Collection Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo (...)

Pieces for viola da gamba by Antoine Forqueray transcribed for harpsichord by Jean-Baptiste Forqueray Blandine Rannou

‘Right from the first prelude, we know that we are setting out with her on a seldom frequented path, that of grace and naturalness. That is her path. Long may she travel it’ Jacques Drillon - Le Nouvel Observateur, March 2001

In 2001, Blandine Rannou began her recording career with the complete harpsichord pieces of Jean-Philippe Rameau, the eminent eighteenth-century French composer and harpsichordist. She has since recorded the foremost German master of the same era, Johann Sebastian Bach (the French Suites, the English Suites, the Toccatas), and excerpts from L’Art de toucher le clavecin by François Couperin, another giant of the early eighteenth-century French school. Her trajectory continues, taking her further into the territory of the great French harpsichord composers, with the virtuosity and expressive power of Jean-Baptiste Forqueray’s transcriptions of his father Antoine’s pieces for viola da gamba.

Concert le 4 avril 2008 au Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo

Jean-Baptiste Forqueray published these pieces in this form in 1747, but also for solo harpsichord (‘Mises en Pièces de Clavecin’). There is nothing especially astonishing in this: we know just how widespread recourse to transcription was at the time (‘these pieces can be played on . . .’). In fact, any piece for treble and basso continuo can be very naturally and easily played (‘reduced’?) on the harpsichord: the melody in the right hand, the bass and the figured chords in the left hand or shared between the two hands. In the case of pieces for the viol, however, the process is less straightforward, and undoubtedly more exciting, for several reasons: - The viol and its accompaniment share the same tessitura. - The viol is a harmony instrument, and the solo part itself already contains chords. - The viol very often shares the bass line with the continuo, roaming between melody and bass.

When a continuo player accompanies these pieces, he or she is subject to the following three constraints:
  To remain in a low tessitura, so as not to sound above the viol, yet without thereby simplifying the harmonies, which implies playing in a fairly narrow compass, and in some cases playing in 16’ tone (an octave down) on certain crucial chords, or else accepting that from time to time one will rise above the viol (seldom by more than a third).
  To state, to share, to sustain chords already present in the viol, but in different dispositions, with a controlled flow of arpeggiation, or sometimes ‘tasto solo’ (playing the bass note by itself) in order to make room for the viol line.
  To bring out the bass notes shared with the viol, so that they will sound differently from the bass notes allotted only to the continuo, given that most of the time this unison effect between soloist and harpsichord produces an impression of reinforcement.

And now, suddenly, in the version mise en pieces de clavecin, we have to take on all the roles! We must simultaneously allow the melody to sound calmly, support it with a lively bass, and realise an inventive, generous continuo that still respects the constraints mentioned above. It is obvious that two harpsichordists will never play the same continuo, and this freedom does not constitute a betrayal of the work, since it is the very essence of all early eighteenth-century music, which is built precisely on such liberty, hedged about with freely accepted rules - freedom of the continuo player, of ornamentation, of tempo, within the limits fixed by contemporary treatises, ‘good taste’, usage, dance forms, and so on. I therefore decided I could allow myself to offer my own transcriptions of these pieces by Forqueray, and apply to them my reflexes as a continuo player. Thus I went back to the score for viol and basso continuo and took up the original bass line, often modified or simplified in the printed transcription; I delighted in playing all the harmonies figured in the version for viol and continuo, which are frequently watered down in the transcriptions (9-9/7-4-3 cadences with sevenths). I also tried to divide the chords between the two hands, so that they would not be too tightly packed in the left hand alone, even if that meant now and then sounding above the viol melody (an effect mitigated by registration, as for instance at the reprise of the A section of La Cottin). On the other hand, I retained as they stand in the printed transcription those pieces that are genuinely transformed, rewritten, or developed, such as La Ferrand or La Mandoline, taking the view that here the difference went beyond the continuo player’s freedom of action. And, finally, I incorporated in the mise en pièces de clavecin those little trivial details that make continuo playing such a pleasure: countermelodies replying to the melodic line, ornaments, acciaccaturas, and so on. Those little details that we like to add, not to show off, but to be part of the richness of this profound music.

Blandine Rannou