That's the disc I have -- and it's very beautifully recorded. The playing is marvelous. The music is ho-hum. The Folies d'Espagne in particular are ho hum ho drum and interminable at 11- 1/2 minutes.

I'm listening to excerpts now, via iTunes!

It seems that Marc Roger Normand went by a number of names; court documents in Turin refer to him as Marco Rogero Normano, as well as Couperin and its variations Couprin, Coprin, Cuoprin, Coprino or Coperino.

Looking through my collection, I don't even have any François Couperin, let alone anything from any his family...  

...ah, here's the Louis Couperin at Foyles.

http://www.foyles.co.uk/display.asp?K=9790004181430&m=23&dc=39&sort=eh_nbd_rank/d&mw=1&st_01=couperin&sf_01=kword_index

It's the right one although the site doesn't give much information. (Thank goodness for the ISBN.)

Couperin is in my opinion rather meaningless in 12-note equal temperament; also, dynamics are composed with harpsichord in mind, i.e., using density and register rather than written dynamics, so the piano cannot capitalize on this as well.

But that's only one person's opinion.

You always lose something in terms of harmony playing Baroque music on the piano - Baroque tuning systems all have a different 'taste' not only between the keys but between the different chords in a single key so the harmonic tension is different.

In J.S. Bach you can almost get away with that - the system he used was close enough to equal temperament that using equal temperament doesn't completely cripple the music. (Although if you hear Richard Egarr's recording of the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier you'll hear - I hope! - how much more there is to this harmony than equal temperament can deliver.) For my money in earlier Baroque repertoire (both Louis and François Couperin for example) you simply lose too much if you play the music in equal temperament.

As far as the instruments go: there's one problem in that a harpsichord tuned in equal temperament won't sing as it was meant to because there are hardly any really pure intervals. So on a lot of harpsichord recordings you're simply not hearing the instrument properly - once you get used to the way it should be, equal temperament sounds somehow sour and vinegary on a harpsichord I reckon. There's another problem in that often harpsichords aren't well recorded. And there's another in that ears are sometimes not used to the sound.

The Hantaï and Meyerson discs both have damn good harpsichords properly tuned and recorded. Meyerson is an extremely outgoing performer and her Forqueray, Duphly and Couperin are the kind of thing I would use to demonstrate to an as-yet-unconvinced listener what a harpsichord can do.

So no, piano in Couperin, not for me. In effect you're hearing an arrangement of the music, and for me it's one where you lose too much.

Check out some of her Forqueray and Duphly if that's there too. Some of it's absolutely stunning. Maybe try Forqueray's Le Carillon de Passy and Duphly's Medée for a quick taste? Quite intoxicating.

http://www.mitzi-meyerson.de/

Thanks for that intriguing prelude, Ollie. Real food for thought there. I think the Meyerson Couperin disc is the place to start and have just placed an order!


But awfully close.....

I haven't heard it but I'm sure you're right - I've been greatly enjoying her recording of the complete harpsichord suites by Georg Böhm (1661-1733), whose work was clearly an inspiration for JS Bach's keyboard suites but which has an individuality and variety of its own. I have a very nice complete recording of Louis Couperin's harpsichord music by Davitt Moroney, which was a cheap 4CD set on Harmonia Mundi but seems no longer to be available.