Whether the composer luxuriates in melancholic disorder or attempts to remedy it, there is but a fine line here between the vanity of the world and the artist’s glory. In his readings of Froberger, Fischer and Clérambault, Andreas Staier distils the fruits of this sophisticated blend on an instrument saved from oblivion at the start of the 21st century.

"‘Why have all eminent men, whether philosophers, statesmen, poets or artists, so obviously been melancholics?’ This question forms the opening of a treatise attributed to Aristotle. The doctrine of the four temperaments (sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic) associates the melancholic with the most varied phenomena: the planet Saturn, the autumn (also in the sense of the autumn of life), twilight, cold, avarice, but also genius, geometry, and brooding profundity of thought. Albrecht Dürer condenses this multiplicity of motifs with extreme concentration in his celebrated and enigmatic engraving Melencolia I of 1514. ...I would like to thank Laurent Soumagnac for placing his wonderful harpsichord at my disposal for this disc, and Markus Fischinger for maintaining the instrument during the recording sessions. My very special gratitude goes to my friend and colleague Skip Sempé. He took the time for many inspiring conversations about French music of the seventeenth century." Andreas Staier