Richard Strauss Dance Suite from François Couperin

Richard Strauss Dance Suite from harpsichord pieces by François Couperin (1923) Entrée and Stately Round 00:00 Courante 03:31 Carillon 07:09 Sarabande 10:38 Gavotte 14:45 Tourbillon 19:06 Allemande 22:22 March 27:33 Staatskapelle Dresden Rudolf Kempe, conductor Painting: Nicolas Lancret, La Camargo Dancing, c. 1730, Washington, The National Gallery of Art The Couperin dance suite owes its origin to the desire of the Vienna Statsoper for a work that would give suitable brilliance to a ballet soirée to be held in the Redoutensaal of the Imperial Palace, which it acquired in the early 1920s. The task of providing the music fell to Strauss, who from 1919 to 1924 was director of the Staatsoper. The composer decided to make this ballet an act of homage to the spirit of French delicacy, charm and elegance epitomised by the most celebrated of the clavecinistes, François Couperin. Strauss had already demonstrated in his music to Moliere's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1912-18) the wit and grace with which he was able to marry the styles of past and present, and he applied an equally sensitive feeling for style to his 1923 refurbishing of Couperin. Adapted from notes by Ernst Krause