Year 1668 (MDCLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar.

Philippe Herreweghe (born 2 May 1947, Ghent) is a Belgian conductor.

In his school years at the University of Ghent, Herreweghe combined studies in medical science and psychiatry with a musical education at the Ghent Conservatory, where Marcel Gazelle, Yehudi Menuhin's accompanist, was his piano teacher. In the same period, he began conducting and in 1970 founded the Collegium Vocale Ghent, and gave up medicine. Very soon Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt took notice of his musical approach, and invited him and the "Collegium Vocale Gent" to join them in their recordings of the complete Bach cantatas.

Herreweghe's approach to baroque music came to be widely recognised, and in 1977 he founded another ensemble in Paris, La Chapelle Royale, to perform the music of the French Golden Age. Since then he has started several other groups and ensembles with whom he managed to create a repertoire stretching from the Renaissance to contemporary music: the Ensemble Vocale Européen, specialised in Renaissance polyphony, and the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, founded in 1991 to bring alive, once again, the repertoire of the romantic and pre-romantic era on original instruments.

François Couperin (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa kuˈpʁɛ̃]) (10 November 1668 – 11 September 1733) was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand ("Couperin the Great") to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.

Couperin was born in Paris. He was taught by his father, Charles Couperin, who died when François was 10, and by Jacques Thomelin. In 1685 he became the organist at the church of Saint-Gervais, Paris, a post he inherited from his father and that he would pass on to his cousin, Nicolas Couperin. Other members of the family also later held the same position. In 1693 Couperin succeeded his teacher Thomelin as organist at the Chapelle Royale (Royal Chapel) with the title organiste du Roi, organist by appointment to Louis XIV.

In 1717 Couperin became court organist and composer, with the title ordinaire de la musique de la chambre du Roi. With his colleagues, Couperin gave a weekly concert, typically on Sunday. Many of these concerts were in the form of suites for violin, viol, oboe, bassoon and harpsichord, on which he was a virtuoso player.

Hervé Niquet (born on October 28, 1957) is a French conductor, harpsichordist, tenor, and the director of Le Concert Spirituel, specializing in French Baroque music.

Born on October 28, 1957, Hervé Niquet was raised at Abbeville in the department of Somme, France. He studied harpsichord, composition, conducting, and opera singing. In 1980, he was appointed as the choir master of Opéra National de Paris. Between 1985 and 1986, Niquet became a member of Les Arts florissants as a tenor, the ensemble that William Christie founded. In 1987, he established his own ensemble named "Le Concert Spirituel" which focuses on French grand motets of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Accord, Adda

FNAC, Naxos

Glossa

Prix de Rome 3 vols.

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