Quebecois harpsichordist Hank Knox makes a virtue out of the supposed shortcomings of the music of J. Henry d'Anglebert, a court composer at Versailles in the late seventeenth century. The harpsichord suite selections heard here were published in 1689, and they have neither the majesty of d'Anglebert's predecessors nor the intensity of his successor Couperin. The "clavecytherium" mentioned and pictured on the cover is a little less unusual than the imposing name suggests; it is a vertical-standing harpsichord whose purpose ...
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Quebecois harpsichordist Hank Knox makes a virtue out of the supposed shortcomings of the music of J. Henry d'Anglebert, a court composer at Versailles in the late seventeenth century. The harpsichord suite selections heard here were published in 1689, and they have neither the majesty of d'Anglebert's predecessors nor the intensity of his successor Couperin. The "clavecytherium" mentioned and pictured on the cover is a little less unusual than the imposing name suggests; it is a vertical-standing harpsichord whose purpose was unclear. Annotator Yves Beaupré dismisses without explanation the idea that it might have been intended as a space-saver, but the rooms at Versailles, despite the scale of the whole, are not large. Each of the three suites excerpted here begins with a prelude in free rhythm and a quasi-improvised style. Knox's notes go into quite a bit of detail about these, touching on such matters as how d'Anglebert's notation differs from that used by other composers. He also helps the...
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