Forqueray Harpsichord Works
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Antoine Forqueray
Label: MusiFrance
Magazine Review Date: 11/1992
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 66
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 2292-45751-2
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Pièces de viole, Movement: Suite No 5 |
Antoine Forqueray, Composer
Antoine Forqueray, Composer Ton Koopman, Harpsichord |
Pièces de viole, Movement: Suite No 1 |
Antoine Forqueray, Composer
Antoine Forqueray, Composer Ton Koopman, Harpsichord |
Author:
One look at the densely-packed 1747 edition of Forqueray's Pieces de violes is enough to convince anyone of the probable turgidity of the music, especially when performed by bass viols. The enthusiasm of many modern players who grapple with this music has inevitably reinforced this impression. But to be fair to the Forquerays—for the authorship is shared between Antoine and his son Jean-Baptiste-Antoine—the textures are many and varied, the range ample. The keyboard transcription, freed of the constraints of the bass viol, is better leavened and there is some thought that J-B-A's second wife, Marie-Rose Dubois (a much-praised harpsichordist in her own right), may have prepared it.
Mentally primed, then, for a performance of some delicacy, you may find that the heavy, veiled sound of Ton Koopman's instrument by Willem Kroesbergen comes as a shock. Koopman's often heavy-handed performance reinforces this initial sense of disappointment. He is, after all, technically expert, and plays with a powerful sense of rhetoric and timing. He takes seriously the Forqueray's suggestion that the treble notes never quite come with the bass and, especially in the ravishing sarabande La Leon, produces the ultimate in baroque decadence. His use of silence is consummate. If the harpsichord version of La Sylva lacks deeply the affecting swells (enfles) and ornamental vibrato of the viol, it gains immeasurably from the exquisite melancholy Koopman achieves with a slow tempo, beyond the control of a bow. But the brightness of the soprano lines of the allemande La Laborde and the Parnassic La Couperin do not sparkle or gleam; the thudding bass, in pieces such as La Boisson, La Forqueray and La Portuguese is nothing short of bizarre. Koopman is more successful in the extrovert movements—the audacious La Guigon, the formidable Jupiter and the athletic La Leclair—in which Antoine Forqueray's well documented darker, masculine side is evident.
The CD is subtitled ''Livre de clavecin de Madame Forqueray''; her portrait graces the booklet, which contains an extremely informative essay by the leading Forqueray authority, Lucy Robinson. It would have been interesting, and perhaps truer to the spirit of the transcriptions, had the pieces been performed with more feminine intuition.'
Mentally primed, then, for a performance of some delicacy, you may find that the heavy, veiled sound of Ton Koopman's instrument by Willem Kroesbergen comes as a shock. Koopman's often heavy-handed performance reinforces this initial sense of disappointment. He is, after all, technically expert, and plays with a powerful sense of rhetoric and timing. He takes seriously the Forqueray's suggestion that the treble notes never quite come with the bass and, especially in the ravishing sarabande La Leon, produces the ultimate in baroque decadence. His use of silence is consummate. If the harpsichord version of La Sylva lacks deeply the affecting swells (enfles) and ornamental vibrato of the viol, it gains immeasurably from the exquisite melancholy Koopman achieves with a slow tempo, beyond the control of a bow. But the brightness of the soprano lines of the allemande La Laborde and the Parnassic La Couperin do not sparkle or gleam; the thudding bass, in pieces such as La Boisson, La Forqueray and La Portuguese is nothing short of bizarre. Koopman is more successful in the extrovert movements—the audacious La Guigon, the formidable Jupiter and the athletic La Leclair—in which Antoine Forqueray's well documented darker, masculine side is evident.
The CD is subtitled ''Livre de clavecin de Madame Forqueray''; her portrait graces the booklet, which contains an extremely informative essay by the leading Forqueray authority, Lucy Robinson. It would have been interesting, and perhaps truer to the spirit of the transcriptions, had the pieces been performed with more feminine intuition.'
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