Search - Antoine Dauvergne, Concerto Koln :: Concerts De Simphonies

Retrograde Music from 1751

Leslie Richford | Selsingen, Lower Saxony | 12/11/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Concerto Cologne, a period instrument orchestra that works without a conductor, has long had a foible for neglected composers, including those from France: many years ago they published a CD under the title of ?La Prise de la Bastille? with more or less unknown French repertoire (and the title piece by Dittersdorf) from the time of the French Revolution. This 1993 recording for Virgin contains three of the ?Concerts de simphonies? published in 1751 by Antoine Dauvergne (1713-1797), whose career involved him mainly in sacred music and comic opera. The music here is for strings and harpsichord only (distribution: 10 violins, 4 violas, 3 cellos, double bass and harpsichord) and sounds a little retrograde for the time: I found parallels to Leclair, Rameau and, possibly, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, but Dauvergne never reaches the heights of those composers. In fact, although the music is thoroughly entertaining and pleasant to listen to, it never strikes me as being music that one really has to hear. But the recording is well-done, and for anyone interested in tracing the development of French music between the high baroque and, say, Méhul, this could be an interesting disc."