Les Nations: A tour of 17th-century European musical styles
$20
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach — Selected works
Arcangelo Corelli — Selected works
Jean Baptiste Lully — Selected works
Joshua Romatowski, flute
Christine Wilkinson, violin
Qin Ying Tan, harpsichord
Juliana Soltis, cello
Much of world’s music was written centuries before the creation of recording technology. For this reason, we can never truly know how live performances sounded when most famous composers were alive. Beckman, Romatowski, Soltis, and Tan make use of historical records from the contemporaries of J. S. Bach to present Les Nations, a 1726 work by French composer François Couperin written in celebration of varied cultures and musical styles in Europe. The musicians trace the development of historical instruments, settings, and dances in their grand tour of works by Corelli (Italian), Lully (French), and C. P. E. Bach (German), in an attempt to piece together the musical sounds of the 1600’s-1700’s.