Wanda Landowska - Couperin PIeces de Clavecin

The first harpshicordist of the New gen❤

*_The rest of the documentation by André Tubeuf in the French language 1/1_*
*Couperin hors du tombeau*
A peine ne, Ie disque a eu toutes les audaces. Les annees 30
ont ose - honneur a His Master's Voice, qui a imagine
cette ceuvre de pionnier - imprimer et diffuser les textes les
plus explosifs, les plus porteurs d'avenir. lis dormaien~, parfois
depuis des siecles, dans Ie secret des blbllotheques.
Le disque donnait a lire a des milliers de destinataires (des
millions virtuellement), ce qui jusque-Ia n'avait pratiquement
ete lu. que par des savants ou entendu par des privilegies.
Pour adresser ainsi au grand nombre Ie tresor de la musique
classique, HMV eut une idee aussi simple que I'ceuf de
Christophe Colomb : les societes de souscripteurs. A une
epoque ou il existait a peine deux ou trois versions de
l'Appassionata en disque, et aucune de I'opus 111 , il etait
fou de pretendre vendre au public I'integrale des Sonates
de Beethoven par Schnabel , comme les libraires avaient
vendu tout Balzac. Mais c'etait aussi une folie, Schnabel
etant I.a, de ne pas lui permettre d'ecrire ce testament. Une
Societe Beethoven rendit I'entreprise possible, reservant son
benefice d'abord a ceux qui rendaient Ie projet viable, les
souscripteurs. De meme, les Operas de Mozart, a Glyndebourne
d'abord avec Fritz Busch, puis a Berlin avec Beecham.
Et les cycles de Lieder de Schubert avec Gerhard Husch.
Et meme Hugo Wolf, cet inconnu. Un jour viendraient les
Symphonies de Sibelius. La premiere contribution fran<;:aise
fut tres significative: une " Societe Couperin Ie Grand" avec
une grande pretresse : Wanda Landowska. Elle n'avait pas
peur du danger. Depuis son plus jeune age, elle affrontait
la mode existante avec un dedain souverain. SOre de son
instinct, sOre du serieux de ses goOts, sOre de la patience
fervente et maniaque avec laquelle elle servait ses dieux,
elle savait que leur heure sonnerait. Elle venait de graver,
de Bach, les Variations Goldberg. Elle allait donner une
pleine brassee de Sonates de Scarlatti, puis une autre de
Suites de Haendel. II eOt ete plus juste de regrouper cette
"Couperin Ie Grand Society

Thank you so much, Dear HVG! So much to say about these recordings. Where to begin? Well, let's start big : though she was the first to bring this repertoire into the publick mind on the harpsichord, it seems that, in spite of the passage of time, this is still the bar for a performance of the musick of Francois Couperin. If Landowska has an equal in this repertoire, it is not on the harpsichord, but perhaps only on Marcel Meyer's grand piano. Why Landowska is so supreme, here, is difficult to sum up, but, I will try : in each piece she has a full expressive concept that is a living marriage between the composer's rhetorick and her particular insight into it. In other words, the objective and subjective live in great harmony with her, in each and every one of these performances. Her use of agogicks is so masterful - ever slowing and accelerating in such a way that one never quite gets the feeling that the next note is ' inevitable' and yet, when one heasr it played, it seem so ' inevitable' that it is difficult to imagine that note having been placet anywhere else but, in the time and space where she placet it. Moreover, with such a copious use of sforzandi, her playing is never polite, which insures that the tedium which so oft occurs in many other solo classical musick performances does not transpire here. On an adjunct point, I have to say that her Pleyel instrument, as would be quickly deridden, nowadays, by those who cannot imagine a harpsichord built in this style, manifests so many colours - from friendly and intimate to monstrous and symphonick, that, again, no tedium can set in. Lastly, her articulative palette, from legatissimo to staccatissimo, is so wondrous that one could listen to just this aspect, alone, and never cease to be amused! In Landowska's Francois Couperin the Fete-Galants of Watteau and Lancret live on, winking at us from the corner of a dim, candle-lit, and wainscot-paneled room...

ランドフスカのオリジナルのRPレコードは嫌いなヘンデルを除いて持っている。しかし、クープランは一番良くない。元来チェンバロは、メインのフロント8´が美しい音でなければならない。4´や、リア8´はそれほど使わない。フロント4´は音に華やかさを付け加わえ、リア8´はフロントの8´よりも弱い音量に調節しピアノに使うが、当時の楽器はペダルはないから、頻繁に組み合せを替えることはできない。モダンチェンバロは組み合せに頼りすぎる。

This recording was originally issued on LP in the early 1960s, in EMI's „Great Recordings of the Century” series. The 78-transfers were actually done in different countries, and the original LPs always contained a booklet with Landowsk'a notes on the music, as far as available (her Scarlatti recordings, e. g., came in two „volumes”, each with its own booklet). When EMI reissued all of these historical recordings (Cortot, Gieseking, Meyer, Schnabel) in the late 70s, early 80s, the famous grey booklets were replaced with notes by that most horrible of musical scribblers ever, a pox on him, André Tubeuf. Du Boeuf managed to write about every performer everything and nothing without ever being detailed. He whitewashed. If you're curious about infamous André in action, watch how he talks over Argerich's „Ondine” in 1980, rubbing his unpleasant fingers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qdvhBm3Gws. He truly was a scribbling idiot savant.

Landowska and Couperin are a different story altogether. WL recorded her first François in 1930, „Le rossignol en amour” (backside was Scarlatti Essercizi 9). Landowska and EMI were testing the ground of what would sell. In the 1930s, you still needed „subsrciptions” (Beecham Delius and Sibelius, Schnabel Beethoven, whom have you; Cortot was already established) in order to produce recordings. - Landowska's ornamentation of the „rossignol” is worth a hundred hearings. I am not the only one to suggest that Landowska was actually better in French repertoire than in her all-beloved Bach. Her Chambonnières Chacone et Rondeau en fa are one of the most glorious harpsichord recordings ever! - Regarding this recording, start by listening to the „Rossignol”, then to the „Folies”. Notice how Landowska seemlessly integrates the ornaments (sth. her student Ruggero Gerlin butchered in his intégrale of FC for L'Oiseau Lyre in the 1950s). Pleyel or not, no one has played Rossignol ou Folies better than Landowska. These recordings, after 90 years, remain overwhelming in their sheer truth. The only Couperin performance of hers that I never liked is the Passacaille. Way over the top. - Everything else on this disc is/are gems. Landowska had a direct connect to the French repertoire, c. f. her Rameau, and her d'Anglebert (Frick concerts 1950, 1951). These performances are truly timeless. - If these performances tease you into wanting to know more about WL, do seek out „Landowska on Music”, 1964. You'll find a copy cheap as chips on abebooks.com. No, I don't work for them.

Thank you very much for the wonderful upload with the great Wanda Landowska

NO unequal notes??? The great Rudolf Dolmetsch was doing them at the this period (indeed, Arnold actually corrected my father in the '20s when he was playing the French repertory 'as written'). Wanda is surprising me here...

*_The rest of the documentation in an English translation 1/1_*
*Couperin disentombed*
The record had hardly been born when it dared everyth ing.
The 'thirties -thanks to His Master's Voice who originated
this pioneering work - were bold enough to print and
distribute the most explosive and future-oriented works.
They had in some cases slumbered for centuries in the
secret confines of libraries. The record enabled thousands
(virtually millions) to enjoy what had until then practically
only been read by the pundits or heard by a privileged few.
To make the treasures of classical music available to the
large number of devotees, HMV hit on an idea as simple
as it was brilliant : the subscription society. At a time when
there barely existed two or three versions of the Appassionata
on record and No. opus 111 at all, it would have been madness
to attempt to sell the publ ic Beethoven's complete piano
Sonatas played by Schnabel in the same way booksellers
used to sell the collected works of Balzac. But at the same
time, since Schnabel was right there, it was also madness
not to allow him to write th is testament. A Beethoven
Society made this venture feasible, its benefit being first
and foremost for those responsible for making the scheme
viable in the first place - the subscribers. The same was
done with Mozart's Operas, first at Glyndebourne under Fritz
Busch and then in Berlin under Beecham, Schubert's Lieder
cycles with Gerhard Husch, and even that great unknown,
Hugo Wolf. One day, the Symphon ies of Sibelius would
follow. The first French contribution was high ly significant:
a "Couperin Ie Grand Society ". Its hig h-priestess was
Wanda Landowska. She was unafraid of danger. From
her earliest age she faced the fashion of the day with
sovereign disdain. Sure of her instinct, sure of the soundness
of her taste, sure of the ardent, indeed the frantic
patience with which she served her gods, she knew that
their hour would come. She had just recorded Bach 's
Goldberg Variations. She was going to produce a full measure
of Scarlatti Sonatas and then one of Handel Sui tes. It would
have been more rational to combine this "Couperin Ie Grand
Society