Martin Pearlman harpsichord built by Donald Katz of Marlboro,Vermont in 1971 and is modelled on the Ruckers-Blanchet harpsichord at Yale University.
Recorded July 1976 at the Harlan Chapel, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.
Released 1976 by Titanic Records Ti-9
Recording engineer: Ralph Dopmeyer
Technical assistant: Tom Pixton
Graphic design: Nathan Garland
Portrait Photograph: Rodney Smith
Cover: Harpsichord by Johannes Ruckers, Antwerp ca . 1620, rebuilt, probably by Blanchet ca . 1725, from the Belle Skinner Collection, Yale University, Collection of Musical Instruments.

Side one:
Louis Couperin Suite in C 13’35
00:00 Prelude 2’10
02:13 Allemande 2’24
04:40 Courante 1’20
06:03 Sarabande 1’13
07:17 Menuet 1’05
08:25 Passacaille 5’08
Armand-Louis Couperin Selections from Pieces de Clavecin 8’47
13:39 Courante, la de Croissy 3.’23
17:03 L’ Affligee 2’49
19:55 Les Cacqueteuses 2’28

Side two:
Armand-Louis Couperin Selections from Pieces de Clavecin 7’52
22:28 La Chéron 2’31
25:04 L’ Intrépide, rondeau 2’48
27:56 L’ Arlequine ou la Adam 2’25

François Couperin Vingt-troisieme ordre 16’18
30:25 L’ Audacieuse 2’41
33:08 Les Tricoteuses 2’28
35:39 L’ Arlequine 1’46
37:27 Les Gondoles, de Délos 4’39
42:11 Les Satires, Chevre-pieds 4’30

Martin Pearlman was born in Chicago in
1945 . He studied harpsichord with Gustav
Leonhardt on a Fulbright Grant to The
Netherlands, with Ralph Kirkpatrick at
Yale University., and with Donald Paterson
at Cornell University. He has received a B.A.
from Cornell and a Master’s in composition
from Yale. As a harpsichord soloist, he has
won prizes from the Cambridge Society for
Early Music (Erwin Bodky Award) and at
the 1974 Festival of Flanders harpsichord
competition in Bruges, Belgium. He performs
regularly as solois’t in the United States and
Europe and is founder and director of
Banchetto Musicale, a chamber orchestra
of baroque instruments in the Boston area.

The Instrument
The harpsichord used for this recording
was built in 1971 by Donald Katz of
Marlboro, Vermont and is modelled on the
Ruckers-Blanchet harpsichord at Yale
University. The original was built in the
seventeenth century at the Ruckers workshop
in Antwerp and was enlarged and rebuilt
over a century later at the Blanchet
workshop in Paris. This type of clavecin a
grand ravalement, particularly when built by
Blanchet, was much in demand during the
lifetimes of both François and Armand-Louis
Couperin. Franç;ois is believed to have
owned such a Blanchet instrument (cf.
Kenneth Gilbert’s introduction to his
edition of F. Couperin in Le Pupitre).
Whether Armand-Louis actually owned one
is not known for certain, but it is not
unlikely, considering that the builder was
his father-in-law.
Martin Pearlman

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