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Froberger, Couperin et al. - Pour passer la melancholie - A. Staier, harpsichord (24-96)  (NMR)  

komt bij mij wat vreemd, maar wel volledig binnen

POUR PASSER LA MELANCHOLIE
Andreas Staier
anon french harpsichord, late 17th century, Joseph Collesse, 1749, restored by Laurent Soumagnac 2000-4]

FROBERGER Suite XXX A minor
D’ANGLEBERT Des Pièces de Claveçin... Livre premier, 1689
FISCHER Musicalischer Parnassus, de la Suite „Uranie“ D minor
LOUIS COUPERIN Suite in F major
D’ANGLEBERT Des Pièces de Claveçin... Livre premier, 1689
FISCHER De Ariadne Musica, 1702: Ricercar pro Tempore, Quadragesimae super Initium,
Cantilenae: “Da Jesus an dem Creutze stund”
CLÉRAMBAULT Du 1er Livre de Pièces de Claveçin, 1704, Suite in C minor
MUFFAT De Apparatus Musico-Organisticus, 1690: Passacaglia in G minor
FROBERGER Libro qvarto, 1656, de la Suite VI:
Lamento sopra la dolorosa perdita della Real Mstà. di Ferdinando IV, Ré de’ Romani

Whether the composer luxuriates in melancholic disorder or attempts to remedy it, there is but a fine line here between the vanity of the world and the artist’s glory. In his readings of Froberger, Fischer and Clérambault, Andreas Staier distils the fruits of this sophisticated blend on an instrument saved from oblivion at the start of the 21st century.

"‘Why have all eminent men, whether philosophers, statesmen, poets or artists, so obviously been melancholics?’ This question forms the opening of a treatise attributed to Aristotle. The doctrine of the four temperaments (sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic) associates the melancholic with the most varied phenomena: the planet Saturn, the autumn (also in the sense of the autumn of life), twilight, cold, avarice, but also genius, geometry, and brooding profundity of thought. Albrecht Dürer condenses this multiplicity of motifs with extreme concentration in his celebrated and enigmatic engraving Melencolia I of 1514.

...I would like to thank Laurent Soumagnac for placing his wonderful harpsichord at my disposal for this disc, and Markus Fischinger for maintaining the instrument during the recording sessions. My very special gratitude goes to my friend and colleague Skip Sempé. He took the time for many inspiring conversations about French music of the seventeenth century." Andreas Staier

dank aan originele poster