Christophe Rousset

Christophe Rousset has emerged as a driving force behind the modern resurgence of French Baroque music, whether appearing as harpsichordist or taking the conductor’s podium. His discography is unusually large, exceeding one hundred releases.

Born in Avignon, France, on April 12, 1961, Rousset began with piano lessons in childhood and turned decisively to the harpsichord at thirteen. He trained with Huguette Dreyfus at the Schola Cantorum in Paris and, between 1980 and 1983, studied with Bob van Asperen at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. A special certificate of distinction from the Schola Cantorum and the first prize at the 1983 International Harpsichord Competition in Bruges marked his early achievements.

Rousset’s ascent among leading harpsichordists was rapid. He soon performed at major early-music festivals, among them those of Aix-en-Provence, Utrecht, and Les Printemps des Arts de Nantes. Recordings for Decca and its L’Oiseau-Lyre imprint followed; his account of Rameau’s Piéces de clavecin received the 1992 Gramophone Award for Best Baroque Non-Vocal Release and the Belgian Cecilia Prize.

While concentrating on Baroque harpsichord repertoire, Rousset regularly supplied continuo parts in ensemble music. Appearances with established period-instrument groups such as La Petite Bande, Musica Antique de Cologne, and the Academy of Ancient Music naturally led him toward direction of his own ensemble, which he founded in 1991 as Les Talens Lyriques. The company concentrated on restoring French Baroque opera and tracing stylistic exchanges between France and other European traditions.

Les Talens Lyriques gained wider attention in 1993 at the Festival de Beaune with a performance of Handel’s opera Scipione. Subsequent projects included ballets and operas by Cimarosa, Berutti, and Mondonville, while the soundtrack to the film Farinelli brought popular success, selling well over 600,000 copies worldwide—an uncommon figure for an early-music classical release.

Rousset has sustained his career as a solo harpsichordist, probing the abundant French Baroque literature beyond Rameau and Couperin. Renewed interest in Baroque opera during the 2010s prompted an intensive schedule of performances and recordings under his direction; working chiefly for Aparte and Ediciones Singulares, he has documented Lully’s Amadis (2014), Antonio Salieri’s Les Danaïdes (2015), and Etienne-Nicolas Méhul’s early-Romantic Uthal (2017).

By this stage Rousset ranked among Europe’s most productive interpreters of Baroque repertory. Between 2018 and mid-2020 he issued no fewer than thirteen albums, mostly on Aparte, and remained active throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023 he recorded Lully’s opera Psyché for the Château de Versailles label.

Rousset is also recognized as a teacher whose many protégés now fill European early-music orchestras and stages. In 2004 the French government named him Officier des Arts et Lettres and Chevalier dans l’Ordre National du Mérite.