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PLACES STILL AVAILABLE
François Couperin & Le Grand Siècle
Touch : Aesthetic : Art
The 2010 RCO London Organ Forum moves 50 miles west to Oxford to explore the organ music of François Couperin alongside other keyboard and vocal music of the period, and to take advantage of the two new Aubertin organs in St John's College Chapel, which are ideally suited to the repertoire.
This day of lectures, discussions and concerts will be led by Professor Edward Higginbottom and Terence Charlston, both experts in the field of French Classical Music.
TIMETABLE
1030 Registration – coffee and tea will be available
1100 The Art of Touch: French Baroque harpsichord and organ playing.
Terence Charlston will focus on the connections between harpsichord and organ playing, especially regarding touch and ornamentation whilst also exploring the stylistic background to
François Couperin’s organ music. The session will include music
from the recently discovered Selosse Manuscript played on the
main Aubertin organ. The Selosse Manuscript is an important
source of keyboard music. It preserves domestic harpsichord
music alongside continental liturgical organ music and significantly adds to our understanding of the interaction between English and
continental musicians during the later seventeenth century.
1230 Terence Charlston performs music from the Selosse Manuscript and by d’Anglebert, Blow, Locke and François Couperin on a copy of a contemporary harpsichord by Pierre Donzelague (Lyon, 1711) made by Mackinnon & Waitzman in 1998 .
1300 Lunch (not provided)
1430 The Aesthetics of the French Classical Style in Organ Performance
Edward Higginbottom will look at organ repertoire and performance within the wider context of opera, but also asdescribed by such writers as Le Cerf, Dubos and Batteux, all of whom describe the evolution of a particular music aesthetic which was distinct from other national schools. They believed that the aesthetic not only shaped compositional practice but also performance practice. The many performance conventions of the time must be seen as a conscious response to aesthetic purpose.
1630 Forum round-up with Katharine Pardee, Edward Higginbottom, Terence Charlston, and William Whitehead
1715 Tea
1815 Concert featuring Edward Higginbottom and Terence Charlston
The booking form can be found in the Downloads area of the website (scroll down to the RCO Academy section of the page).