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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Duphly: Works for harpsichord
Jacques Duphly was born the year of the death of Louis XIV [1715] and he died the year of the storming of the Bastille [1789]. His works consist of his four books of harpsichord pieces. Through his teacher Dagincourt he inherited the style of François Couperin, whose tender expression and ornamentation he adopted. He also fully assimilated the style of Rameau, who dominated French music in the first half of the 18th century. Although his style changed considerably between his first book of harpsichord pieces (1744) and his fourth (1768), Duphly epitomised aesthetic expression as it was at the time of Louis XV (1723-1774). Following the arrival in France of many foreign composers, prompted by Queen Marie-Antoinette, Duphly was eclipsed and he died in poverty and oblivion. Duphly was not an innovator; he revolutionised neither style nor technique, nor did he attempt to impose a personality. As a result he is regarded as a minor composer. Yet he composed splendidly for the harpsichord, exploring all its registers; he was above all a harpsichordist. Through this recording we have attempted to restore the virility of his compositions, the severity of some features, the sincerity of his gesture, all these greatly inspired by the beautiful Kroll harpsichord, kindly made available to us by its owner and restorer Marc Ducornet. This instrument, which Duphly could have played, offers both sparkle and depth, two of the features of music of the second half of the 18th century. [from Christophe Rousset's booklet notes] Christian Kroll was born c.1747 in Soldine (Electorate of Brandenburg). It is very likely that he worked in Lyon with the famous harpsichord maker Joseph Collesse. In 1776 he made this beautiful double-manual harpsichord, which still has its original decoration. “Rousset plays all with dexterous fluency and stylistic assurance, and the harpsichord's character is vividly enlivened by the excellent recording” BBC Music Magazine, May 2013 ***** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Couperin - Tic Toc Choc & other pieces
"I wanted to focus this programme on the idea of play. Centring on Le Tic-Toc-Choc, which I often use as an encore, I gathered together Couperin's most 'pianistic' pieces, underlining the playful aspect… I have a particularly soft spot for Duphly's La Pothoïn, which for me is one of the loveliest pieces ever composed for keyboard. I think this music, written later than Couperin's, provides an ideal link between the harpsichord and the arrival of the fortepiano, which Duphly couldn't bring himself to adopt. All through these sessions, shut up in the immense hall at IRCAM, I thought of a number of artists who have long been part of my life and a source of inspiration for me, that whole family of pianists who handed this repertoire down to us: Louis Diémer, Marcelle Meyer, Robert Casadesus, Emil Gilels,Yvonne Lefébure, Pierre Barbizet . .They were omnipresent in my mind.This recording is my tribute to them." Alexandre Tharaud “…while Tharaud's ornamentation is impeccable and the piano well recorded, the collection as a whole is disappointingly monochrome.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2007 “If you doubt that a concert grand can be as sparkling as a harpsichord listen to Akexandre Tharaud and his selection of 20 Couperin jewels. Try his way with Le Carillon de Clithére and you will never want to hear a
harpsichord again. Sleek presentation, clever sleeve notes and high-end sound make this the most beautifully packaged of all the collected releases here.” Pianist Magazine, June-July 2007 “Reactions to a disc like this can only be personal, but mine are that, compared to the more "correct" but less colourful Angela Hewitt… Tharaud's unapologetically pianistic approach not only yields highly attractive results but also gets closer to the Couperin's true spirit. Poetic wonders such as La muse plantine, Les ombres errantes and the iconic Les baricades mistérieuses are played with tender sensitivity of mind and touch, while Le carillon de Cithére is a glistening vision of a Watteauesque paradise. Tharaud closes with a piece by Duphly, relishing its dark melancholy and, not for the first time on this disc, evoking another great keyboard poet, Robert Schumann.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2007 “Alexandre Tharaud's disc of Rameau keyboard works was a refreshing demonstration that French harpsichord music can be convincingly transferred to the piano, twiddles and all, if its essential character is respected and understood.
Now he attempts the seemingly tougher task of doing the same for the more delicate Couperin, and again emerges with honour. Reactions to a disc like this can only be personal, but Tharaud's unapologetically pianistic approach not only yields highly attractive results but also gets closer to Couperin's true spirit.
Mind you, he only chooses works that he considers suitable to the piano, selecting from right across Couperin's output rather than playing whole suites. Arguably, he gets it wrong only twice, in La visionnaire and the great B minor Passacaille, fulsome formal pieces both, whose grandeur the piano somehow manages to dull.
Yet for the most part the music sounds beautifully at home. Poetic wonders such as La museplantine, Les ombres errantes and the iconic Lesbaricades mistérieuses are played with tender sensitivity of mind and touch, while Le carillon deCithére is a glistening vision of a Watteauesque paradise. Elsewhere, Le tic-toc-choc and Les toursde passe-passe are enlivened by off-beat accents, Bruit de guerre thrills with its added drum part, and Muséte de taverni, multi-tracked into a work à 5 mains, rattles away like some delicious missing movement from L'arlésienne. Tharaud closes with a piece by Duphly, relishing its dark melancholy and, not for the first time on this disc, evoking another great keyboard poet, Robert Schumann. This is a release which successfully recognises and celebrates Couperin's genius, and you cannot ask for much more than that.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Duphly - Harpsichord works
Elisabeth Joyé (harpsichord du château d'Assas) Jacques Duphly published four harpsichord collections (1744-68), modelled chiefly on those of Rameau. Book 3 includes a sombre rondeau in bass-viol range called 'La Forqueray' after the late virtuoso of that instrument, a brilliant chaconne of 285 bars, and a savage tirade entitled 'La Médée'. Book 4 contains the enchanting rondeau, 'La Pothouin'. D'Aquin wrote that 'in general his pieces are sweet and amiable: they take after their father'. Born in 1715, the year of Louis XIV's death, he died on July 15, 1789, the day after the storming of the Bastille, in an apartment in the Hôtel de Juigné, lonely, forgotten and without a harpsichord. “There are three stars on this beautiful harpsichord disc: Elisabeth Joyé, whose playing is a model of graceful musicianship; Jacques Duphly, a composer… shown here to be an artist of sweet expressiveness with a delicate ear for instrumental sonority; and a superbly voiced anonymous 18th-century French harpsichord from the chateau d'Assas, near Montpellier... a harpsichord lover's treat.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2010 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Skip Sempé - A French Collection
This volume, the third in a series dedicated to French Music, is a selection from the huge roduction of those composers, living in the shadow of Rameau: all great teachers, virtuoso performers and composers. Skip Sempé has taken the most wonderful pieces, re-creating a real concert of Parisian Musique de Salon. Rameau was the model for this generation of harpsichord players, but hearing this disc reminds us that Rameau's contemporaries were also outstanding harpsichordists. The next great flowering of keyboard music in France was to be the music and playing of Chopin, who can rightly be considered the last keyboard composer-performer of the great French salon tradition. Playing on the superb harpsichord by Bruce Kennedy based on 18th century French originals, Skip Sempé is the ideal guide for this voyage into the extraordinary diversity of French harpsichord music from the Age of the Enlightenment. “Skempé's evocation of this sound world is unsurpassed. His inventiveness is immense and vibrant, encompassing extreme tempos, aching lyricism, and delicate hesitations. On this disc his performing genius culminates in the show-stopping Marches des scythes... The intensity of Skempé's delivery leaves this listener breathless.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2009 **** “Skip Sempé presents an eminently stylish recital of what he calls Parisian salon repertoire — single movements composed by some of the best of that large army of French claveciniste-composers of the 18th century. The hallmark is exuberant variety, manifest in virtuosic character pieces by Louis Marchand, Jacques Duphly, Armand-Louis Couperin, Claude-Bénigne Balbastre, Michel Corrette and Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer. Much is made, in the liner notes, of what Sempé calls the sans souci effect — the improvisatory freedom he allows himself in terms of rhythm, ornament, noncoincidence of hands, pauses and so on. The result is music-making that mixes elegance with a wonderful immediacy.” Sunday Times, 22nd March 2009 **** “French flamboyance and virtuosity on a disc you'll want to hear again and again. This is music that is strongly made, characterful, inventive and gloriously sonorous, especially on the Bruce Kennedy French-style instrument that Sempé touches so expertly here... This is a harpsichord release to treasure and play over and again.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2009 | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
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| |  | La SophiePopular harpsichord music of the 18th century
| | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Duphly: Pieces de Clavecin
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| |  | Alexandre Tharaud: Baroque
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