F Couperin Pièces de Clavecin, Book 1 (Second Ordre) Andrew Appel (harpsichord) Orchid Classics ORC100243 (digital only) 56:35 mins
This is the first volume of Andrew Appel’s ambitious project to record all 27 of Couperin’s suites (or ‘ordres’) for harpsichord over two years. The second suite from Book 1 seems an odd place to start. But the 1735 engraving of Couperin reproduced on the download notes shows the composer with his hand resting on the longest movement of the suite, ‘Les Idées Heureuses’, so it perhaps makes musical if not ordinal sense.
With its sonorous melancholy, ‘Les Idées Heureuses’ is the Suite’s emotional heart. The equally long and elegantly decorated ‘La Terpsichore’ represents the spirit of dance around which most of the other movements (allemande, courante, sarabande and so on) revolve. Short character pieces which describe Couperin’s friends and colleagues, like an early sort of Enigma Variations, are full of energy and wit. Three movements are inspired by the sound and flight of canaries and butterflies and are as delightful as they are fiendishly difficult to play.
Appel easily surmounts Couperin’s technical challenges, but there is something studied, even academic, about his account. The notes carry no information about which model of harpsichord he plays, nor about the recording venue, which has a plain and flat ambient sound.
John-Pierre Joyce