Hall Of Mirrors

Mishka Rushdie Momen’s debut Hyperion album ‘Reformation’ topped the UK Classical Chart, persuading critics and listeners worldwide to embrace the rich sonorities of a modern grand piano in early works written originally for harpsichord.

This culminated in a raft of rave reviews around the globe and the album’s selection as one of The Times’ Albums of the Year. 

For this her second album, Mishka turns from England to France and jumps forward two generations to the court of Louis XIV and in particular to the music of Versailles. As a showcase of soft power, Versailles was unparalleled in the world, presenting French leadership manners, in horsemanship and in industries like glass-making, of which windows and mirrors of the famous ‘Galerie des Glaces’ bear eloquent witness even now. The Sun-King’s palace offered an inexhaustible cycle of concerts, dance and spectacle in which the King was no mere spectator but a dancer of the ballet and a capable musician across numerous instruments. 

Mishka explores keyboard works by two acknowledged giants and one near-unknown. François Couperin was one of Louis XIV’s first new organists of the Royal Chapel, part of a dynasty that forms a kind of French counterpart to that of the Bach family in Germany. The music’s warmth, brilliant resonance and musical language, designed for the grand spaces of Versailles, make it eminently suitable for performance on a modern grand piano.

CD

Couperin: Pièces de clavecin, Book 1 - 4e Ordre No 4: Le Réveil-matin
Couperin: L’art de Toucher le Clavecin - No 1: Premier Prélude
Couperin: Pièces de clavecin, Book 3 - 18e Ordre No 6: Le Tic-Toc-Choc ou les Maillotins
Couperin: Pièces de clavecin, Book 4 - 25e Ordre No 5: Les ombres errantes
Couperin: L’art de Toucher le Clavecin - No 8: Huitième Prélude
Rameau: Suite in E minor - Movement 1: Allemande
Rameau: Suite in E minor - Movement 2: Courante
Rameau: Suite in E minor - Movement 3a: Gigue en rondeau I
Rameau: Suite in E minor - Movement 3b: Gigue en rondeau II
Rameau: Suite in E minor - Movement 4: Le rappel des oiseaux
Rameau: Suite in E minor - Movement 5: Rigaudons I, II & double
Rameau: Suite in E minor - Movement 6: Musette en rondeau
Rameau: Suite in E minor - Movement 7: Tambourin
Rameau: Suite in E minor - Movement 8: La villageoise (rondeau)
Jacquet: Suite No 2 in G minor - No 1: Prélude
Jacquet: Suite No 2 in G minor - No 2: Allemande
Jacquet: Suite No 2 in G minor - No 3: Courante I
Jacquet: Suite No 2 in G minor - No 4: Courante II
Jacquet: Suite No 2 in G minor - No 5: Sarabande
Jacquet: Suite No 2 in G minor - No 6: Gigue I
Jacquet: Suite No 2 in G minor - No 7: Gigue II
Jacquet: Suite No 2 in G minor - No 8: Menuet & double
Couperin: Pièces de clavecin, Book 4 - 22e Ordre No 6: Les tours de passe-passe
Couperin: L’art de Toucher le Clavecin - No 6: Sixième Prélude
Couperin: Pièces de clavecin, Book 3 - 14e Ordre No 6: Le carillon de Cithère
Couperin: Quatrième concert royal - Movement 7: Forlane: Rondeau