François Couperin

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(b Paris, 10 Nov 1668; d there, 11 Sept 1733). French composer. He was the central figure of the French harpsichord school. He came from a long line of musicians, mostly organists, of whom the most eminent was his uncle, Louis Couperin, though his father Charles (1638-79) was also a composer and organist of St Gervais. François succeeded to that post on his 18th birthday; his earliest known music is two organ masses. In 1693 he became one of the four royal organists which enabled him to develop his career as a teacher through his court connections. He was soon recognized as the leading French composer of his day through his sacred works and his chamber music and, from 1713, his harpsichord pieces. In 1716 he published an important treatise on harpsichord playing and the next year he was appointed royal harpsichordist.

Among the music Couperin composed for Louis XIV's delectation were his Concerts royaux, chamber works for various combinations. He had written works in his own elaboration of trio-sonata form in the 1690s following the Italianate style of Corelli but retaining French character in the decorative lines and rich harmony. Later, he published these alongside French-style groups of dances as Les nations; they include some of his emotionally most powerful music. He was much concerned with blending French and Italian styles; he composed programmatic tributes to Lully and Corelli and works under the title Les goûts-réünis. He also wrote intensely expressive pieces for bass viol.

But it is as a harpsichord composer that Couperin is best known. He published four books with some 220 pieces, grouped in 27 ordres or suites. Some movements are in the traditional French dance forms, but most are character pieces with titles that reflect their inspiration: some are portraits of individuals or types, some portray abstract qualities, some imitate the sounds of nature. The titles may also be ambiguous or metaphorical, or even intentionally obscure. Most of the pieces are in rondeau form. All are elegantly composed, concealing a complex, allusive and varied emotional world behind their highly wrought surface. Couperin took immense pains over the notation of the ornaments with which his harpsichord writing is sprinkled and animated. These, and his style generally, are expounded in his L′art de toucher le clavecin.

Couperin's children were also musicians: Nicholas (1680-1748) succeeded his father at St Gervais, and probably composed, while Marie-Madeleine (1690-1742) was probably an abbey organist and Marguerite-Antoinette (1705- c 1778) was active as a court harpsichordist, c 1729-1741.

works:
Chamber music

• 12 trios, incl. L′apothéose de Corelli (1724), L′apothéose de Lully (1725), Les nations, 4 trios (1726)
• 4 Concerts royaux (1722)
• 10 ‘Nouveaux concerts’ in Les goûts-réünis (1724)
• 2 bass viol suites

Harpsichord music

• Book 1, suites 1-5 (1713)
• Book 2, suites 6-12 (1716-17)
• Book 3, suites 13-19 (1722)
• Book 4, suites 20-27 (1730)
• 9 pieces in L′art de toucher le claviecin (1716)

Organ music

• 2 org masses (1690)

Sacred vocal music

• 18 versets (1703-5)
• 3 Tenebrae lessons (1713-17)
• 27 motets

Secular vocal music

• 9 airs, 3 trios

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François Couperin (1668-1733), called Couperin leGrand, was a French composer, organist, and harpsichordist. His harpsichord and organ works are the touchstones of the 18th-century elegant style.

François Couperin was born on Nov. 10, 1668, in Paris. The Couperin dynasty was the most famous musical family in France during the 17th and 18th centuries. The first Couperin came to Paris from the region of Brie and became organist for the church of St-Gervais; his brothers soon followed. Couperin's father, Charles, succeeded his brother Louis on the latter's death in 1661. Charles died in 1679, and although François was only 11 years old he was named as Charles's successor at St-Gervais. The post was held open for François both on legal grounds and in the light of his extraordinary talent until he reached the age of 18.

In 1692 Couperin produced his first publications, pieces composed in the Italian manner. While retaining his post at St-Gervais, he entered the service of King Louis XIV in 1693 as one of the organists of the King's chapel at Versailles. Couperin prospered at court, being appointed master of music for the royal children in 1694 and ennobled in 1696.

Couperin composed much church music for use at Versailles. His keyboard and chamber music circulated in aristocratic circles. In 1713 the King granted Couperin the privilege of publishing his own music. He first issued a series of harpsichord suites (which he called ordres) written over the preceding 2 decades. In 1714 he published the three surviving sets from a projected group of nine Leçons des Ténèbres. L'Art de toucher le clavecin, his major theoretical work, appeared in 1716. The second order of harpsichord pieces came out in 1717, and the following year Couperin succeeded to the post of ordinaire de la musique to the King. Encouraged by the success of his publications, Couperin brought out sets and suites of earlier compositions in rapid order, and in 1730 his fourth ordre of harpsichord pieces was put together with the assistance of his family. He died on Sept. 12, 1733.

The bulk of Couperin's published work disappeared shortly after his death. Since his only son is presumed to have died in infancy, the post of organist at St-Gervais passed to a nephew. The position remained in the family until the French Revolution, and the dynasty itself died out in the 19th century.

Harpsichord and Church Compositions

Couperin's harpsichord music is marked by a very elegant style and reflects the urbane, sophisticated quality of courtly and intellectual life as it was experienced in the last years of the reign of Louis XIV. Couperin arranged his harpsichord music into dance suites, with faintly suggestive or arcanely humorous titles; these character pieces represent the height of the cultured taste of the 18th-century connoisseur.

The music is not programmatic in the common sense of the term. Instead, Couperin only suggests or hints at the conditions of civilized life in the manner of a memoir. Such titles as La Diane and La Charolaise from Ordre I or La Baccaneles and Le Réveil-matin from Ordre II are but intimate suggestions or reminiscences; the titles are not descriptive any more than the music itself pretends to describe the actualities implied in the title.

Couperin's church music is marked by a solemn stateliness. Although not at all pompous it is entirely in keeping with the demands of the court, and in his old age Louis XIV preferred order, serenity, and restraint above all else.

Manual of Performance Practice

L'Art de toucher le clavecin is the most important theoretical work with regard to performance practice surviving from 18th-century France. Here Couperin describes precise articulations for the very complicated style of ornamentation which dominated his harpsichord music. For Couperin ornamentation is not an additive process but one absolutely integral to the construction of the music itself; hence, accuracy is mandatory. This keyboard manual is also very illuminating with regard to such topics as fingering, phrasing, and notes inégales (the practice of performing evenly written notes unequally).

The accomplishments of Couperin le Grand are still among the least comprehended and appreciated of major 18th-century composers. Only with careful, scrupulously accurate re-creations in the proper style by the harpsichord can one begin to understand Couperin's supreme compositional gifts.

Further Reading

The standard work in English on Couperin's music is Wilfred H. Mellers, François Couperin and the French Classical Tradition (1950).

Additional Sources

Beaussant, Philippe, François Couperin, Paris: Fayard, 1980.

Couperin, François (fräNswä' kūpərăN'), 1668-1733, French harpsichordist and composer, called "le Grand" to distinguish him from the other musicians in his family. His harpsichord music, in its charm, delicacy, and graceful ornamentation, represents the culmination of French rococo. He published four books of harpsichord suites (1713-30), which generally consisted of short, highly ornamental pieces, with descriptive titles such as Les Abeilles, Les Papillons, La Voluptueuse, and Le Rossignol en amour. His style of harpsichord playing, formulated in L'Art de toucher de clavecin (1716), influenced the keyboard technique of Bach. Couperin also composed much religious and chamber music and works for the organ. He was organist (1685-1733) at St. Gervais, Paris, a position held by members of the Couperin family from c.1650 until 1826. In 1693, Couperin was chosen by Louis XIV as one of the organists of the royal chapel, and later he was made music master of the royal family and harpsichordist at the royal court. The Couperin line of musicians had begun with three brothers-Louis (c.1626-1661), an organist, violinist, and composer of harpsichord suites, which are characterized by a vigorous, frequently dissonant style; François (c.1631-c.1710), a harpsichordist and violinist; and Charles (1638-79), an organist, the father of Couperin le Grand. The line extended to the great-grandsons of François, the second brother Pierre Louis (1755-89) and François Gervais (1759-1826), who were organists at St. Gervais.

Bibliography

See biography by P. Brunold (1949).

• Genres: Classical

Biography

A French harpsichordist and composer known for his boldly harmonized and highly ornamented harpsichord works of dance suites as well as organ, chamber, and sacred music. Possessed of a lively, curious mind and a refined, ironic sense of humor, Couperin (known as "The Great") wrote the "Pieces de Clavecin" as character portraits, both of general types and of specific people of his day, which are studied even today for their deliberate fantasy and innovativeness ("The Player," "The Courteous One," "The Little Nothing," and many others). He was also a master of the Italian and French vocal styles of the period, demonstrated in his profoundly lyrical church motets ("Legions de ténèbres," for Ash Wednesday; a "Magnificat"). Couperin's music leads from the baroque to the early classical periods. ~ Blue Gene Tyranny, Rovi

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