Couperin - Concerts Royaux

Loves, delights and chamber music.

It is often said that all of Couperin's art is expressed in half-tones: this portrait - a discipline in which the oragnist of Saint Gervais was a past master - may be admirably applied to these four exquisite works written for the Sunday entertainments of the Sun King.

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Philippe Herreweghe was born in Ghent and studied the piano at the Conservatory before going on to study medicine and psychiatry. While still at medical school he founded the Collegium Vocale of Ghent and attracted the attention of Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt who subsequently invited him to collaborate in their recordings of the complete Cantatas of Bach. In an endeavour to do adequate justice to a repertory ranging from the Renaissance (Ensemble Vocal Européen) to modern and contemporary music, Philippe Herreweghe felt the need to create several ensembles of variable composition with whom he has made nearly sixty recordings for harmonia mundi. In 1995 the Collegium Vocale celebrated 25 years of a career devoted entirely to Bach and his forerunners and together with the Chapelle Royale, whose specialties are French Baroque music and classical and romantic vocal works, has frequently collaborated with the Orchestre des Champs Elysées. Philippe Herreweghe has appeared as guest conductor of ensembles like The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Concerto Köln, the Lyon Opera Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Vienna Philharmonic (St John Passion). The artistic director of the Festival of Saintes since 1982, he was nominated Musical Personality of the Year in 1990, European Musician of the Year in 1991, Cultural Ambassador of Flanders with his Collegium Vocale in 1993, Doctor Honoris Causa of Louvain University in 1997 and was awarded the order of Officier des Arts et Lettres in 1994. Since 1998 Philippe Herreweghe is also musical director of the Flanders Philharmonic Orchestra.