baroque
François Couperin (1668-1733) is one of the foremost composers of the siècle français, an age in what is France today started to take shape. A strong centralized state, served by dedicated technocrats. A penchant for great construction works, great declarations of principles, for faustus, for frivolity, for beligerance.
Couperin is the last great french composer before the triumph of the new generation and their ideas. A man intimate with Versaille's musical evenings
during Louis XIV and still under the influence of the fatherly figure Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687).
We baptized our group based on a piece by Couperin and its insouciance: Le Je ne Scay Quoy. Something unsayable, that can be felt but not articulated: fascinanting, intriguing, dangerous perhaps.
Were are playing our baptismal music.
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) was a prolific composer from the german baroque.
Usually his music is not favoured in a comparison with his contemporary countrymen Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Quality abhors quantity in general, the more quantity, the less quality.
Nevertheless, for the dedicated music lover digging in Telemann's work diamonds appear amid the "coal".
The concerto in A minor for recorder and viola da gamba is one of those gems. The viol player Vittorio Ghielmi is my partner/opponent in this piece structured in four movements. The baroque orchestra Divino Sospiro under Ghielmi's direction accompanies us in this performance.
