François Couperin (1668-1733)
Pièces de violes avec la basse chiffrée (1728)
Première Suite in E minor
Les Bergeries
Deuxième Suite in A major
La Bellemont (Sara Ruiz (viola da gamba), Laura Puerto (harpsichord), Rafael Muñoz (theorbo & baroque guitar), Johanna Rose (viola da gamba))
rec. 2015, Church of the Monastery Carmelitas Descalszos, Toledo, Spain
Challenge Classics CC720067 [44]
La Bellemont has already recorded François Couperin among others in their Plaisir sacré album on the Itinerant Records label (review), which left reviewer Johan van Veen wanting more. Well, here we are with a gorgeous recording of two contrasting suites which were Couperin’s penultimate publications, but with an even shorter playing time.
As their respective keys indicate, the Suite in E minor is one with a great deal of expressive melancholy, though it concludes with a groovy Gigue followed by a joyous Chaconne ou Passacaille, and the Suite in A major has “songs of mirth and rejoicing, grandeur and magnificence”, while also containing reflective moods such as its opening Prélude, and a languorous third movement titled Pompe funèbre. These lines of definition in terms of mood are therefore by no means as well defined as you might expect, and Couperin’s instinct for inner contrast is upheld in both suites.
That word ‘songs’ is appropriate here, as Couperin’s lyricism with the viola da gamba is exquisitely vocal in those slow movements in which a kind of abstract narrative unfolds to form a tabula rasa on which you can let your imagination roam free. At all times there is a refined interplay between the viola da gamba, theorbo, baroque guitar and harpsichord, to create a highly satisfying chamber music experience, recorded in a richly resonant acoustic but with plenty of detail in the balance so we don’t miss a note.
The two suites are performed with a short intermezzo, an arrangement of one of Couperin’s popular harpsichord pieces called Les Bergeries. This is taken at a stately pace that works very well with the strings, at first all plucked, with the viola da gamba taking on a melodic line by way of contrast. The CD has a 13th track not listed or mentioned in the booklet, but titled Le Bellemont on the Challenge Classics website tracklist. Answers about this and why it has taken over 10 years to release this wonderful recording on a postcard please. There are other recordings of these pieces around, such as on the Avie label (review), and with two of the same musicians, Mikko Perkola and Aapo Häkkinen, on the Naxos label. These are both very fine, but to my mind the musicians of La Bellemont touch even more of Couperin’s emotional soft-spots and deserve very much to be heard.
Dominy Clements
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