- Main performer: Andrew Lawrence-King
- Booklet languages: English, French, German
- Time: 72:44
- Release Date: 2007
Review
This is one of those albums that can be listened to on two levels: one for the enjoyment of the rich, heavily ornamented sound of Andrew Lawrence-King's Baroque triple harp (the term refers to the instrument's three rows of strings, a configuration that survives today in Welsh folk music), and one for the music involved and how it fit into the musical and cultural universe of its time. The composers on the disc are familiar -- Lully and Campra are responsible for most of the pieces. But the music was taken out of its original surroundings and arranged for solo instruments, the harp being a common one. One use for these arrangements was for the dance lessons of Louis XIV himself, one of history's few dancer-kings; the arrangements by Jean-Henri d'Angelbert were included in a dance instruction book called Choréographie, compiled by Raoul-Auger Feuillet, which contained perhaps history's first instance of dance notation. The lavish booklet includes examples of this, and it's pretty much worth the purchase price on its own. Others at the center of the Sun King's orbits of power loved dancing and might have heard this music as well: from New Year to Carnival," a visiting Bavarian princess wrote, "the court just danced and partied."What the listener gets here, then, is something of an early dance mix. The pieces are mostly upbeat and short -- sometimes very short. They are divided into five sets, beginning with an Entrée and concluding with the weightier and longer Chaconne, which gives Lawrence-King the chance to display his facility with ornamentation on a difficult instrument as it progresses into denser textures. Within each set are a mixture of programatically named pieces and the generic French court dances: sarabande, bourée, and so on. The trick in playing this music, according to one treatise, was to "please the ear, and at the same time to mark the dance rhythms so well, that one feels inspired in spite of oneself with the desire to dance." Lawrence-King treats the rhythm a bit freely for dancers, or even foot-tappers, but the subtle touch of his ornaments reveals something new each time one listens to it. The music of the French court remains the least understood aspect of the whole Baroque period, not least because performing organizations today can't muster the resources necessary to their reenactment. Recordings like this one, that hold onto the music's original entertainment value while showing us something of how French courtiers heard and enjoyed music, are invaluable. The sound picks up every little detail of Lawrence-King's harp, some of which are as quiet as the sounds of a Chinese zither. ~ James Manheim, All Music Guide
