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Antoine Forqueray 1671–1745 Jean-Baptiste Forqueray 1699–1782 Pièces de clavecin Works for harpsichord Compact Disc 1 Suite No.4 in G minor 1 La Marella. Vivement et marqué 2 La Clément. Noblem.t et détaché 3 La D’aubonne: Sarabande. Cette piéce doit être jouée avec beaucoup de goût et de sentiment: pour en donner l’intelligence, j’ay marqué des petites Croix qui signifient qu’il faut que les accords de la Basse, passent avant ceux du dessus; et à tous ceux où ils ne s’en trouvera point, le dessus doit passer avant la Basse. 4 La Bournonville. Mouvement élevé 5 La Sainscy. Gracieusem.t et avec Esprit 6 Le Carillon de Passy. Légérement sans vitesse 7 La Latour. d’un movement un peu plus vif que la précédente piéce
72’45 3’15 5’19
5’00 2’55 4’46 4’48 5’32
8 9 10 11 12
Suite No.2 in G La Bouron. Vivem.t et détaché La Mandoline. point trop vite et d’aplomb La du Breüil. Louré La Leclair. tres Vivem.t et détaché La Buisson. Chaconne. Gratieusement
4’30 6’28 3’41 3’02 5’52
13 14 15 16
Suite No.1 in D minor La Laborde: Allemande. Noblement et avec Sentiment La Forqueray. Vivement et d’aplomb La Cottin. Galamment sans lenteur La Bellmont. avec Gout et sans lenteur
7’05 3’34 3’10 3’39
Jean-Baptiste Forqueray in a painting by court painter Jean-Martial Frédou
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Compact Disc 2 1 La Portugaise. Marqué et d’aplomb 2 La Couperin. Noblem.t et marqué 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Suite No.3 in D La Ferrand. Détaché, et d´une belle éxecution La Regente. Noblem.t et Soutenu La Tronchin. Mouvement aisé La Angrave. tres vivemt La Du Vaucel. tres tendrement La Eynaud fierement La Morangis ou La Plissay. Mouveme.t de Chaconne
Suite No.5 in C minor 10 La Rameau. Majestueusement 11 La Guignon. Vivement et détaché 12 La Léon: Sarabande. Pour jouër cette piece dans le goût que je souhaiterois quelle fut jouée, il faut faire attention à la façon dont elle est écrite, le dessus ne se trouverant presque jamais d’aplomb avec la Basse. 13 La Boisson. Vivement, les pincés bien soutenûs 14 La Montigni. Galamm.t sans lenteur 15 La Sylva. tres tendrement 16 Jupiter. Modérément
78’02 3’34 4’13 7’23 5’23 4’01 2’45 3’51 2’34 7’54 4’01 4’44
4’18 3’51 5’57 5’42 7’41
Michael Borgstede harpsichord Double-manual French harpsichord after Pascal Taskin (1723–1793) by Fabrizio Acanfora and Thomas Power Disposition: 8´, 4´, 8´ and buff stop · Pitch: A=392 Hz Temperament: “Tempérament ordinaire” after Rameau, 1726 Recorded: December 2008, Remonstrantse Doopsgezinde Church, Deventer, The Netherlands Producer and engineer: Peter Arts Cover photo: Marco Borggreve P and C Brilliant Classics 2011
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Instructions for ‘La Léon’: “In order to play this piece in the way I intended it, one must observe the placing of the notes; the upper part hardly ever coincides with the bass.”
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A Case of Double Misattribution? Forqueray’s ‘Pièces de Clavecin’ Jean-Baptiste Forqueray (1699-1782) was without any doubt the outstanding viol player of his generation. His composer-colleague Louis-Claude d’Aquin reported how: ‘the most difficult pieces cause him no anxiety; he plays them with that assurance which characterises the great player: under his fingers everything becomes a masterpiece of refinement and style’. Thus Jean-Baptiste seems to have been a worthy successor of his father Antoine, who had impressed his contemporaries one generation earlier with his somewhat unbridled virtuosity on the viol. In 1747 Jean-Baptiste published a collection of ‘Pièces de viole composées par Mr Forqueray le père’. Although these viol pieces are allegedly composed by Antoine there is strong evidence that even if there is a skeleton of his father’s work they are so thoroughly reworked for a mid-18thcentury public that the original composition of the father is virtually obliterated. Quite apart from their highly progressive mid-18th-century harmonic style described by D’Aquin as a ‘musical language in a new direction’, in his avertissement Jean-Baptiste explains that he has written the bass, he has fingered the pieces, and that he has added three pieces of his own – though stylistically these three pieces, La Angrave, La Du Vaucel and Chaconne. La Morangis ou La Plissay, are indistinguishable from the other 29. In addition, the titles of the pieces largely celebrate JeanBaptiste’s contemporaries: his colleagues Rameau, Leclair, Marella, Guignon and Clément; the family solicitor, Bouron; his brother-in-law, Pierre Buisson; and the fermiers généraux D’Aubonne, Duvaucel and Ferrand. The extravert and impulsive nature of La Forqueray seems to be a portrait of his father, whose playing was described by the French viol player Hubert Le Blanc as ‘capricious, fantastic & bizarre’. In fact, Antoine Forqueray was not only capricious but also so deeply jealous of his son’s talents that he had him first imprisoned at Bicêtre in 1715, on a trumped up charge that JeanBaptiste had ‘an inclination to play around with women and steal from the houses where his father had given him an entrée’, and in 1725 the son was banished from the kingdom for 10 years on pain of death. Fortunately by this time Jean-Baptiste had influential pupils who pleaded his innocence and good character. One of them, Monsieur de Monflambert, wrote: ‘the cruelty of the father is obvious… His correction and his paternal justice knew no less punishment than exile from the kingdom on pain of death; mere prison for several months did not satisfy his barbarity and would
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have cost him financially. Banishment satisfied his scheming, his inclination and his jealousy against the personal merit of his own son’. The banishment order was lifted in February 1726. At the same time as publishing the Pieces de Viole avec la Basse Continuë Composées par Mr Forqueray Le Pere, Jean-Baptiste brought out the identical works ‘Arranged as Pieces de Clavecin by Mr Forqueray Le Fils’. Both editions were engraved by Mme Leclair, the wife of his close friend, the famous violinist and composer Jean-Marie Leclair (1697-1764). Jean-Baptiste was a sound businessman, who invested in a number of prime Parisian properties and who in his sixties was to become a successful publisher and arranger. To publish simultaneously an arrangement of the music for his beloved viol, which he describes as having become ‘a forgotten Species’, and for the flourishing harpsichord made excellent financial sense. In the preface Jean-Baptiste remarks about the transcriptions: ‘One might perhaps find that some of them lie a little low’, but he explains that he left them at their original pitch because he did not wish to change their ‘Character’. Despite lying lower than most harpsichord music, the keyboard transcriptions are wonderfully idiomatic to the harpsichord and like the original viol version, entirely characteristic for mid-18th-century France, reveal a composer keenly interested in exploring the most modern ideas of virtuosity. To maintain the virtuoso character of the music on the harpsichord, the emphasis is taken away from the top-heavy texture of the pièces de viole by thickening the bass part. This can be seen in Jean-Baptiste’s greater use of counterpoint in the pièces de clavecin, as for instance in La Cottin where the left hand imitates the rhythmic figure in the right. Another example is the increased use of bass octaves particularly in chordal passages such as in the Chaconne. La Morangis ou La Plissay - in which the range is extended down to the harpsichord’s low F”, a major third below the viol’s lowest note. Another technique used is the introduction of flowing arpeggiated bass figurations; sometimes these are fast as in La Régente, which uses both semiquavers and triplet semiquavers, but other examples are more lyrical such as in La Du Vaucel. Besides using virtuosity to strengthen the bass, Jean-Baptiste introduces it for its own sake. The recurring rondeau entries of La Mandoline demonstrate a wide variety of rhythmic figurations, which are conspicuously more extensive in the harpsichord version. Another virtuoso technique is the use of hand crossing, as for example in La Clément. The impressive final couplet of Jupiter, which is imbued with many of the most sophisticated traits of Jean-Baptiste’s technical vocabulary
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in the viol version, is brilliantly adapted to the harpsichord in a manner that fully preserves its strong sense of drama. But was Jean-Baptiste really solely responsible for these beautifully-crafted harpsichord arrangements? In 1741 Jean-Baptiste had married the celebrated harpsichordist Marie-Rose Dubois (1717after 1782) of whom D’Aquin seems to have been just as fond as of her husband: ‘Madame Forqueray’s talents are well known: her reputation is brilliant’, he noted. Charles-François Clément acknowledged the pair’s combined talents by dedicating his Sonates en Trio pour un Clavecin et un Violon to them in 1743: TO MONSIEUR AND MADAME FORQUERAY CHILDREN OF APOLLO, Oracles of his laws Forqueray, in whom good taste uniting with genius To delight us, draws from the bosom of harmony These ravishing concerts [which are] born under your fingers… The Duke de Luynes also recollects the duo playing at a dinner party ‘in the little house of Mme de Lauraguais, in the Avenue de Paris’ given for the Dauphin and Dauphine. ‘The music lasted about 2 hours; there were five musicians, Forcroy and his wife, he on the bass viol and she on the harpsichord, Blavet on the flute, Jéliotte and Mme Le Maure [singers]… the bass viol and harpsichord played several pieces together with admirable taste and precision’. Surely the harpsichord arrangements of Jean-Baptiste’s pièces de viole must have been to some degree the work of his highly-talented keyboard-playing wife? Described by writer and composer Jean-Benjamin de la Borde as ‘Head of the class of amateurs’ and feted by his German colleague Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, maybe it was simply deemed inappropriate to put her name to her contribution. C Lucy Robinson, 2011
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Michael Borgstede
Photo: C Lara Morris
Michael Borgstede As a soloist and member of the ensemble Musica ad Rhenum, German harpsichordist, fortepianist and organist Michael Borgstede has toured almost all European countries, the United States, Asia, South America and the Middle East. Since graduating from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Michael regularly performs at venues like the Wigmore Hall in London, the Konzerthaus in Vienna and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He has made more than 20 recordings, including the 4 Livres de Pièces de Clavecin of Francois Couperin (Brilliant Classics, 11 CD) and the Suites de Pièces pour le Clavecin by George Frideric Handel (Brilliant Classics, 4 CD), which were widely praised by the press and received several distinctions, among them a Diapason d’Or and a Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Apart from his extensive concert activities Michael Borgstede is regularly invited to give masterclasses and lectures on aspects of Historical Performance Practice. He strives for an interpretation full of contrast and drama which does justice to the rhetoric and affect
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of Baroque music. Michael Borgstede lives in Jerusalem and also reports on the Middle East for the German daily Die Welt. He has published a book on the ethnic diversity of Israeli society (Leben in Israel, Herbig Verlag, 2008).
In 1745 J. B. Forqueray commissioned a painting of his wife, harpsichordist Marie-Rose Dubois
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