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François Couperin ‘Le Grand’ is the most important member of the Couperin dynasty, whose elegant and trend‐setting music is known to have influenced great composers such as J.S. Bach, Telemann and Handel.

After becoming organist at St. Gervais in Paris at the age of just 12, he was later appointed Organiste du Chapelle du Roy. It was here that he composed the Concerts Royaux and the Goûts‐Réunis (or Nouveaux Concerts) for the entertainment of the aging King Louis XIV. Each includes the florid ornamentation typical of the French Baroque and is extremely adaptable, essentially written for a treble and bass instrument and continuo.

They appeared in the same volume as Couperin’s third harpsichord book, and the writing of several has a strong harpsichord feel, suggesting that solo performance on this instrument was also a possibility. The fourteen Concerts vary in style, containing elements of both the French and Italian tradition, but all are testament to the sophistication and decadence of Versailles in the 18th century. The Eighth Concert ‘dans le goût théâtral’ is undoubtedly a highlight: a tribute to Jean‐ Baptiste Lully, beginning with an opulent French overture and ‘Grand Ritournelle’ and continuing with eight further varied movements.

The Concerts are brought to you by Jed Wentz’s Musica Ad Rhenum, which has earned a dedicated following in early music circles. With an active concert life and an impressive catalogue of recordings, this group has sought to bring Baroque music to the modern world, proving that it is as inspiring and relevant today as it was in its own era.

Period‐instrument recording, made in 2004 (The Netherlands)

Contains notes on the composer as well as artist/ensemble biographies.

Francois Couperin was one of the greatest composers of France’s Golden Age. He composed at the Court of Versailles, creating a typically French style (highly ornamented dance forms), in which however certain Italian influences (fluent melodic lines) were interwoven, everything in the most elegant and natural way. In the Suites of “Les Nations”, his most famous work, he expresses the characteristics of several European countries in a highly original style.

Musica ad Rhenum and Jed Wentz play these pieces in chamber music setting, for several string and wind instruments, in the “Authentic Performance Practice”, on period instruments.

This set is a separate issue, drawn from the Complete Chamber Music of Couperin by Musica ad Rhenum, a set that received excellent reviews in the international press and won a Diapason d’Or. Musicweb wrote: “impressive...delicious…wonderful. Recordings are clear and beautifully focused...” Couperin may have been a contemporary of J.S. Bach, but his life stands in marked contrast to that of the great German. A court composer who worked at the fashion capital of the 18th century, Versailles, he was known as a trendsetter – the author of a stylish and refined style where virtuosity and good taste worked in happy coexistence. This is nowhere better exemplified than in his Les Nations, four trio pieces consisting of a sonata followed by a suite.While three of the Italianate sonatas were composed long before their publication date (1726), Couperin rejects his cultivation of Les Goûts-réünis – a fusion of the two most important styles of that period, French and Italian – for the dances. Here, instead, he opts for an overtly French idiom, one where expression and form are one and the same.

Performing Les Nations are the acclaimed early music group Musica ad Rhenum, an ensemble which aims to move, amuse and delight audiences through blending an informed historical perspective with a lively artistic spirit. Using contemporary instrumentation as well as metronome indications and marked freedom of tempo – typical traits of the French style at that time – Jed Wentz directs some highly charged performances.

The repertoire for the modern guitar dates only as far back as the early 19th century, with the composers Guiliani and Sor. Before that, although many pieces of music were arranged for this most domesticated of instruments, none has survived. This CD contains two of the great masterpieces of Baroque instrumental music – the Chaconne from J.S. Bach’s D minor Partita for solo violin BWV1004, and Handel’s keyboard Chaconne.

The polyphonic quality of the modern guitar enables arrangers to transcribe music for plucked instruments such as the lute or harpsichord. The aim of this CD is to widen the repertoire of the classical guitar with some beautiful Baroque masterpieces.

The complete organ Masses of the Grand master of French Baroque, Francois Couperin.

Couperin was a keyboard virtuoso, both on the harpsichord and organ; he wrote these Masses as principal organist of the St. Gervais Church in Paris. The ornamental French style of Couperin is blended with Italian influences with the emphasis on fluent melodic lines and daring chromaticisms in harmony.

New recording, by international prize winning organist Adriano Falcioni (who already recorded the organ works of Cesar Franck, BC 94349) and the female vocal group Armoniosoincanto.

François Couperin, the most important member of the renowned Couperin dynasty, is the foremost composer of the French Baroque. A prodigiously talented keyboard player, he inherited the post of organist at the church of St Gervais in Paris when he was just eleven years old, subsequently dividing his time between the capital and Versailles upon becoming organiste du Roi in 1693. Spanning two CDs, this recording focuses on two works associated with the organ in the former church: Messe pour les couvents and the Messe pour les paroisses. The florid ornamentation that is so characteristic of the French Baroque is present in much of Couperin’s work.

However, Couperin was heavily influenced by the Italian style which, as well as the influences of opera and the cantata, can be heard throughout the Messe pour les couvents. In Couperin’s time, composition for the Mass was heavily regulated, but a lack of regulation with regard to the Offertory allowed the composer more freedom to explore chromaticism in this work. The Offertories of both Masses are treated on a particularly grand scale, and are highlights of this recording.

Adriano Falcioni, a leading European organist, has been a finalist and prizewinner of many international competitions. Having already recorded Cesar Franck’s Complete Organ Music for Brilliant Classics, he is joined on this recording by female vocal ensemble Armoniosoincanto, whose voices are renowned for their pure and distinctive tones. This winning combination of performers makes the recording a must-buy.

Paris in the early 18th century was shaking off the strict regime of the Sun King Louis XIV. All of the moral codes and laws associated with the latter years of his reign were cast aside, much to the joy of Parisians – especially the artistic fraternity. Artists from all over Europe flocked to the city to take advantage of the new easy going regime of the regent Duke of Orleans – the heir, Louis XV being too young to rule.

The ‘French School’ of music flourished, and the leading light among composers was Francois Couperin, the newly appointed harpsichordist to the Royal Chamber. One of the works composed at this time was his ‘Second Book for the Harpsichord’. It included a rondowith the enigmatic title ‘Les Baricades Misterieuses’, based closely on a lute piece by Ennemond Gaultier ‘La Cascade’.

The inclusion of both works on this CD neatly illustrates the close bond between lutenists and harpsichordists in the baroque period. Both instruments are plucked, and the great harpsichord composers were always aware of the great legacy of the lute, both in terms of its repertoire and the inspiration they could acquire from its practitioners.

Enter the Silesian Silvius Weiss, friend of JS Bach, and the greatest lutenist of all time. His works on this CD pay a direct homage to Couperin. The title ‘Les Barricades Mistérieuses’ refers to the ‘mystery’ of wooing a girl. The fluttering of her eyelashes – eyelashes being the barricades, which protect the windows of the soul, or, depending on if the wooer was lucky or not in the art of love, the treacherous mirrors that are the eyes!

New recording made in 2007

Extensive booklet notes

Serdoura is an acknowledged expert on the baroque lute and has written a major treatise on the instrument.

‘Miguel Serdoura is a passionate and intelligent musician who deserves to be heard in the world’ Lutenist Hopkinson Smith

The Passacaglia is a musical form based on a repeated bass line over which variations are composed. The form was popular during the 17th century but proved to be a challenge in its structural restrictions for composers of later periods, continuously renewing and extending the form, while keeping to its basic formula.

This original program brings together composers from 4 centuries: from Kerll, Couperin, Buxtehude and the monumental Passacaglia in C minor by J.S. Bach, far into the 20-th century with Reger, Shostakovich and Jan Welmers.

Recorded on the magnificent Martti Pothan organ Kotka Church in Finland, by young virtuoso Matthias Havinga, whose earlier recording on this organ (Brilliant Classics 94203) with Italian Concertos by J.S. Bach received enthusiastic reviews in the press.

New recording, including extensive liner notes and information on the instrument. Consisting of variations framed in a constantly repeated basso ostinato, the passacaglia is a musical form with a long and fruitful history. This release is dedicated to eight such examples which, taken from four countries and all performed on the organ, divide either side of the year 1800 to reveal the form’s extensive and inventive development over time. The passacaglia was particularly popular during the 17th century, when it became known for its limited range of keys, slow triple meter and short, simple theme of two or four.

Brilliant Classics presents a fantastic set of popular Baroque music at super budget price. These 25 CDs feature energetic performances and thoroughly researched interpretations by specialist early music ensembles.

Probably one of the most extensive surveys of classical guitar on record, this 25 CD collection is a must for lovers of the instrument.

Starting with the lutenist composers of the 16th century such as Alessandro Piccinini, the collection then moves to the Barock period with music by J.S. Bach and his sons, plus the great Domenico Scarlatti’s sonatas. This survey then takes us through the early Romantic period with the three grand concertos for guitar and orchestra of Giuliani, a friend of Beethoven and Hummel, and the great Fernando Sor who was known as ‘the Beethoven of the guitar’. Giuliani’s rarely heard fantasias on themes by Rossini, and sinfonias on Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito and Bellini’s Il Pirata are also to be found here as well as his remarkable paraphrase of Rossini’s Semiramide which takes up CDs 16 and 17!

The world of transcriptions is also covered with examples of Chopin and Mendelssohn’s music for the guitar.

The 20th century CDs are dominated by the great Segovia whose influence on composers for the instrument cannot be underestimated. The most famous modern work, Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez of 1939 as well as music by his brother Eduardo is to be found on CD19. Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s famous concertos and the concerto of Ponce The present day is represented by Angelo Gilardino, Maximo Diego Pujol, and Leo Brouwer.