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Couperin

Couperin Piano

Add a drum to a piano?! (plus a Couperin medley)

Couperin – Bruit De Guerre

 

Very powerful isn’t it? From what’s mentioned on Amazon it appears that the pianist and/or those who collaborated in making the album added the drum. That was Alexandre Tharaud playing one of the pieces from the series called Le Tic-Toc-Choc ou Les Maillotins by Francois Couperin.

Couperin’s Biography on Wikipedia  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Couperin

I’ve just kept listening to more from the Tic-Toc-Choc. Great stuff. You can see why Bach liked Couperin so much. (*of course these pieces were originally written for harpsichord but performed here on piano) As I researched I found some ‘critics in the know’ who emphasize how wonderful Couperins’ keyboard compositions are and what a shame they haven’t been recorded and exposed as much as they deserve.

How about some more? (No more drums!) 3 selections from Tic Toc Choc lasting about 9 minutes. 1) Le Baricades Misterieuses 2) La Couperin 3) Le Dodo ou L’amour Au Berceau

Couperin medley


Cello Couperin Hey - what about Couperin?! Piano

Hey – what about Couperin?!

Francois Couperin popped into my mind the other day. I thought:

‘Wasn’t he an important Baroque composer?… Then how come I only have one piece by him in my library?”

So I went surfing in my paid download sites. I found that Bach loved his 4 volumes of harpsichord music – Richard Strauss and Ravel admired his music and Brahms piano music was inspired by him.
Since I don’t like the harpsichord or vocal (and that’s mostly what he composed) – I was looking for other stuff. I found these pieces adapted for the piano (originally for harpsichord) AND some killer cello!

The piano artist  on these pieces, Alexandre Tharaud, says about the first piece below: ” I have a particularly soft spot for Duphly’s La Pothoïn, which for me is one of the loveliest pieces ever composed for keyboard.”

duphly-la-pothouin

 

More ‘piano adapted’ pieces from the Tic Toc Choc series. I like these two from the series: La Visionnaire and Les Jumeles

la visionnaire

 

les jumeles

 

And then some ‘killer cello’ I love this first one

Pieces en concert / Prelude

couperin-cello

 

more lovely cello Pieces en concert / Plainte

pieces en concert plainte