François Couperin’s two collections of chamber music – the Concerts Royaux (1722) and Les Nations (1726) – use what today would be called open scoring, so that they could be performed by whatever instruments were to hand.

He confessed in a later publication that he himself preferred to perform them on two harpsichords.

That suggestion had to wait for this series of two CDs to be taken up in a recording (the second CD has been recorded and is in preparation).

Here Les Nations and movements from the Concerts Royaux are presented with a number of his Pièces de clavecin, also in rarely heard realisations for two harpsichords.

Emer Buckley was born in Dublin, Jochewed Schwarz in Tel Aviv. Emer lives in Paris, performing as soloist and continuo player, and teaches at the Conservatoire de Lille. After studies in Basel and Paris, Jochewed returned to Israel where she lives today, performing, directing and producing concerts. In spite of living in different countries Emer and Jochewed take every opportunity of making music together.