François Couperin
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François Couperin (; 10 November 1668 – 11 September 1733) was a French
Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
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.


Life

Couperin was born in Paris, into a prominent musical family. His father Charles was organist at the Church of Saint-Gervais in the city, a position previously held by Charles's brother
Louis Couperin Louis Couperin (; – 29 August 1661) was a French Baroque composer and performer. He was born in Chaumes-en-Brie and moved to Paris in 1650–1651 with the help of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières. Couperin worked as organist of the ...
, the esteemed keyboard virtuoso and composer whose career was cut short by an early death. As a boy François must have received his first music lessons from his father, but Charles died in 1679 leaving the position at Saint-Gervais to his son, a common practice known as ''survivance'' that few churches ignored. With their hands tied, the churchwardens at Saint-Gervais hired Michel Richard Delalande to serve as new organist on the understanding that François would replace him at age 18. However, it is likely Couperin began these duties much earlier: a stipend of 100 ''livres'' per year, which had been provided to Couperin on Charles's death slowly increased to 400 ''livres'', suggesting that Couperin had gradually begun to take on the mantle as his studies progressed. The 11-year-old was taken care of and taught, meanwhile, by organist Jacques-Denis Thomelin, who served both at court and at the church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie. Biographer Évrard Titon du Tillet wrote that Thomelin treated the boy extremely well, becoming a second father to him. François' talent must have shown itself early on because by 1685 the church council began providing him a salary, although he had no contract. At twenty-one Couperin also lost his mother, Marie (née Guérin), but otherwise his life and career were accompanied by good fortune. In 1689 he married Marie-Anne Ansault, daughter of a prosperous family. The next year saw the publication of his ''Pièces d'orgue'', a collection of organ masses praised by Delalande, who may have assisted with the project. In three more years Couperin succeeded Thomelin at Louis XIV's court. The appointment brought him in touch with some of the finest composers of the day as well as the aristocracy. His earliest chamber music dates from this time. Couperin met his court duties in tandem with those he now had as organist at Saint-Gervais, while also composing.


Royal assent to publish

He applied for a blanket ''privilège du Roy'' in 1713 to allow him to publish 'plusiers pieces de musique de sa composition, tant pour la vocale que l'instrumental, conjointement ou séparément'F-Pn, Ms Fr. 21590 and used it immediately to issue the first volume (out of four) of his harpsichord works, ''Pieces de clavecin''. A harpsichord playing manual '' L'art de toucher le clavecin'' followed in 1716 (though this was immediately recalled and republished the following year), as well as other collections of keyboard and chamber music. In 1717 Couperin became ''ordinaire de la musique de la chambre du roi pour le clavecin––''one of the highest possible appointments for a court musician, and a position once held by Jean-Henri d'Anglebert. However, his involvement in the musical activities at the court may have lessened after Louis XIV's death in 1715. Couperin's health declined steadily throughout the 1720s. The services of a cousin were required by 1723 at Saint Gervais, and in 1730 Couperin's position as court harpsichordist was taken up by his daughter Marguerite-Antoinette. Couperin's final publications were ''Pièces de violes'' (1728) and the fourth volume of harpsichord pieces (1730). The composer died in 1733. The building where Couperin and his family lived since 1724 still stands and is located at the corner of the rue Radziwill and the rue des Petits Champs. The composer was survived by at least three of his children: Marguerite-Antoinette, who continued working as court harpsichordist until 1741, Marie-Madeleine (Marie-Cécile), who became a nun and may have worked as organist at the Maubuisson Abbey, and François-Laurent, who according to contemporary sources left the family after François died.


Works

Couperin acknowledged his debt to the Italian composer Corelli. He introduced Corelli's
trio sonata The trio sonata is a genre, typically consisting of several movements, with two melody instruments and basso continuo. It originated in the early 17th century and was a favorite chamber ensemble combination in the Baroque era. Basic structure T ...
form to France. Couperin wrote two grand trio sonatas. The first, ''Le Parnasse, ou L'Apothéose de Corelli'' (" Parnassus, or the
Apotheosis Apotheosis (, ), also called divinization or deification (), is the glorification of a subject to divine levels and, commonly, the treatment of a human being, any other living thing, or an abstract idea in the likeness of a deity. The origina ...
of Corelli"), was written to show his great debt to Corelli and published in 1724. The other, '' L'Apothéose de Lully'', was published a year later and composed in honor of
Jean-Baptiste Lully Jean-Baptiste Lully ( – 22 March 1687) was a French composer, dancer and instrumentalist of Italian birth, who is considered a master of the French Baroque music style. Best known for his operas, he spent most of his life working in the court o ...
. It used both French and Italian styles of Baroque music, to reconcile the very different styles in what Couperin called a ''réunion des goûts'' (a reunion of tastes). The same year as ''L'Apothéose de Corelli'' was published, Couperin published a set of ten pieces, "Nouveaux concerts, ou Les goûts réunis", that also combined these two different styles of Baroque music. His most famous book, '' L'art de toucher le clavecin'' ("The Art of Harpsichord Playing", published in 1716), contains suggestions for fingerings, touch, ornamentation and other features of keyboard technique, as well as eight preludes in the keys of the pieces in his first two books of harpsichord music and an Allemande to illustrate the Italianate style. Couperin's four volumes of harpsichord music, published in Paris in 1713, 1717, 1722, and 1730, contain over 230 individual pieces, and he also published a book of ''Concerts Royaux'' which can be played as solo harpsichord pieces or as small chamber works. The four collections for harpsichord alone are grouped into ''ordres'', a synonym of suites, containing traditional dances as well as pieces with descriptive titles. They are notable for Couperin's detailed indication of ornaments, which in most harpsichord music of the period was left to the discretion of the player. The first and last pieces in an ''ordre'' were of the same tonality, but the middle pieces could be in other closely related tonalities. These volumes were admired by
Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (German: Help:IPA/Standard German, joːhan zeˈbasti̯an baχ ( – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque music, Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety ...
, who exchanged letters with Couperin, and later by Brahms and by
Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...
, the latter of whom memorialized the composer in ''
Le Tombeau de Couperin ''Le Tombeau de Couperin'' (''The Tomb of Couperin'') is a suite (music), suite for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, composed between 1914 and 1917. The piece is in six movements, based on those of a traditional Baroque music, Baroque suite. Each ...
'' (''Couperin's Memorial''). Many of Couperin's keyboard pieces have evocative, picturesque titles (such as "''The little windmills''" and "'' The mysterious barricades''") and express a mood through key choices, adventurous harmonies and (resolved) discords. They have been likened to miniature tone poems. These features attracted
Richard Strauss Richard Georg Strauss (; ; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer and conductor best known for his Tone poems (Strauss), tone poems and List of operas by Richard Strauss, operas. Considered a leading composer of the late Roman ...
, who orchestrated some of them.
Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (; ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period (music), Romantic period. His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality and freer treatment of dissonance, oft ...
's piano music was influenced by the keyboard music of Couperin. Brahms performed Couperin's music in public and contributed to an edition of Couperin's ''Pièces de clavecin'' by Friedrich Chrysander in the 1880s. Modern English composer
Thomas Adès Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès (born 1 March 1971) is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: ''The Tempest (opera), The T ...
took three pieces from different sets of Couperin suites and orchestrated them in his work "Three Studies from Couperin". The early-music expert
Jordi Savall Jordi Savall i Bernadet (; born 1 August 1941) is a Spanish Conducting, conductor, composer and viol player. He has been one of the major figures in the field of Western early music since the 1970s, largely responsible for popularizing the viol ...
has written that Couperin was the "poet musician par excellence", who believed in "the ability of Music ith a capital Mto express itself in prose and poetry", and that "if we enter into the poetry of music we discover that it carries grace that is more beautiful than beauty itself".


Organ

Only one collection of organ music by Couperin survives, the ''Pièces d'orgue consistantes en deux messes'' ("Pieces for Organ Consisting of Two Masses"), which were published in November 1690. At the age of 21, Couperin probably had neither the funds nor the reputation to obtain widespread publication and the masses were released as manuscripts, with a printed title page and approbation by his teacher, Michel Richard Delalande, who wrote that the music was "very beautiful and worthy of being given to the public." The two masses were intended for different audiences: the first for parishes or secular churches ("paroisses pour les fêtes solemnelles"), and the second for convents or abbey churches ("couvents de religieux et religieuses"). These masses are divided into many movements in accordance with the traditional structure of the Latin Mass:
Kyrie ', a transliteration of Greek , vocative case of ('' Kyrios''), is a common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, also called the ( ; ). In the Bible The prayer, , "Lord, have mercy" derives from a Biblical phrase. Greek , ...
(5 movements), Gloria (9),
Sanctus The ''Sanctus'' (, "Holy") is a hymn in Christian liturgy. It may also be called the ''epinikios hymnos'' (, "Hymn of Victory") when referring to the Greek rendition and parts of it are sometimes called "Benedictus". ''Tersanctus'' (Latin: "Thr ...
(3), Agnus (2), and an additional '' Offertoire'' and ''Deo gratias'' to conclude each mass. Couperin followed techniques used in masses by Nivers, Lebègue, and Boyvin, as well as other predecessors of the French Baroque era. In the ''paroisses'' Mass, he uses
plainchant Plainsong or plainchant (calque from the French ; ) is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Western Church. When referring to the term plainsong, it is those sacred pieces that are composed in Latin text. Plainsong was the exclusive for ...
from the ''Missa cunctipotens genitor Deus'' as a
cantus firmus In music, a ''cantus firmus'' ("fixed melody") is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition. The plural of this Latin term is , although the corrupt form ''canti firmi'' (resulting from the grammatically incorrect trea ...
in two Kyrie movements and in the first Sanctus movement; the Kyrie ''Fugue'' subject is also derived from a chant incipit. The Mass for ''couvents'' contains no plainchant, as each convent and monastery maintained its own, non-standard body of chant. Couperin departs from his predecessors in many ways. For example, the melodies of the ''Récits'' are strictly rhythmic and more directional than previous examples of the genre. Willi Apel wrote, "this music shows a sense of natural order, a vitality, and an immediacy of feeling that breaks into French organ music like a fresh wind." The longest piece in the collection is the ''Offertoire sur les grands jeux'' of the first Mass, which is akin to an expanded French overture in three large sections: a prelude, a chromatic fugue in minor, and a
gigue The gigue ( , ) or giga () is a lively baroque dance originating from the English jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th centuryBellingham, Jane"gigue."''The Oxford Companion to Music''. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online. 6 July ...
-like fugue. Bruce Gustafson has called the movement a "stunning masterpiece of the French classic repertory." The second Mass also contains an ''Offertoire'' with a similar form, but this Mass is not considered as masterly as the first: Apel wrote, "In general, ouperindid not expend the same care for this Mass, which was written for modest abbey churches, as for the other one, which he himself certainly presented on important holidays on the organ of Saint-Gervais."


See also

* French organ school


Notes


References

* * * *Gillespie, John: ''Five Centuries of Keyboard Music: An historical survey of music for harpsichord and piano'', New York NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1965. * * *Mellers, Wilfrid
''Francois Couperin and the French Classical Tradition''
London UK: Faber & Faber; 1950, 2nd edition October 1987 * *Tunley, David: ''Couperin'', London UK: BBC Music Guides, 1982


External links

* * * *Kunst der Fuge

*MP3 files of Kyrie movements of "Mass for the Convents"
Kyrie 1 (Plein jeu)
(1.4 MB)
Kyrie 2 (Fugue)
(2.2 MB)
Kyrie 5 (Dialogue)
(2.6 MB) {{DEFAULTSORT:Couperin, Francois Francois 1668 births 1733 deaths 17th-century French classical composers 17th-century keyboardists 18th-century French classical composers 18th-century French keyboardists 18th-century French male musicians Classical composers of church music Composers for pipe organ Composers for harpsichord French Baroque composers French male classical composers French composers of sacred music French harpsichordists French classical organists Composers from Paris 17th-century French male musicians French male classical organists