Gloses

Gloses is a tribute to one of the most neglected treasures of early keyboard music: the intabulations, or keyboard arrangements, of madrigals and songs from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Lucie Chabard argues that the sensitive, refined and passionate music in these works has long been dismissed as a rigid forerunner of later masterpieces. Her programme travels across Europe, from Pasquini and Frescobaldi in Italy through Sweelinck’s circle and Scheidemann in the north, to Dowland and Lasso in England and Scotland. It ends in Spain, with Cabezón, Correa de Arauxo and Narváez. Two pieces are her own arrangements, and she has reconstructed the variations on Louis XIII’s “Tu crois, ô beau soleil” by La Barre. The booklet explains that “gloss” means a commentary on a source text, and the keyboard player here adds ornaments, diminutions and passaggi to give the madrigal texts new voice.

Chabard plays a harpsichord built in 2022 by Guillaume Zellner after the 1644 Andreas Ruckers instrument in Antwerp’s Vleeshuis Museum, which was Zellner’s first instrument. Its warm Flemish sound suits the intimate, theatrical character of the pieces. Recorded in August 2025 in the Église Saint-Nicolas in Les Clefs, Haute-Savoie, the album is a passionate argument for a repertoire that deserves a place beside the harpsichord’s better-known masterpieces.

Lucie Chabard, harpsichord (Guillaume Zellner, 2022, after Andreas Ruckers, Antwerp, 1644)