Word: couperin
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Wednesday night's concert, the second of three, began with a Concerto for violin, cello, and harpsichord by Couperin. Ruth Posselt, the new violinist, is the competent, unspectacular kind of performer who subordinates herself to the music at hand. Her easy-going interpretation was perfect for this comparatively light-weight work. 'Cellist Samuel Mayes, who appeared in all eight parts of the program, showed remarkable versatility. His tone was full and rich in the important solo sections, but in the later continuo passage he held himself down so that one could barely hear him over the harpsichord...
Complete Piano Music of Ravel (Robert Casadesus; Columbia, 6 sides LP). A major undertaking by an artist who is at his best in French music. Casadesus delights in the pastel shadings of Le Tombeau de Couperin, ripples almost too effortlessly through the intricacies of Gaspard de la Nuit. For the four-hand Mother Goose suite and Habanera, he is assisted by his wife Gaby. Recording: good...
...novelties were by two members of the fabulous Couperin family of French musicians. A suite of seven short pieces by Louis Couperin opened the program. I especially liked Tombeau de M. de Blancrocher, a threnody for harpsichord with modern sounding dissonances and a fascinating bass line. Melville Smith, who is Director of the Longy School, played with great sensitivity, but avoided the exaggerated sentiment that usually mars works of this nature...
Louis' nephew, Francois "Le Grand," was represented by one of his most talked about but least performed compositions. It is a miniature musical drama, depicting the deification of Couperin's idol, Jean Baptiste Lully. This is program music at its most imaginative. Each of the twelve sections has an elaborate title (such as Lully in the Elysian Fields, Concertizing with the Lyric Shades) and the musical portraits are nothing short of amazing. In Subterranean Commotion Made by the Contemporary Authors of Lully, the string of the chamber orchestra make rumbling noises by means of a quasi-tremulo. In a violin...