Comparison Recording:
Forqueray, Harpsichord Suites, Luc Beauséjour
Naxos 8.553717; 8.553407
The Beauséjour
series on Naxos has almost convinced
me, and I’m sure a good many others,
that Forqueray was a major composer.
Those disks are exemplary in their grace
and elegance in the French style with
fluid phrases and liquid ornamentation
and twangy, tenor harpsichord sound.
The Suites were originally written
for viol, but were also published as
transcribed for solo harpsichord.
In the disk at hand,
the choice of viola da gamba with harpsichord
is unfortunate. In the accompanied pieces,
the harpsichord sound is in such a different
register than the gamba, that rather
than supporting the instrument it sounds
more like an annoying rattle which makes
it difficult to hear the gamba. More
stereo separation would have helped
here, to distinguish the two instruments.
The most successful of the accompanied
pieces is the Chaconne: La Buisson,
which forms the finale of Suite #2.
Here the two instruments play more together,
since anybody’s chaconne is really
Spanish music, but still one wishes
the harpsichord would stop playing,
as it tends to distract the attention
rather than support the instrument.
The music comes through
more clearly in Sempé’s solo
harpsichord performances. Leonhardt
himself has recorded French harpsichord
music, but to my taste not successfully,
and I don’t in general care for the
way his student, Mr. Sempé, plays
it either. He rushes through La Leclair,
throwing handfuls of notes at us in
apparent carelessness, whereas with
Beauséjour the ornamentation
is always organic to the phrase. La
Rameau and La Marella are
more sympathetically performed by Sempé,
but the quality of the performance here
focuses attention on the recording,
which leans toward thinness and artificial
brightness compared to Beauséjour’s
natural close sound. Just to show the
failure of generalisations, Sempé
gives us a beautiful performance of
the Sarabande La d’Aubonne, surpassing
Beauséjour in this one piece
only. Whether Sempé can be said
to play this music in the Dutch or Swiss
manner, mostly he does not play it in
what I perceive as the French manner,
and this music is not substantial enough
to survive this. Nor am I being a regional
chauvinist, as I applaud Wanda Landowska,
Anton Heiller and Fernando Valenti as
being among the finest interpreters
of French harpsichord music. I would
like to hear Mr. Bernfeld play a solo
or duo recital without harpsichord,
and I would like to hear Mr. Sempé
play some harpsichord music in the North
European style, but I don’t recommend
this disk except to those who would
want to own everything by Forqueray,
or who admire Leonhardt’s cool approach
to French repertoire.
Paul Shoemaker
Skip Sempé, harpsichord solo 