This is one of those albums that can be listened to on two levels: one for the enjoyment of the rich, heavily ornamented sound of Andrew Lawrence-King's Baroque triple harp (the term refers to the instrument's three rows of strings, a configuration that survives today in Welsh folk music), and one for the music involved and how it fit into the musical and cultural universe of its time. The composers on the disc are familiar -- Lully and Campra are responsible for most of the pieces. But the music was taken out of its ...
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This is one of those albums that can be listened to on two levels: one for the enjoyment of the rich, heavily ornamented sound of Andrew Lawrence-King's Baroque triple harp (the term refers to the instrument's three rows of strings, a configuration that survives today in Welsh folk music), and one for the music involved and how it fit into the musical and cultural universe of its time. The composers on the disc are familiar -- Lully and Campra are responsible for most of the pieces. But the music was taken out of its original surroundings and arranged for solo instruments, the harp being a common one. One use for these arrangements was for the dance lessons of Louis XIV himself, one of history's few dancer-kings; the arrangements by Jean-Henri d'Angelbert were included in a dance instruction book called Choréographie, compiled by Raoul-Auger Feuillet, which contained perhaps history's first instance of dance notation. The lavish booklet includes examples of this, and it's pretty much worth the purchase...
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