François Couperin: Les Concerts Royaux [Import]

Francois Couperin (Composer), Jordi Savall (Conductor), Le Concert des Nations (Performer), Guido Morini (Performer), Xavier Díaz-Latorre (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Le Concert des Nations, Guido Morini, Xavier Díaz-Latorre
• Conductor: Jordi Savall
• Composer: Francois Couperin
• Audio CD (April 12, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Alia Vox Spain
• ASIN: B0007Y8A9W
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,345 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In the service of the king, July 27, 2005

By 

D. Earls (Kingsville, MO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: François Couperin: Les Concerts Royaux (Audio CD)

Imagine your charge: you are court composer to the most powerful man who has ever lived. The old king is dying, slowly, his faculties are gradually receding. He has his lucid moments, remembering this or that great triumph. He has his dreamy moments, his visions of beauty and pleasure. His majesty wishes to be entertained, surrounded by those he most highly esteems. The year is 1714, the place the Palais de Versailles: the King is Louis XIV.

You are Francois Couperin. Your music must not jar the king from his reveries, it must carry him, like a leaf, down a graceful French stream on a bright spring day. The birds must twitter, the breezes blow, and the sun! The sun must bounce off the waves as dazzling and blinding jewels of light. Your music must capture the king's melancholy, for he knows his life is ending, and he wants only the bittersweet relish of his life's sweet moments.

You have dazzled him for fifteen years with your own harpsichord music. You know others have greatly pleased him with their music as well: the great Lully, the sublime Marais, that cantakerous Ste Colombe.

So you create a series of entertainments. They must be short, for it is better to have the king ask for another than to have him fall asleep in the middle of a set. And they must be perfect, for you are in the service of the king.

These are four of those entertainments. They serve up all the styles of the old king's long life, they admit only of beauty and majesty.

This is not the music of our times, and it is not likely to be appreciated or enjoyed within the context of our times. If you permit, Sr Savall and his small band of players will take you back three hundred years, and give you those moments the old king had.

They are moments worth having.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Colorful Couperin, December 10, 2008

By 

Baroque Loverboy "Emperor Oberon" - See all my reviews

This review is from: François Couperin: Les Concerts Royaux (Audio CD)

Les Concerts Royaux is magnificent. It is easy to imagine the old king Louis XIV sitting in his salon on a Sunday afternoon listening to these concerts and dreaming of youth and bucolic nature. These are varied and interesting works, filled with colorful and evocative melodies. I love french music and this disc does not dissapoint. another work by Couperin you may wish to try are 'Les Lecons de Tenebrae'. The royal concerts are a must have for fans of french music. All the fine hallmarks of the noble baroque style of the music of the Sun King and his court are present here.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure enjoyment, September 22, 2005

By 

Guillermo E. Zeppa (Córdoba, Argentina) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: François Couperin: Les Concerts Royaux (Audio CD)

Listening to this excellent CD is just pure enjoyment.
This is french baroque at its best ( one would not expect less from Savall and his fantastic ensemble !).
You also get a great variety of top performances : oboe, flute,violin and viola da gamba as soloists.
If you like baroque music, just get this one .