2003-06-01 / Amazon / Jaume Otero

The rediscovery of the leading early music composers by performers using original instruments has led numerous musicians whose aesthetic tendencies are associated with late-romantic practices to approach them with modern instruments. This is the case with the pianist Angela Hewitt in volume two of François Couperin´s Pièces de Clavecin .
Transferring this music, conceived for the harpsichord, to a modern piano, requires a tremendous amount of work, searching for sonorities to adapt and build on, which Hewitt carries out to perfection. The pianist overcomes the limitations of the instrument using a gradation of very precise dynamics, and the difficulties in relation to melody and articulation have been resolved with a very rhythmic phrasing that recreates some of the effects of the harpsichord quite faithfully.
Stylistically, Angela Hewitt presents a very coherent Couperin and discovers, as strange as it may seem, new facets of his music by transcribing it for the piano. In some cases the orchestral nature of some pieces is surprising, while in others the contrast of sonorities points to more modern styles. Numerous concerto-like qualities are undoubtedly perceptible in the majority, making them very attractive to the modern pianist and which, to a large extent, justify recording them on this instrument.