Christophe Rousset (harpsichord)

Suite In F - Louis Couperin

Ordre II (exc) - Franτois Couperin

Pavane In F sharp minor - Louis Couperin

Ordre V (exc) - Franτois Couperin

Paris-born Franτois Couperin (1668-1733) is the best-known member of one of the greatest of musical dynasties, whose influence stretched from the late 16th into the 19th century. In recent years, Franτois's great legacy of harpsichord music has been joined on disc and in the concert hall by that of his uncle Louis (1626-1661), who is especially renowned for his use of the prΘlude non mesurΘ, where it's up to the performer to shape a series of notes presented without rhythm or bar lines.

These preludes are fascinating and visually arresting creations. In the Suite In F, the approach of the French harpsichordist Christophe Rousset inclined towards the free and fanciful, forgoing some of the tautening and logic that many players seek to find in these quasi-improvisatory movements.

His handling of Louis Couperin in general was typified by a loose-jointed approach that seemed calculated to highlight the differences between the two composers. If Louis's music is in some ways the freer, it is also the more severe, and Rousset may well have planned to leaven it by his indulgence in the unexpected, both in terms of local detail and choice of tempo.

His playing was tauter, more consistent in rhythmic discipline, in the excerpts from the second and fifth ordres, or collections, by Franτois. One of the principal challenges of his music is the frequency with which it specifies embellishment. He was a stickler about this. And Rousset is one of those players who knows exactly where to draw the crucially fine line between the seamless integration and attraction-seeking prominence of these decorations.