Les Délices de la Solitude A Recital of Eighteenth
century French Harpsichord Music
Deux-Elles DXL917
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International
Record Review, June 2001
Under
the evocative title 'Les Délices de la Solitude' Terence Charlston has
assembled a delightful and varied programme of harpsichord pieces by
Francois Couperin and friends. Instead of sticking to the publication
order of nice, neat dance suites, Charlston goes cherry picking. We get an
array of the finest 'character pieces' of the age. These were a speciality
of the clavecinistes and usually had personal or prgrammatic associations,
hinted at in their fantastic titles. For instance, as Charlston explains
in his exemplary booklet notes, Courpin's 'Le moucheron' is 'a tiny fly
that gets into wine and also into the eyes, or the burning end of the wick
of a candle'.
Charlston's
playing is the very antithesis of the Christophe Rousset school of
high-octane exuberance. Instead, he is laid back and modest; his
thoughtful tempos really allow the music to breathe and the characters of
the individual movements to emerge. He plays two instruments: most of the
recital is on a fine double manual 1624 Ruckers copy by Andrew Garlick;
the later pieces are played on a bigger instrument modelled on a 1769
Taskin built by David Robio. The recording is lovely and rich and 70
minutes is a generous overall playing time. An enjoyable introduction to
the repertory of the clavecinistes. Simon Heighes
BBC
Music magazine, 2001 PERFORMANCE **** SOUND ****
Terence
Charlston's recital is an attractive one, pleasingly constructed and
played with idiomatic fluency. Couperin's Third and Sixth Ordres or,
loosely, 'Suites', are the chief beneficiaries of Charlston's discerningly
selective programme, and from the latter he includes both the composer's
enigmatically descriptive 'Les baricades misterieuses' and the lovely 'Les
bergeries', which was soon to find place in the 1725 music-book which Bach
compiled for his wife, Anna Magdalena.
Less
frequently heard are eight preludes which served a dual purpose of
prefacing some of the earlier ordres and providing studies for Couperin's
pupils. Charlston has chosen two of them, introducing his recital with the
Seventh and most elegiacally expressive of them. There is plenty to enjoy
in an imaginative programme of morceaux favoris. Nicholas Anderson
Classical
Music on the Web, 2001
This
is a pleasing selection by Terence Charlston of 19 pieces of 18th Century
French harpsichord music, a dozen by François Couperin, many of them
quite well known and including Les Délices, from which the CD takes it
title Les Délices de la Solitude. They are chosen from the Suites in
which these composers arranged their pieces for publication, and played on
modern copies of Ruckers and Taskin instruments.
Forqueray
worked at the court of Louis XIV, as did Couperin, and they played
together. Rameau's pieces were mostly published posthumously. Dandrieu was
a Parisian. Duphly died in 1789, a day after the French Revolution broke
out, 'symbolically bringing to a close the epoch of the clavecinistes'.
Terence
Charlston inaugurated the Historical Practice course as Head of Early
Music in the Royal Academy of Music, and he brings musicological knowledge
and fluent fingers to this music, the first of a projected series for
Deux-Elles. Charlston writes his own introductory notes which are
adequate; track timings might be useful for broadcasters. A very pleasing
introduction to the genre, as well recorded as played. Peter Grahame Woolf
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