Jean Rondeau has been awarded both the Instrumental Award and the prestigious Recording of the Year at the Gramophone Awards 2026 for his landmark recording, Louis Couperin: The Complete Works. 

Released on Warner/​Erato in November 2025, the unprecedented project, for which he took eight months off from performing, is the culmination of years of dedicated, intense musicological preparation by Rondeau. It was recorded in four locations from Normandy to Tuscany, often in challenging conditions, on some of the oldest and rarest organs and harpsichords of Europe. The result is a staggering 12 hours of music across 10 CDs, in addition to a DVD (Erwan Ricordeau) and a 149-page booklet with essays about Couperin and the instruments heard in the recordings as well as photographs (Clément Vayssieres) documenting the recording and editing process. Further collaborators include the Ricercar Ensemble and producer/​engineer Aline Blondiau.

Described by Rondeau as the ​“project of a lifetime”, the album marks a return to the first music he ever played on the harpsichord at the age of five or six, the composer’s 400thbirthday, as well as Rondeau’s 10^th release on the Erato (Warner Classics) label. 

“Rondeau’s vision of ​‘completeness’ isn’t maniacal”, writes Gramophone reviewer Mark Seow: ​“it is gentle in its thoroughness, tender in its design.” Praising the ​“alchemy” of each of the ten volumes, Seow invites the listener to ​“sit, press play, and breathe in lungfuls of the sensual, sweet, and devastatingly beautiful world of Couperin and company.”

Read the full Gramophone review here.