This is a fresh and highly stimulating recording of François Couperin's rather forbidding viol music, which is often taken to embody either an impenetrable series of coded references or a densely encrusted wall of ornamentation procedures. The sole major flaw of this recording is the sound environment of the 1470 Finnish church where the music was recorded, turning what's supposed to be intimate chamber music into something harshly ecclesiastical and picking up performer noise at an unforgiving level. That aside, you can ...
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This is a fresh and highly stimulating recording of François Couperin's rather forbidding viol music, which is often taken to embody either an impenetrable series of coded references or a densely encrusted wall of ornamentation procedures. The sole major flaw of this recording is the sound environment of the 1470 Finnish church where the music was recorded, turning what's supposed to be intimate chamber music into something harshly ecclesiastical and picking up performer noise at an unforgiving level. That aside, you can hear a lot of Couperin and not have anywhere near the fun you will have listening to Finnish bass viol player Markku Luolajan-Mikkola, accompanied by a continuo pair consisting of a second bass viol and a harpsichord. Everything is oriented toward clarity. The lead and continuo viols are sharply distinguished in sound. Luolajan-Mikkola has a light sound free of the growling sometimes heard on viol recordings, and he completely avoids a ponderous tone. Most important, he reestablishes a...
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