Jonathan Rhodes Lee (Music) has just had his critical edition of the harpsichord works of Pierre Nicolas La Font published by A-R editions as part of its "Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era." This publication was also the recipient of an award from the James R. Anthony Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This edition presents the newly rediscovered harpsichord works of La Font (ca. 1725–ca. 1791), which survive in a single known copy now housed at the University of California, Berkeley. La Font was organist at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and published two volumes of keyboard music, in 1759 and 1773 respectively. The surviving copy of the comprises 17 pieces (including one with violin accompaniment), the last of which is left incomplete. The reemergence of these pieces makes it possible to connect the composer with some of the most important musical and aristocratic families of mid-eighteenth-century France, and brings La Font’s virtuosic music back from obscurity, providing a valuable addition to the harpsichord repertoire.
