François Couperin: Quatrième Concert The Four Nations Ensemble

Francois Couperin: Quatrième Concert
The Four Nations Ensemble in live performance
Charles Brink, flute
Olivier Brault, violin
Loretta O'Sullivan, cello
Scott Pauley, theorbo
Andrew Appel, harpsichord and director

Quatrieme Concert Francois Couperin
Prélude :07 (1668-1733)
Allemande (2:45)
Courante Françoise (4:23)
Courante a L’italiene (6:23)
Sarabande (9:26)
Rigaudon (12:21)
Forlane Rondeau (13:59)

If we were so lucky as to stroll through Versailles with Saint Simon, one of the great diarists of France, he would point out activities and events of many varieties. Suppers and collations, garden promenades, visits with friends in distant wings of the great palace. In each and every location, indoors and out, there would be music. Music for intimate dancing, music as background, tiny concerts to be relished. Music was a main ingredient to most moments at the palace.

But if we were truly fortunate, we would be among the invited few for music in the salon of Madame de Maintenon. There, sitting near the king we would hear François Couperin at the harpsichord along with France’s most exquisite instrumentalists playing concerts of several movements, Royal Concerts. By the time of these performances, at the dawn of the 18th century, the taste for grand gesture had passed. The great Lully was dead and opera was less central. In 1710, drums and trumpets may have reminded the King of his failed exploits and France’s limping economy. But music that quietly touched his spirit was the order of the day and balm for an old monarch. Couperin tells us that he himself much preferred music that did not surprise but that moved him. And so, these Royal Concerts are filled with moments of poetic delicacy, humor, and tenderness. Each movement is a sensitive drawing not suggesting dynamism but enshrining the moment with just the right phrase, perfumed harmony, and supple melody. If the music seems static, we ask why move anywhere when this place, these gardens, this breeze are so delicious?