FRANÇOIS COUPERIN Pièces de violes
GCD 920414
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Paolo Pandolfo, viola da gamba
Amélie Chemin, viola da gamba Thomas Boysen, theorbo & Baroque guitar Markus Hünninger, harpsichord
Production details
Total playing time: 59:48 Recorded in Rasteau, France, in September 2012 Engineered and produced by Christoph Frommen Executive producer: Carlos Céster Booklet essay: Philippe BeaussantEnglish - Français - Deutsch
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FRANÇOIS COUPERIN (1668-1733) Pièces de violes
Première Suite pour viole de gambe et continuo (Pièces de violes avec la basse chiffrée, 1728) 1 Prélude 2 Allemande légère 3 Courante 4 Sarabande grave 5 Gavotte 6 Gigue 7 Passacaille ou Chaconne
Douzième Concert (à deux violes) (Les Goûts réunis, 1724) 8 Pointé-coulé 9 Badinage 10 Lentement et pathétiquement 11 Gracieusement et légèrement
Deuxième Suite pour viole de gambe et continuo (Pièces de violes avec la basse chiffrée, 1728) 12 Prélude 13 Fuguette 14 Pompe funèbre 15 La Chemise blanche
Treizième Concert (à deux violes) (Les Goûts réunis, 1724) 16 Vivement 17 Air (agréablement) 18 Sarabande (tendrement)19 Chaconne légère
20 Plainte pour les violes (Les Goûts réunis, 1724)
About this CD
The confidential, almost secretive, musical world of François Couperin is known through the innumerable emotional connections made in his harpsichord works, but he was also able to produce the same sensations when writing for the viola da gamba. Paolo Pandolfo has brought together on one new album on Glossa these works of Couperin’s full maturity, demonstrating the composer’s spiritual and mischievous tendencies in equal measure (as well as his own mastery of the subtleties of the gamba).
As well as the Plainte from the Tenth Concert Royal, there are two full Concerts from the collection entitled Les Goûts Réunis which ask for two violas da gamba. These are included alongside what may have been Couperin’s final works, the two sets of the Pièces de violes which, being supplied with a figured bass, call upon for the involvement of other instruments such as theorbo and harpsichord. Considered by the booklet essay writer, Philippe Beaussant, to be ranked as one of Couperin’s masterpieces, the second Suite (which lay undiscovered for almost 250 years) contains an astonishing pair of pieces called Pompe funèbre (Couperin’s musical testament?) and La Chemise blanche.
Paolo Pandolfo is joined in this recording – made in the French village of Rasteau – by a second gamba player in Amélie Chemin, as well as by frequent collaborators from recent years in Thomas Boysen (theorbo, Baroque guitar) and Markus Hünninger (harpsichord).
Paolo Pandolfo has dedicated so much energy over the years to the presence of the viola da gamba from the Baroque era that it is curious that, until now, he has not provided us with his interpretation of the major works for that instrument by one of France’s leading composers from that time: François Couperin. Together with his own colleagues (Amélie Chemin, playing a second viola da gamba, Thomas Boysen, theorbo and Baroque guitar and Markus Hünninger, harpsichord), Paolo Pandolfo has now turned to the Pièces de violes and to two Concerts from the 1724 collection Les Goûts réunis (which specifically call for the viol) to demonstrate the quality of Couperin’s contribution to the viol literature. Here Pandolfo talks about his relationship to the music and the technical and interpretative challenges posed for the modern player by François Couperin le grand. [read more...]