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Can you beat Tom Service? Test your scatting and karaoke skills in Richard Sisson's libretto to Couperin's Les Barricades Mysterieuses... Ready? Take a breath and click play!

Verse le première!
Couperin is super, an inspiring first class trooper an’ I swoon at any tune by him, he puts me in a stupor
And his calling card Les Baricades is like the Shard so towering and show’ring us with notes and joy oh boy it’s super-duper…
I’d suggest that all the rest that think they’re ev’ry bit as blessed should know that even so the best of them should worship at his feet
Okay on Red Nose Day I’m here to say there is no way those others with my super-duper Couperin can ever quite compete…

No!

Albinoni’s all baloney, he’s a phoney – here’s the news – turns out his BIG adagio is not by him at all;
And while the man who puts a ban on any canon by old Pachelbel will get my vote ‘cos note by note it drives me up the wall –
Oh Lord it really does go on and on, a grim G minor marathon – un-flavourful and quaverful, it’s all the blinking same,
I tell you on and on and on and on and on and on and on although I s’pose at least it’s long enough to learn to spell his name…

Verse le seconde!
I shan’t of course and can’t of course but grant you that the great J S is God and in Baroque he is the Biz that starts with B;
But take good care and be aware that there are other Bachs, much lesser sparks, like CPE or DVD and one called OMG
Now entre nous, there’s quite a few that do admire Signor Vivaldi, as delicious and nutritious as a bowl of minestrone;
But then am I right such appetite might well be quite a lot to do with having his most famous piece called Quattro Stagione?

Sure, but dare I say it’s fair to say that Miserere may just mean Gregorio Allegri was the first real one-hit-wonder?

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Ready for more? Go to part II to continue...

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