Couperin, F: Pièces de clavecin III: Ordre 14ème in D major: Les fauvétes plaintives

Born in 1964 the French harpsichordist, Pierre Hantaï, gave his first concerts at an early age, alone or with his brothers Marc and Jérôme. He then spent two years studying in Amsterdam with Gustav Leonhardt, who subsequently invited him to perform under his direction. In 1983 Hantaï scored his first major triumph through taking first prize at the International Bach-Handel Competition of Bruges in Belgium; since then, Hantaï has collected an impressive number of honours and awards.

Grave, agile, majestic, picturesque, the keyboard output of François Couperin, with its array of indispensable ornaments and piquant details, enables us to follow all the impulses of the soul of 'the most poetic of our harpsichord composers', as Debussy called him. Performed here on the piano, which its own special colour, these harpsichord pieces, in their various moods, retain al their inimitable charm.

With this third volume Angela Hewitt concludes her personal survey of Couperin’s keyboard music and proves that, in the hands of someone as steeped in Baroque keyboard style as herself, music which was previously thought the exclusive domain of the harpsichordist can be successfully transferred to the modern piano.