Christophe Rousset's performances as a harpsichordist have attracted the attention of the international press as well as record companies. A member of 'Les Arts Florissants', then I'l Seminario Musicale', he finally embarked on a career as a music director, which led his to the form his own ensemble, 'Les Talents Lyriques', in 1991. This recording marks the beginning of a collaboration between Christophe Rousset and Ambroisie, especially with Bach.

Edinburgh University’s Russell Collection is one of the world’s finest collections of early keyboard instruments. The second volume in John Kitchen’s ongoing project to bring its musical exhibits to life matches music by Handel, Purcell, the Scottish composer Robert Bremner and others including Mozart’s son Franz Xaver with a gloriously vigorous menagerie of spinets, virginals, chamber organs, clavichord and harpsichords.

This disc is intended to introduce a collection of keyboard instruments in Edinburgh, Scotland, but actually it accomplishes much more. The instruments featured here were built all over Europe, with the majority from the British Isles or France. They date from between 1586 and 1810, with the first example being an Italian virginal and the final one a fortepiano. Along the way come harpsichords of various kinds, a clavichord, and a small organ. Brief but relevant and engaging histories are given for each instrument.

John Kitchen - uniquely familiar with Edinburgh's internationally acclaimed collections of early keyboard instruments - turns his attention to the world's most famous harpsichord, the Taskin harpsichord. The reign of Louis XV was the period during which the harpsichord gained its greatest popularity in France, and this glorious 1769 instrument by Pascal Taskin would have been the preferred choice of any composer. Here its opulent lushness is captured in the ideal acoustics of Scotland's oldest concert hall, St Cecilia's Hall. The Hall is also home to the Raymond Russell Collection of Early Keyboard Instruments, which houses the Taskin harpsichord. The combination of instrument, venue, programme and performer creates a unique listening experience.

Jacques Duphly is best known to harpsichordists for the four collections of harpsichord pieces he published in Paris between 1744 and 1768. These are spirited and pungent works, finely crafted in the tradition of Francois Couperin (in the Rondeau in D minor Duphly pays homage to Les Barricades mysterieuses) and emboldened by the manner of the Forquerays (in La Felix as well as La Forqueray). Mitzi Meyerson understands and relishes this music, with its beguiling sequences: her performances are arresting and delightfully unpredictable.

The harpsichord music of Louis Couperin (c.1626-1661) occupies a unique place in the glorious flowering of French keyboard music of the baroque era. His short life story is a touching one, marked by strong family bonds, then by the devastation of war, professional success and recognition, before the tragedy of sudden sickness and an early death. He left an indelible mark on musical history in a span of just ten years.

The harpsichordist Francesco Corti learned his craft at an early age, won the Bach Prize in Leipzig in 2006, and now plays in the most famous ensembles and gives concerts of his own. Corti’s Bach forms a synthesis of structural awareness and balletic grace and has wonderful surprises in store even for the most seasoned connoisseur.

I’ve become increasingly fond of Aapo Häkkinen’s recording of the Goldberg Variations since reviewing it in 2009, and I was therefore more than happy to see his name appearing against some further favourite repertoire. Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concerts were written and published when his reputation as a composer of opera was already well established, and the nature of the music follows patterns which might relate to Couperin’s Concerts royaux and composers such as Mondonville.

“[These suites] have rarely been recorded or promoted by harpsichordists during the most recent revival of interest in ‘early music.’” I realize that Richard Egarr is entitled to his own opinions—his liner notes on an earlier release, for example, likened the humor in Purcell’s harpsichord music to that of the wonderful old 1950s BBC comedy The Goon Show —but he’s not entitled to his own facts. Christopher Brodersen pointed out in a 2011 review of these works featuring Laurence Cummings ( Fanfare 34:5) that ArkivMusic listed nine complete sets played on the harpsichord, with several others on the piano. I find some of the suites have considerably more recordings than that, in 2014: 26 for the Suite in A Major, 28 for the Suite in D Minor, 25 for the Suite in E Minor, 47 for the Suite in E Major. If such numbers reflect rare recordings, I have to wonder what Egarr would consider a moderate number, let alone a frequent one.

Fans of harpsichord music are likely to be enchanted by A French Collection, which includes 17 pièces de clavecin from the Baroque repertoire, performed by Skip Sempé. Each piece, from Duphly's lovely Les Grâces to Balbastre's turbulent La Suzanne, is charming in itself, and taken together they form an attractive cross-section of French harpsichord music from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Sempé has been a prominent early music interpreter, both a soloist and ensemble leader, with a long line of recordings dating back to 1990.

The world-renowned early music specialist and keyboard player Ton Koopman and the violinist Catherine Manson perform the six Sonatas for Harpsichord and Violin, BWV 1014-1019 of Johann Sebastian Bach on this new 2-CD set for Challenge Classics. Their previous collaboration on the label was an outstanding recording of the music of Buxtehude. Catherine Manson enjoys a versatile performing career specialising in period performance as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral leader. She became the current leader of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in 2006, and as first violinist of the London Haydn Quartet has been involved in a critically acclaimed series of recordings of the Haydn quartets for Hyperion.

For a long time Baroque and Bach specialst Koopman wanted to record this masterpieces of Bach and now was the time to do it! Recorded in the trusted and beautiful-sounding Walloon Church in Amsterdam. My recording of Bach’s harpsichord partitas was a long time in coming. The main reason was a lack of time (recording Bach’s complete organ works, complete cantatas and Dieterich Buxtehude’s Opera Omnia required much time and attention). Another factor was my respect for these masterpieces by Bach – they are not something to just fit in between other projects. I already had plans to record them in the 1990s, for Erato, and now that I finally am able to, it is for my own label.

The Fitzwilliam Virginal book is one of the primary sources of keyboard music. The book, which is now housed in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, hails from the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods in England. + This release features excerpts from the Fitzwilliam Virginal book from composers including Giovanni Picchi, Orlando Gibbons, John Bull, William Bird, and more. + Dutch conductor, organist, and harpsichordist Ton Koopman performs the works on this album. He was knighted in 2003, receiving the Order of the Netherlands Lion, and is currently a professor at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.

Christophe Rousset is one of the finest and most exciting harpsichordists, and as a conductor is a leader in the late 20th century revival of French Baroque music. For the tuning enthusiasts out there, this CD was recorded on a 1751 Henri Hemsch (Paris) harpsichord tuned in Werckmeister III temperament.

Giovanni Maria Trabaci was born in Monte Pelusio (Irsina) around 1575, and died in Naples on 31 December 1647. This close contemporary of Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) spent his entire career at Naples. He was engaged as a tenor at SS Annunziata at the age of nineteen, and in 1597 was invited to examine the organ of the Oratorio dei Filippini, whose organist he subsequently became. On 30 October 1601 he was appointed to the prestigious post of organist of the chapel of the Spanish Viceroys of Naples, where he was joined in 1602 by his contemporary Ascanio Mayone, who played the second organ…