Four Nations Ensemble Featuring Couperin and Baroque music of Austria and Savoy at Time & Space Limited, Hudson, NY
- Seth Lachterman
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Concert I. Saturday, January 31, 2026 “Austria”
Concert II. Saturday, February 21, 2026 “Savoy”(Piemontoise)
I. Austria
François Couperin, Les Nations: L’Impériale
František Ignác Antontín Tůma, Partita VIII in G Major, The Bells
Antonio Caldara, Quell’usignuolo (“That Nightingale”)
Franz Joseph Haydn, Symphony No. 101 in D Major, The Clock
II. Savoy
François Couperin, Les Nations: La Piemontoise
Jean Pierre Guignon, Pièces à deux violons, Op. 8, “Les Sauvages”
Isabella Leonarda, Motet: Ave Suavis Delectio, Op 6, for soprano and strings
Georg Muffat, Armonico tributo: Sonata II in G Minor
Four Nations Ensemble:
Pascale Beaudin, soprano
Charles Brink, flute
David Ross, flute
Olivier Brault, violin
Aniela Eddy, violin
Nicole Divall, viola
Kristen Linfante, viola
Loretta O’Sullivan, cello
Scott Pauley, lute
Nik Divall, lute
Andrew Appel, harpsichord
Four Nations Ensemble Featuring Couperin and Baroque music of Austria and Savoy at Time & Space Limited, Hudson, NY
The Four Nations Ensemble, a group of Baroque music specialists, named after François Couperin’s set of four chamber suites, Les Nations (1726), appeared at Time and Space Limited’s main gallery on both January 31 and February 21, marking a triumphant return to Hudson after their debut last season. The ensemble is under Andrew Appel’s tasteful and informed leadership. The harpsichordist-director has a gift for providing intriguingly themed programs all linked to the various kingdoms of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, roughly outlining what we call the Baroque period (1600-1750). In fact, Couperin defined the “Four Nations” in his sonades et suites de simphonies en trio as being L’Impériale (Austria, the Holy Roman Empire), L’Espagnole, La Françoise, and La Piemontoise (The Savoy Dynasty of Piedmont). Baroque dance suites became differentiated by national compositional and performance idioms, rhythms, and novel traits. For example, we see some of this differentiation in Bach’s keyboard music at the time: for example, the “Overture in the French style,” and “Concerto in the Italian manner.” French music became distinguished by the elaborate embellishment of ornaments, rhythmic flexibility and complexity, and the signature pomp of a truly aristocratic musical deportment, as in formal “French overture.” Yet, great composers of the time enjoyed mixing dances of differing styles much to the delight of amateurs who had, say, home clavichords -- keyboards that didn’t require a digital subscription or bearing through advertisements.
Couperin’s chamber suites were highly sophisticated explorations of two musical forms that generally contrasted the formalism of the Italian sonata (harkening back to Corelli) with the gaiety of French dance “ordres.” As Mr. Appel pointed out in his introductory lecture, this differentiation of styles was soon to disappear with the emergence of the Classical Style which defined universal compositional forms devoid of national idiosyncrasy. All composers soon would write sonatas, symphonies, and quartets with consistent musical schemes, almost like plot templates.
The four national styles that Couperin demonstrates are not precisely followed in the first two concerts this season at TSL. The first concert featured L’Impériale, perhaps the richest and most eloquent of these suites, and the second, La Piemontoise, altogether lighter, ironic, and more transparent. Each suite begins with the italianate sonata, with characteristic alternating slow-fast sections. In L’Impériale, the stately and affecting melodic lines of the gutsy Gravement, was followed by a fast Vivement, with imitative lines against a walking bass. A final fugal Vivement closed this first sonata.
While La Piemontoise was, overall, lighter, its opening Gravement was noble and exquisite, offering a poignant instrumental sigh in the start, characteristic of the rhetoric of the dotted rhythm of a French overture. Each sonata of the two concerts demonstrated certain national traits. From France we hear courtly pomp, graceful ornamentation, rhythmic fluidity, and dramatic juxtaposing sentiments. From Italy, the clearly etched imitative lines, walking basses, and the all-important cadential sequencing was like a taste of a different cuisine. Especially enjoyable in the Savoy sonata was the solo cello (Ms. O’Sullivan) Grave just before the light-hearted conclusion.
The ensuing suites of each nation revealed the expected rhythmic and metric qualities of each dance. For Austria, the ensemble used two traversos warmly played by Charles Brink and David Ross. They were especially striking in the Allemande, Courante, and melancholic Sarabande. Flutes and violins alternated throughout the bouncy Rondeau. The final, breathtaking Chaconne was not just a series of mesmerizing four-bar variants: like earlier central European composers, such as Muffat or Biber, the repeated cell starts on an upbeat, allowing the variations to have an infectious swing, while at key modulations, the pulse shifts back to the downbeat. In the center was a dramatic modulation to D minor, becoming something of a sort of tonal inverse of Bach’s great chaconne BWV 1004. The Piemontoise suite had surprises in texture and color: a thoughtful Allemande is followed by two Courantes. A dialogue between flute and cello served as the Sarabande; a light but contrapuntally intricate Rondeau was followed by an ebullient Gigue.
Apart from the Couperin Nations, an assortment of little-known compositions was chosen to balance the programs. At the “Austria” concert, Partita VIII in G major, “The Bells,” by Czech composer František Ignác Antonín Tůma was performed. It is a short suite ending with repetitions and reverberations suggesting bells that reminded me, again, of Biber’s programmatic string writing. Soprano Pascale Beaudin, joining the ensemble, performed Antonio Caldara’s “Quell usignuolo,” an aria from the oratorio Santa Ferma. It resembles the birdlike imitative filigree very much like Handel’s “Sweet Bird” from L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato. In the evocation of a nightingale, Ms. Beaudin encored the florid coloratura trope from her presentation last year in Tom Linley’s Tune Filomel.
At the second concert this year, Ms. Beaudin performed in a completely contrasting vocal and stylistic character. In the motet, Ave suavis dilectio by Isabella Leonarda, a string duo joined Ms. Beaudin with impassioned and devotional music in praise to God. Leonarda’s surprisingly masterful writing is clearly influenced by the early seventeenth-century pioneering styles demonstrated in works such as Monteverdi’s Selva morale et spirituale and Schütz’s Symphonia sacre.
“Forêts paisibles,” the catchy finale from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s popular opera Les Indes galantes, became one of the biggest musical hits in its day. This earworm gnawed at composer Jean-Pierre Guignon and inspired his Pièces à deux violons, Op. 8, Les Sauvages, a tour de force set of variations for two violins on the dance tune. Violinists Olivier Brault and Aniela Eddy, who were heard throughout both programs in most works, gave superlative performances of this virtuosic piece.
Georg Muffat, a composer sorely underplayed today, mastered the French musical idioms of the late seventeenth century from Jean-Baptiste Lully in Paris, then the Italian style under Arcangelo Corelli, and finally the Austrian mix when he worked under Biber while working for the Archbishop of Salzburg. His collection of sonatas for string ensemble, Armonico tributo, have unique flavors of those three nations. I recall attending a performance by NikolausHarnoncourt of Muffat’s Sonata No.5 in G major, and found it so innovative and engaging that I started collecting as much Muffat as I could. Four Nations Ensemble has also performed this sonata and can be seen here on YouTube. For the present “Piemotoise” concert, the group offered the Sonata No.2 in G minor. The deeply elegiac opening, Grave, is followed by a jarring Allegro; strong affecting contrasts are heard throughout. Eventually the pomp modulates to the major key in a delightful Sarabanda. A brief return to solemnity with poignant chromatic suspensions is followed by a cheerful concluding Borea.
Franz Joseph Haydn’s trips to London made him a new musical star in the wake of both Handel and J. C. Bach’s deaths. Of course, the Hanover dynasty was German, and the line of Georges had a proclivity for German and Austrian composers from their roots. Johann Peter Salomon, the Jewish impresario, curated Haydn’s two trips to England, and promoted the crowning final “London symphonies” to an appreciative English audience. Salomon also arranged these symphonies for smaller chamber ensembles so that amateur household musicians would become familiar with Haydn. At the “Austria” concert, Four Nations performed Salomon’s arrangement of Haydn’s Symphony No. 101 in D major (“The Clock”) for flute, string quartet and figured bass. The second movement, Andante, suggests the “ticking” clock. The symphony is a masterpiece, but I missed the color of the brass and winds. Salomon’s paring down becomes something of an appetizer or trailer to a full performance which is far closer to what the London audiences heard. Yet this symphony was a fitting conclusion in the exploration of the tastes and sounds of Austria.
Almost all the works in these two concerts required the tireless efforts of violinists Olivier Brault and Aniela Eddy who were frequently given relentless passagework to showcase on their historical instruments. In addition, Loretta O’Sullivan, the cellist from which all harmonies arise, was given almost no respite. These three musicians deserve much praise for the success of these performances. I haven’t forgotten the lute(s) and Mr. Appel’s amazing harpsichord continuo which solidifies harmonic filling in all the works. Both flautists performed on the delicate and colorful Baroque “traverse” flutes, and provided an airy sheen when present. Ms. Beaudin, as usual, showed consummate mastery of the difficult vocal demands of the period.
There is one concert to come in this series, “The German States,” on April 25. We’ll be treated to more familiar late Baroque works of Handel, Bach, and Telemann.
…bis zum nächsten Mal im Deutschland (“…See you next time in Germany”)