BAROQUE CORNER

The baroque music holds a special part of my heart and musical practice. As most pianists, I started studying piano with J.S. Bach, and I went through a good part of his keyboard music, from the Partitas to the Goldberg variations. When I was a child, my professor introduced me to French baroque music, in particular to J.Ph. Rameau. But I was an adult when I could get an harpsichord, and I discovered our greatest composer for this instrument, my dear François Couperin « le Grand ». Since 25 years or so, in parallel to my jazz and classical piano practices, I come back regularly to this haven of softness, simplicity, intimacy and serenity: an indestructible music that makes you happy, isn't it a sacred viaticum to cross life? Couperin is the centre of my harpsichord practice, and I either study his « ordres » - most of those I recorded are accessible here) or pieces of the other French – Rameau, Duphly, Daquin... - or from his great contemporaries from other European countries (Handel, Scarlatti...). I am also fond of elisabethan music (William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons...). Here are some samples of these musics :

• La Livinière (F. Couperin)

• La Distraite (F. Couperin)

• Les Amusements (F. Couperin)

• Le Rappel des oiseaux (J.-Ph. Rameau)

• Rondeau (J. Duphly)

• John come kiss me now (W. Byrd)

With my small mobile harpsichord, I happen to give baroque music recitals in very tiny places, as in this chapell in Gironde (South-West of France), and for a small public, e.g. for the benefit of associations. These last years, and in this type of context, we form a chamber music duo with my good friend, guitarist Olivier Saltiel.

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