appealingly in “L’Entretien des Muses”, while “L'Enharmonique” displays striking and daring chromatics, both bold and graceful. The work recorded here cover some sixty years in the history of French harpsichord music, as is pleasingly illustrated by the inclusion of the F major suite by Gaspard Le Roux as a kind of culmination of the keyboard tradition of the Grand siècle. Le Roux is mentioned in contemporary literature in the same breath as Lebègue, Francois Couperin and D’Anglebert, and his popularity outside France is illustrated by a pirate edition of his “Pièces“ brought out by Roger in Amsterdam in 1705. Le Roux died at roughly the same time as Rameau was publishing his first volume of harpsichord suites. Le Roux’s “Pièces” consist of just three works, and they do not contain any dances. The preludes seem somewhat archaic for the time as a result of their notation in unrhythmised semibreves, thus recalling models in the work of François Couperin’s uncle Louis. The preludes of Le Roux, however, are considerably more simple. The allemande is stately and dignified, while the expansive chaconne seems very serious, and is full of rich harmony. The importance of Nicolas Pancrace Royer lies first and foremost in the fact that, as director of the “Concerts spirituels”, he drew the public’s attention once more to older works by composers like Carissimi and Gilles that had since been forgotten. However, Royer was also responsible for significant innovations in the concert repertoire, performing works by composers such as Hasse, Graun, J.J. Rousseau, Stamitz and Pergolesi (“Stabat Mater”). In addition, he managed to have the most important new works, that were hitherto only played for a select audience at La Pouplinière's private concerts, given again for the general public in the “Concerts spirituels”. Royer’s only surviving collection of “Pièces de clavecin” dates from 1746, and contains music of high quality, marked by subtle harmonies, melodies conceived mostly along vocal lines, and great liveliness. In 1754, Friedrich Marpurg reported that Jacques Duphly had been a pupil of Dagincourt, and only played the harpsichord, in order not to spoil his hands at the organ. Duphly gave lessons to the leading families of Paris, and was counted among the city’s best teachers by the harpsichord-builder Pascal Taskin. Together with Balbastre and Armand-Louis Couperin, however, Duphly was to be one of the last major representatives of a harpsichord tradition going back some four hundred years, and he also had to witness the glorious end of his instrument. Duphly died at the age of 84 on 15th July 1789 - just one day, symbolically enough, after the outbreak of the French revolution. The populace soon settled the score with the ancien régime, its representatives and its symbols: the aristocratic harpsichord was literally to go up in flames, its place being taken by the rapidly advancing fortepiano - the instrument associated with the bourgeoisie. Clemens Romijn Translation: Clive Williams