Second livre de pièces de clavecin, Sixième ordre: V. Les barricades mystérieuses (Arr. for guitar by Antoine Fougeray)

My apologies to subscribers and followers for not publishing a post yesterday. I was not feeling very energetic and didn’t have it in me to research or write anything. Later in the evening I thought of a couple of songs, either of which might have made for a quick post, but as I thought of them more I knew I wanted to say more about them, so they’ll be for the future.

Today it’s Classical Sunday on Song of the Day for Today. I tend to post a lot of violin and piano pieces, so today, I surfed the always-reliable Deutsche Grammophon YouTube channel and found a lovely piece of music arranged for classical guitar.

The piece, Second livre de pieces de clavecin, Sixieme ordre: V. Les barricades mysterieuses (Arr. for guitar by Antoine Fougeray) is part of the Second Livre, or second book of pieces for the harpsichord completed in 1717 by the French Baroque organist, harpsichordist and composer Francois Couperin (1668-1733). Couperin was born to a musically-talented family and became known as Couperin le Grand (“Couperin the Great”) to differentiate him from his kin. He put the title “ordre” (order) to a set of musical works written in the same key and compiled four such collections, or books, between 1713 and 1730. I searched for information on Antoine Fougeray, who arranged one of the pieces for the guitar, but found nothing.

Similarly, very little information was available on the French classical guitarist Raphael Feuillatre (b. 1996). His playing of the soft, lyrical and expressive music is quite beautiful, and I am happy to have discovered the video of him playing.

Feuillatre released Second livre de pieces de clavecin, Sixieme ordre: V. Les barricades mysterieuses (Arr. for guitar by Antoine Fougeray) as a single in 2022.

Now you know a little about why this is my Song of the Day for Today. Thanks for joining me here.

I hope you enjoy the video from the official Deutsche Grammophon channel:

What did you think of the music? Are there any other pieces or composers you’d like to see me feature here? Let me know in the comments! Or just drop a “hello” while you’re here.

With warmest wishes,

Steve