Composed in 1953, the short harpsichord cycle L’Insectarium (The Insectarium) by French composer Jean Françaix (1912–1997) was premiered in 1957 by the legendary harpsichord player Wanda Landowska. It is here interpreted by Marga Scheurich, a Johan Sebastian Bach specialist and member of Stuttgarter Collegium Instrumentale, and later Stuttgarter Kammermusikensemble and Stuttgarter Kammerorchester. German label Da Camera (founded 1962) published several harpsichord records with Scheurich in the 1960s, including Pachelbel’s Hexachordum Apollinis 1699. Scheurich plays a German harpsichord with a specifically German Baroque sonority, not without its own charm, but not the kind of instrument one would expect in French harpsichord music. Anyway, her playing is lively and contrasted, as required by a colorful score inspired by the world of insects, as each part of L’Insectarium is named after, and inspired by, an insect.
01 La Scolopendre | The Scolopendra (1:03)
02 La Coccinelle | The Ladybird (2:46)
03 L’Argyronète | The Water Spider (1:52)
04 Les Talitres | Sand Hoppers (1:52)
05 Le Scarabée | The Stag Beetle (1:47)
06 Les Fourmis | Ants (1:13)
Marga Scheurich, harpsichord
Total time 10:30
7in single released by Da Camera, Germany, between 1962 and 1969
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Must be a pleasure to discover such gems.
Thank you.
If it wasn’t a pleasure, I wouldn’t do it.
Amazing, amazing, amazing. And I haven’t even heard it yet.
It’s a lovely Germano-French bonbon.