Description
The composer and harpsichordist Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy was born in Paris in 1744, and died in 1824 in Villers-sur-Mer in Normandie. She married Jacques Brillon de Jouy 22 years her senior,and had two daughters, Cunégonde and Aldegonde, Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy had a salon in Passy whose guests included the violinist Jean-Pierre Pagin and cellist and composer Luigi Boccherini. Benjamin Franklin was also a frequent vistor and Madame Brillon has an extensive correspondence with him, including the period after his stay in Paris during the American Revolution .Many of her compositions were purchased in 1957 by the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, in honor of this friendship.
In 2021, French Pianist Nicolas Horvath recorded a landmark CD for Grand Piano (GP872-73) of Brillon’s keyboard noatas with extensive notes by Aliette de Laleu, Deborah Hayes and Nicolas Horvath and Christine de Pas The keyboard sonatas published here are intended to document this reocrding.
The twelve numbered sonatas, marked “Troisième Recueil de Sonates pour le pianoforte ou clavecin avec accompagnement d’un viiolon ad libitum”, are in the hand of a copyist and are contained in a bound volume labeled as her Troisième Recueil (‘Third Collection’) and dedicated to Mesdemoiselles Brillon. Evidently the composer at some point chose these 12 sonatas to be copied as a sampling of her work for her two daughters. The manuscript is in the collection of the American Philosopical Society in Philadelphia. The Sonata no. 2 in Bb major is in two movements: Allegro malto moderato and Rondo with variations. Both of these movements utilse many passages with hand-crossings.