French Baroque Masterpieces

“Let us imagine an evening at Fontainebleau Palace – the scent of wax candles, luxurious lace and velvet drapes, turquoise hairpins, and passionate love stories. In this scenography, our ensemble would fit harmoniously as even the strings, bows and tuning of our instruments conform to the standards of the 17th and 18th centuries. Alongside the music of Couperin, the developer of the trio sonata form and a heavyweight of the harpsichord repertoire, our programme features works by lesser-known masters rarely heard today. Among them are Montéclair, the prince's musical metre and a highly respected pedagogue, Mondonville, a violinist dazzled with fortune and the protégé of the king's mistress Madame de Pompadour, Barrière, the delicately sensual cello virtuoso, and Clerambault, the founder of the French cantata genre and organist of the Saint-Sulpice Cathedral in Paris, as well as the musical luminary of Louis XV's court and musician of the elite orchestra Les Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi – Francœur. Equally sophisticated is the enthusiastic ensemble behind the historically informed performance of this discovery-filled programme – leading Latvian harpsichordist Ieva Saliete and multifaceted violinist Agnese Kanniņa, traverso flute player Vita Rozēna-Gaļicka and baroque cellist Māra Botmane, tenor Ansis Bētiņš and soprano Dārta Liepiņa,” say the musicians.

Programme

Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, François Couperin, Michel Pignolet de Montéclair, François Rebel / François Francœur

Participants

Dārta Liepiņa, soprano
Ansis Bētiņš, tenor
Vita Rozēna-Gaļicka, traverso flute
Agnese Kanniņa, baroque violin
Māra Botmane, baroque cello
Ieva Saliete, harpsichord