De Mars: Pièces de Clavecin

The Pièces de clavecin by Charles de Mars (1707–1774) are written in the rich tradition of French Baroque harpsichord music. A composer largely overshadowed by luminaries like François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau, de Mars nonetheless contributed to the genre with his distinctive style, characterized by elegant ornamentation and a refined sense of harmony.

Composer: Charles de Mars
Artists: Simone Pierini (harpsichord)

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Compared to many other composers of his era, we know a good deal about the life of de Mars (alternatively known as Demars), making it all the more surprising that the present collection represents all the music of his to have come down to us. He was born to a wax merchant in Sézanne, a small town on the border between the French regions of Brie and Champagne. Several of his relatives were musicians, organists in particular, such as his two brothers. Indeed, we can trace more than 12 members of the De Mars/Tourneur dynasty as organists all over France. Again, the curiosity is that none of their compositions have survived, though they would have written music for their posts just as Charles de Mars did.
There is a Handelian flavour to the harmony of the four suites in De Mars’s volume, which was published in 1735 and therefore could conceivably have been written with awareness of the older composer’s Eight Great Suites for harpsichord. Many features of the volume make it a singular body of work in the French harpsichord tradition. De Mars eschews descriptive titles for individual movements, and occasionally prescribes the performer to play with ‘notes égales’, and therefore specifically not in the inégale style which we associate with French keyboard composers of the day.

Tracklist:
Première suite in A Major:
00:00:00 I. Prélude
00:01:29 II. Allemande
00:06:39 III. Courante
00:09:15 IV. Rondeau
00:13:59 V. Vivement

Deusième suite in G Minor:
00:16:54 I. Prèlude. Légèrement
00:18:14 II. Allemande
00:22:46 III. Courante
00:25:51 IV. Les badinages – Rondeau
00:29:21 V. Sarabande
00:32:39 VI. Gigue

Troisième suite in D Minor:
00:34:28 I. Prélude
00:36:53 II. Allemande
00:40:24 III. Courante
00:42:09 IV. Un peu vivement et très lié
00:45:28 V. Premier air. Rondeau
00:48:00 VI. 2e Air. Rondeau
00:50:41 VII. Gigue

Quatrième suite in C Minor:
00:53:20 I. Allemande
00:57:26 II. Courante
01:00:33 III. Air avec 4 doubles. Air
01:02:21 IV. Air avec 4 doubles. Double 1
01:03:49 V. Air avec 4 doubles. Double 2
01:05:09 VI. Air avec 4 doubles. Double 3
01:06:26 VII. Air avec 4 doubles. Double 4

01:08:01 Quatrième suite in C Minor: VIII. Gigue [en rondeau]

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