The Gentle, Brilliant Bros of French Baroque Music

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/arts/music/thomas-dunford-jean-rondeau.html

Version 0 of 1.

There is no real body of music for a lute and harpsichord duo. But from the first time they played together, Jean Rondeau and Thomas Dunford were a natural fit, weaving around each other gently yet exuberantly. The pricks of harpsichord (Mr. Rondeau) and the strum of lute (Mr. Dunford) glinted and blended, as if different colors of a single instrument.

“It’s very rare that you find someone, where you become one person when you play,” Mr. Dunford, 32, said of Mr. Rondeau, 29, when both joined a Zoom call recently from their respective homes in France.

The first recorded product of their collaboration is out now on the Erato label: “Barricades,” an assured yet probing collection of French Baroque music by famous composers (Couperin, Charpentier, Rameau, Marin Marais) and those less so (Antoine Forqueray, Robert de Visée).

Full of dreamy repetitions and dazzling changes, and played with a combination of alert precision and dancey, low-slung freedom, it is the perfect album for the hot, lazy summer days upon us. Except when it slices through the humidity with finger-blurring yet lucid bursts of brashness, like the duo’s version of a Forqueray viol piece called “Jupiter.”

“We kept playing and playing, trying to get the best possible take,” Mr. Dunford said of that track. “We had been playing it for six hours, and it felt like so much energy, like in rock ’n’ roll. Jean said, ‘My fingers are melting.’ And I said, ‘You can do it, man.’ And we kept on going.”

Mr. Rondeau is known, and occasionally dinged, for dipping his fingers into jazz in addition to his superb recordings of Bach, Scarlatti and Rameau standards. But since he has long been most distinctive on the classical scene for his gravity-defying hair and wild beard, he made an immediate impression when he got on the Zoom call in April from his home overlooking the ocean in Brittany: He had shaved the day before, for the first time in about three years.

“It’s a very nice look,” said Mr. Dunford, just outside Paris. “You’re very serious.”

Here are edited excerpts from the conversation that ensued.

How did you two meet?

THOMAS DUNFORD We were playing chamber music with this group Les Ambassadeurs. I remember we had to get the harpsichord into my flat because we were rehearsing there. And we instantly clicked. That was seven years ago, maybe?

We were improvising together. When you’re playing continuo [an accompanying part in a Baroque ensemble], it’s like jazz or rock; you’re creating something out of nothing. But we’d end up always creating the same thing at the same moment. It was like, I’ve got a bro here.

I’m used to the harpsichord being a little stiff and boring, and when I heard Jean for the first time, even before our duet, he was playing some Bach, and it was so free. I called a friend, and I said, “This guy, he sings.”

JEAN RONDEAU I remember the first concerts that we did, just the two of us. We started to rehearse and without saying anything, we did exactly the same movement and dynamics, breathing in the music. We had really something in common. It’s not so often you can meet a musician with whom it’s so exactly: We speak the same language; we don’t need to use words in rehearsal to try to explain how it should work; we just let the music flow.

DUNFORD It’s more about, what’s the character, what’s the philosophy. We can get into deeper things very quickly. It’s a lot of adventures since then.

RONDEAU What I really appreciate in Thomas’s playing is he is able to listen. The best quality of a musician is to listen really deeply, and we were focused on that immediately. The lute has a larger dynamic range, and the harpsichord palette is a bit less. And Thomas is able to really go inside the harpsichord sound.

How did you create this new album?

RONDEAU First it was a human connection and a cultural common background we have, because we’ve both played Baroque music since we were very young. We have the same deep love of this music. There are no pieces written precisely for lute and harpsichord, but we decided to make music.

DUNFORD So we have to kind of adapt lute pieces and harpsichord pieces. I came up with a suite by de Visée; it’s lute pieces, but de Visée rewrote it for a top part and a bass part, so it was easy for us to adapt. The Couperins, which are harpsichord pieces, we kept them the way they are, and I had to find my way to underline the text in a smart way that wouldn’t unbalance the music.

RONDEAU This repertoire is very, very specific in terms of style. French Baroque music is unique. It’s noble music. It speaks to Louis XIV’s love for the arts in general, and dance. He was a beautiful dancer.

And at the court of Versailles, there were a lot of musicians, and the creation was prolific, with the composers interpreting their own music. What we wanted to do with this project was recreate this spirit. Not the social spirit of Versailles, but the spirit of the musicians, the creations.

DUNFORD When you think of Lully’s orchestra at Versailles, there was Marais, Robert de Visée, Couperin. These guys would play together. And it must have sounded amazing. Couperin and de Visée must have heard each other’s music. They didn’t even have to write it down; they just heard what the other was doing. Rather than manuscripts and trying to be very scholarly, they were just tunes and trying to create the music in the moment.

RONDEAU The more you go back in the past, the less the music is precisely written. The end of the 17th century, beginning of the 18th century, everything is not precisely written yet. But there is more and more specification. It’s in between. We can take freedom inside this music, but it’s precise. In Couperin, every note has a meaning: It’s in a certain place for a reason, but it’s really a question of balance and improvisation.

What was the recording experience like?

RONDEAU The mics show you things in the music that you didn’t suspect. It keeps pushing the level you’re striving for. Making you think about things you wouldn’t acknowledge.

DUNFORD In the beginning, you’re a little self-conscious because there are mics, and you want to do a good job. And then you just keep on playing so much, and you get to that zone when you don’t think things, and suddenly it’s the middle of the night and — “Let’s play it again!”