Harpsichordist Christophe Rousset on the cover of one of his albums (from the Amazon.com Web page for this album)
Tomorrow all of the harmonia mundi recordings of the complete keyboard works composed by François Couperin performed by harpsichordist Christophe Rousset will be released for digital download and streaming. Those that have followed this site for some time know that I have covered two complete recordings of all four of this composer’s Livres de pièces de clavecin, one by Olivier Baumont for Erato as a ten-CD box set and the other by Mark Kroll, released as single-CD installments by Centaur Records. The Rousset album also included the nine-movement “L’art de toucher le clavecin” and a single-movement “Sicilienne.”
The Rousset digital download sites for the first, second, third, and fourth of the Livres will be released through their own individual Web pages on Amazon.com, beginning at 9 p.m. tomorrow. Having indulged in the foolishness of climbing Mount Fuji twice, I have decided to focus my attention only on the other two releases in this set. The first of these is Apothéoses de Lully et de Corelli, two suites that were previously unfamiliar to me. The second accounts for the four Concerts Royaux suites with “L’art de toucher le Clavecin” added to account for an hour and twelve minutes of music.
Some readers may recall my fondness for an advertising slogan for the Sunday edition of The New York Times: “You don’t have to read it all, but it’s good to know it’s all there!” I suppose that is pretty much the way I feel about the Couperin keyboard canon. The fact is that the selections in the Livres account for the few keyboard compositions that my aging fingers can manage these days. (I am currently in the sixth Ordre.) So I doubt that I shall ever progress beyond the selections I previously had in my library of recordings.
Nevertheless, I could still enjoy the two releases cited above. I appreciated the ways in which they established a different perspective on Couperin’s creativity. Indeed, as I continue to revisit my recordings, I may even come to grasp how Couperin chose to honor both Jean-Baptiste Lully and Arcangelo Corelli. Most important, however, is how honing “the art of listening to music” influences “the art of making music.” That process has always fascinated and influenced me, and this new perspective on Couperin’s keyboard music is likely to have an effect to how I guide my own morning practice sessions.
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