"But what are we going to do with all these pleasures?" A question sung tête-à-tête by the Princess and the Prince in Jacques Demy’s film Peau d’âne ("Donkey Skin"), and a more bothersome question for harpsichordists drawn to the age of Louis XV. What to do with all the pleasures that the composers of the time distributed so extravagantly, how to live today in this "kingdom of the pleasant"?
The usual option is to stick to the most perfectionist of these masters (Couperin), the most ambitious (Rameau) or the most adventurous (Forqueray) in programmes focusing on one of them at time. But that means setting aside a whole swathe of the repertory, which Céline Frisch here restores to the limelight, following an original method.
From Couperin’s Le Réveil-matin to Corrette’s Les Étoiles, she retraces a day at the court of Louis XV, making full use of the sound palette offered by an exceptional harpsichord, a replica by Andrea Restelli of an instrument by Goujon. © Alpha Classics