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.

• Period: Baroque (1600-1749)
• Country: France
• Born: November 10, 1668 in Paris, France
• Died: September 11, 1733 in Paris, France
• Genres: Chamber Music, Keyboard Music, Miscellaneous Music, Vocal Music

Biography

François Couperin was the most important member of the illustrious Couperin family and was one of the leading composers of the French Baroque era. He is best known for his harpsichord works, all of which are found in the collection of more than 220 pieces entitled Pièces de clavecin, consisting of four books. His music showed the influence of Lully and incorporated elements from the Italian school. Indeed, both these sources would be acknowledged by Couperin himself in two chamber works, Apothéose de Corelli (1724) and Apothéose de Lully (1725). Moreover, he successfully integrated the French and Italian styles in his Les goût réunis ou nouveaux concerts (1724), a collection of chamber compositions for unspecified instruments. Many of his works were lost to posterity, as none of his original manuscripts has survived.

Couperin was born in Paris on November 10, 1668. His father, Charles, was an organist, and young François' early musical training probably came from him. Only child François and his mother were reasonably well cared for following Charles' death (probably in 1679), in part because of the kindness of Jacques Thomelin, organist at Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, who looked after the young boy and instructed him in music.

Couperin became the organist at Saint-Gervais at age 17. In 1689, four years later, he married Marie-Anne Ansault, daughter of a wine merchant who had many relatives in other business endeavors. The following year, he published his so-called "organ masses," known as Pièces d'orgue, comprising two masses (Messe des Paroisses and Messe des Couvents) and several smaller pieces.

It was around this time that the composer came under the sway of the Italian school. He would display this influence in several chamber works he wrote in 1692 that he called sonades, a name that is a Gallic version of "sonata."

On December 26, 1693, Couperin was appointed organist at the Royal Chapel by King Louis XIV, sharing the post with Buterne, Nivers, and Lebègue, and performing his duties only in the first quarter of each year. He maintained his position at Saint-Gervais for the other three-quarters of the year. He also taught the Duke of Burgundy on harpsichord and six other princes and princesses. The composer would later write an important treatise on playing the harpsichord entitled, L'Art de toucher le clavecin.

Couperin wrote a fair amount of sacred non-liturgical vocal music for the Royal Chapel. Beginning around 1697, he wrote a series of motets, completed in 1702. They include Motet Saint-Barthélemy, Motet de Sainte-Anne, and Motet de Saint-Augustin.

In the early part of the eighteenth century, Couperin began composing a large number of works for the harpsichord, which would appear in the Premier Livre from the Pièces de clavecin in 1713. The Second Book was published in 1717, and the final two came in 1722 and 1730.

There is evidence that Couperin also found time for concerts in the early part of the eighteenth century in Versailles and other nearby locales. Actually, relatively is known about Couperin's life from about 1700 onward. There is record of his renting a country home in 1710 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, confirming the view he was financially secure. In 1719, Couperin became harpsichordist to King Louis XV, a position he most probably had held in all but title for a number of years. By this time, he was recognized as the leading composer in France and the greatest exponent of organ and harpsichord teaching as well. Couperin died on September 11, 1733. ~ Robert Cummings, All Music Guide