FRANCOIS COUPERIN: “Apothose a la memoire de...

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: “Apothose a la memoire de Lully;” sonatas. Sigiswald Kuijken and Lucy van Dael, violins; Wieland Kuijken, cello; Barthold Kuijken and Oswald van Olmen, flutes; Robert Kohnen, harpsichord; others. (Sony Classical) * * *

In the 1970s, Seon was a purpose-built recording home for emerging European stars of the early-music movement, such as the Kuijken brothers, Frans Bruggen, Anner Bylsma and Gustav Leonhardt. Sony now is reissuing the label’s historic, hard-to-find treasures, supervised by Seon founder Wolf Erichson. This disc of chamber music by “Le Grand” Couperin is a fine exemplar of the series: lithe, passionate performances of important, at-the-time-obscure music.

This is the pioneering period-instrument playing--zesty in spirit, informed in style and enormously skilled in technique--that set a standard still honored more in aspiration than in achievement. The notorious French Baroque ornamentation, for example, is here so thoroughly idiomatic and integrated that it actually is--as intended--an enhancement rather than a hindrance to expression.

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