Stefano Lorenzetti - Fran?ois Couperin: Les Regrets ou L'art de la M?lancolie

Fran�ois Couperin, known as �le grand�, won renown when, at the early age of 25 in 1693, he was appointed to a high position in Louis XIV�s private chapel. In the following years he compiled the core of his greatest works, the four monumental Pi�ces de clavecin, which represent the apex of his compositional mastery with a refined use of counterpoint and a galant taste for embellishments and rich, often subtly melancholic characterisation. This album features eight preludes from Couperin�s L�Art de toucher le clavecin to create small suites that freely use pieces from the first two books of the Pi�ces de clavecin. �I have spent many years of my life with Fran�ois Couperin�s music, in particular with the eight preludes of L�art de toucher le clavecin�because they seem to me an ideal testimony of that particularly suggestive phrase of his, which more or less recites, �If there is great distance between grammar and declamation, there is infinite distance between written music and a good performance. This is difficult music, extremely fragile, very subtle, which requires putting into practice the old precept �Ars est celare artem� � art consists in concealing art �, in the almost obsessive search for the naturalness, in conveying and feeling, that is what this music calls for especially, in my opinion.�( Extract from Stefano Lorenzetti�s video)