demos
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is considered by many as the worker of the great synthesis of western music until the 18th century. His music reaches to the core of what so far had been the western culture. A complete man: northener and southerner, sacred and profane, tragic and joyous.
As of that date, the ancien regime crumbled and revolutions sprouted everywhere. Eager to claim their place, they centrifuged the good and the bad of "yore": proclaiming new truths that promised the same of the former but without their pathos.
What has this to do with Bach? Everything and also nothing. The important is what remains. Almost everything passes by.
Bach's music remains!
I play solo a partita and with harpsichordist Nuno Oliveira a transcription of Sonata BWV 1016 in E Major.
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.
