COMPOSERS: Couperin,Dieupart,Hotteterre,Marais
LABELS: Teknon
ALBUM TITLE: Collection: 18th-Century French Music
WORKS: Works
PERFORMER: Marijke Miessen (recorder), Anner Bylsma, Pieter Wispelwey (cello), Bob van Asperen (harpsichord)
CATALOGUE NO: TK 11-250 Reissue (1989)
I thought I was going to be bored by well over an hour’s worth of pieces played on a recorder, several of them written expressly for other instruments. But no, the performances are of a calibre to banish any hint of tonal monotony. Compared with the Dutch avant-garde recorder school, Marijke Miessen’s approach is conservative but, musically speaking, it is none the worse for being that. She is a spirited performer who, with her stylish continuo group, breathes life into the music. I would not readily have thought that Marais’s evocative Sonnerie de Sainte-Geneviève... would have convincingly translated from the bass viol to the recorder, but it does, though creating an entirely different ‘affect’. Nicholas Anderson
Couperin, Dieupart, Hotteterre, Marais
I thought I was going to be bored by well over an hour’s worth of pieces played on a recorder, several of them written expressly for other instruments. But no, the performances are of a calibre to banish any hint of tonal monotony. Compared with the Dutch avant-garde recorder school, Marijke Miessen’s approach is conservative but, musically speaking, it is none the worse for being that. She is a spirited performer who, with her stylish continuo group, breathes life into the music. I would not readily have thought that Marais’s evocative Sonnerie de Sainte-Geneviève...
Our rating
4
Published: January 20, 2012 at 1:17 pm