Search - Marin Marais, Jordi Savall, Hopinson Smith :: Marais - Pièces de Viole du second Livre 1701 / Savall · Gallet · Smith

A good introduction to Marais

03/21/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a fine performance and very accessible music. People often don't realise that the French baroque tradition is very rich, different from the German, not as formally as impressive as Bach, but filled with intimate feeling, very much the expression of private emotion. In this recording The Folies has great energy and exuberance, and Les Voix Humaines is short but very affecting, compares with Couperin's slow movements in the second of his two suites. If you like this, the next thing to try would be St Colombe (or Couperin's suites), and the best place to start on St Colombe would be the Naxos recording. Also Charpentier's and Couperin's settings of the lamentations."

Savall at his best

new music guy | NY, NY United States | 04/02/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is absolutely stunning playing by Jordi Savall. You simply won't find a cleaner, better-interpreted version of Marais' folies, and Savall plays Les Voix Humaines with such beauty and sensitivity it's made even some of my non-classical-music-interested friends go teary-eyed.A few issues that in no way detract from my 5 star rating of this CD but should be noted: The suite is not one of Marais' strongest works, and while it's a perfectly nice piece, I more often than not find myself turning the disc off sometime soon after track two. In addition, while no soloist plays the folies as well as Savall does here, it is perhaps not the best choice of continuo. The quality of the players is fine, but the piece is in many ways a duet for two bass instruments, and without a sustaining string sound doubling the keyboard/plucked strings, it loses something. It should also be noted that Marais' Folia and Voix Humaines are the title tracks of two fairly new Savall CDs, and a better investment than this disc might be those two."