3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Passion - yes; atmospherics and inner resonance - never, April 9, 2004
This review is from: Suites De Clavecin & Toccatas (Audio CD)
Here, Rousset rolls his chords and ornaments like they're dice, assuming he'll get lucky with his listeners. But a gaming table at Monte Carlo and the harpsichord are quite different beasts - each must dealt with in dramatically different fashions. Here, for Rousset everything is undaunted dash - there's no reflection, no quiet breathing/phrasing - little recognizable emotion unless maybe what - grandiosity? Most aficionados surely would consider this a highly uncharacteristic, over-simplified reading of Froberger's music. Yes, it appears that early music's "enfant terrible" is having one of his more "interesting" moments.
This is very odd, considering how utterly beautiful and profound were many of his efforts recording Francois Couperin's complete works for harpsichord. There (though, like so many of us, he often gave relatively humdrum performances on Couperin's harder-to-fathom, superficially more colorless pieces) he was often as sublime sounding as possibly anyone who has ever played the instrument; and was never close to coming off as obnoxious.
Certainly Rousset's interpretations cannot be faulted for not being passionate; but all the tunes here have the same stirring, emotional quality - the palette he is using is extremely limited - and everything is played, relatively speaking, at near breakneck speed. This is silly for the sarabands. It's ludicrous for the first track, which is titled "Plainte Faite a Londres pour Passer la Melancholie". Mr. Rousset has a right to assume his playing of this piece is for the purpose of sweeping the melancholic mood away with grand (muscular?) gestures; we have a right, and a duty to disagree.
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