French chamber music

Abstract

In promoting his cherished réunion des goûts, François Couperin never sought to denigrate the native French musical tradition but rather to enrich it with elements imported from Italy in an attempt to achieve ‘the perfection of music’. The present batch of recordings, consisting mainly of chamber music composed between the 1690s and the 1740s, illustrates the varying degree to which French composers of the period came to terms with Italian styles and techniques or, in some cases, ignored them completely. Elements of the two national traditions are nicely juxtaposed on a disc entitled Italy versus France: Lully, Corelli, d’Anglebert, Rebel, Muffat, Couperin (Hyphen Press Music hpm004, rec 2010, 79′), part of an enterprising series in which The Bach Players approach French music from various different perspectives. At one extreme in the present programme is a group of items representing the unalloyed style français—the overture and chaconne from Lully’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, together with two theorbo pieces by Robert de Visée and d’Anglebert’s Tombeau de M. Chambonnières, a tribute to the founder of the French clavecin school. At the other is Corelli’s trio sonata on the ciaccona, op.12 no.12, plus a keyboard toccata by Pasquini and the G minor sonata from Georg Muffat’s homage to Corelli, Armonico tributo. Between these are two further works in that archetypal French genre, the tombeau, which nevertheless adopt the medium of the Italian trio sonata: Jean-Féry Rebel’s Tombeau de M. de Lully and Couperin’s Le Parnasse, ou L’Apothéose de Corelli. This imaginative programming creates an anthology which amounts to far more than the sum of its parts. All the music is first rate, and The Bach Players, directed by Nicolette Moonen, do it full justice, whether in Muffat’s sublime contrapuntal edifices, or in the dignified but poignant tombeaux by d’Anglebert and Rebel, or in Couperin’s evocation of Corelli’s ‘enthousiasme’. Uplifting and hugely enjoyable.