François Couperin (10 November 1668 – 11 September 1733) was a French
BaroqueBaroque is an artistic style prevalent from the late 16th century to the early 18th century. The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church, which had decided at the time of the Council of Trent that the arts should communicate religious themes in...
composer, organist and harpsichordist. François Couperin was known as "
Couperin le Grand" (Couperin the Great) to distinguish him from the other members of the musically talented
CouperinThe Couperin family was a dynastic musical family of professional composers and performers. They were the most prolific family in French musical history, and were very active during the Baroque era...
family.
Life
Couperin was born in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. He was taught by his father, Charles Couperin, who died when François was 10, and by Jacques Thomelin. In 1685 he became the
organistAn organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...
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 would hold the same position in later years. 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 the King. This was the Sun King, 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
suiteIn music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet, or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...
s for
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
,
violThe viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 1400s and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Spanish vihuela...
,
oboeThe oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois", "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
,
bassoonThe bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 1800s, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band, and chamber music literature...
and
harpsichordA harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
, on which he was a virtuoso player.
Couperin died in Paris in 1733.
Works
- See also List of compositions by François Couperin.
Couperin acknowledged his debt to the Italian composer
CorelliArcangelo Corelli was an Italian violinist and composer of Baroque music.-Biography:Corelli was born at Fusignano, Romagna, in the current-day province of Ravenna. Little is known about his early life. His master on the violin was Giovanni Battista Bassani...
. He introduced Corelli's
trio sonataThe trio sonata is a musical form which was particularly popular around the 17th century and the 18th century.A trio sonata is written for two solo melodic instruments and basso continuo, making three parts in all, hence the name trio sonata...
form to France. Couperin's grand trio sonata was subtitled
Le Parnasse, ou l'Apothéose de Corelli (Parnassus, or the
ApotheosisApotheosis , refers to the exaltation of a subject to divine level...
of Corelli). In it he blended the Italian and French styles of music in a set of pieces which he called
Les Goûts réunis ("Styles Reunited").
His most famous book,
L'Art de toucher le clavecin (
The Art of Harpsichord Playing, published in 1716), contained suggestions for fingerings, touch, ornamentation and other features of
keyboardA keyboard instrument is any musical instrument played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include various types of organs as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
technique. They influenced
J.S. BachJohann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organist whose ecclesiastical and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
. Bach adopted the fingering system, including the use of the thumb, that Couperin set forth for playing the harpsichord.
Couperin's four volumes of harpsichord music, published in Paris in 1713, 1717, 1722, and 1730, contain over 230 individual pieces, which can be played on solo harpsichord or performed as small chamber works. These pieces were not grouped into suites, as was the common practice, but
ordres, which were Couperin's own version of suites containing traditional dances as well as descriptive pieces. The first and last pieces in an
ordre were of the same tonality, but the middle pieces could be of other closely-related tonalities. These volumes were loved by J.S. Bach and, much later,
Richard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, particularly of operas, Lieder and tone poems...
, as well as
Maurice RavelJoseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer of Impressionist music known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
who memorialized their composer with
Le Tombeau de CouperinLe Tombeau de Couperin is a suite for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, composed between 1914 and 1917, in six movements. Each movement is dedicated to the memory of friends of the composer who had died fighting in World War I...
(A Memorial to Couperin).
Many of Couperin's keyboard pieces have evocative, picturesque titles and express a mood through key choices, adventurous harmonies and (resolved) discords. They have been likened to miniature tone poems. These features attracted
Richard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, particularly of operas, Lieder and tone poems...
, who orchestrated some of them.
Johannes BrahmsJohannes Brahms , German composer and pianist, was one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
's piano music was influenced by the keyboard music of Couperin. Brahms performed Couperin's music in public and contributed to the first complete edition of Couperin's
Pièces de clavecin by
Friedrich ChrysanderKarl Franz Friedrich Chrysander was a German music historian and critic, whose edition of the works of George Frideric Handel and authoritative writings on many other composers established him as a pioneer of 19th-century musicology.Born at Lübtheen, in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Chrysander was the son...
in the 1880s.
As the early-music expert
Jordi SavallJordi Savall i Bernadet is a Spanish-Catalan viol player, conductor, and composer. He has been one of the major figures in the field of early music since the 1970s, largely responsible for bringing the viol back to life on the stage...
has pointed out, Couperin was the "poet musician
par excellence." He believed in "the ability of Music (with a capital M) to express itself in
sa prose et ses vers " (prose and poetry). He believed that if we enter into the poetry of music, we discover that it is "
plus belle encore que la beauté" (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), the first manuscript of which appeared around 1689-90. At only age 21, Couperin likely had neither the funds nor the reputation to justify widespread publication, but the work was approved by his teacher,
Michel Richard DelalandeMichel Richard Delalande [de Lalande] was a prolific French Baroque composer and organist who was one of the most important composers of so-called grand motets, of which he wrote almost 80. He also wrote orchestral suites known as "Simphonies pour les Soupers du Roy", or in an alternative spelling...
, 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 religiouses"). These masses are divided into many movements in accordance with the traditional structure of the Latin Mass:
KyrieKýrie is from the Greek word κύριε , the vocative case of κύριος , meaning O Lord. It is the common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, also called Kýrie, eléison which is Greek for Lord, have mercy....
(5 mvts.),
Gloria"Gloria in excelsis Deo" is the title and beginning of a hymn known also as the Greater Doxology and the Angelic Hymn....
(9),
SanctusThe Sanctus is an important hymn of Christian liturgy, forming part of the ordinary of the mass.In Western Christianity, the Sanctus is sung as the final words of the Preface of the Eucharistic Prayer, the prayer of consecration of the bread and wine...
(3),
AgnusAgnus Dei is a Latin term meaning Lamb of God, and was originally used to refer to Jesus Christ in his role of the perfect sacrificial offering that atones for the sins of humanity in Christian theology, harkening back to ancient Jewish Temple sacrifices...
(2), and two additional movements (an
OffertoireOffertory , the alms of a congregation collected in church, or at any religious service....
and a
Deo gratias to conclude each mass).
In composing the masses, Couperin follows techniques used in masses by
NiversGuillaume-Gabriel Nivers was a French organist, composer and theorist. His first livre d'orgue is the earliest surviving collection with traditional French organ school forms...
,
LebègueNicolas Lebègue was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was born in Laon and in 1650s settled in Paris, quickly establishing himself as one of the best organists of the country. He lived and worked in Paris until his death, but frequently made trips to other cities to...
, and
BoyvinJacques Boyvin was a French Baroque composer and organist.He was probably born in Paris, and studied there. One of his first jobs was that of organist of the parisian church des Quinze-Vingts, and in 1674 he was appointed titular organist of the Rouen Cathedral, where Jean Titelouze served as...
, as well as other predecessors of the French Baroque era. In the
paroisses Mass, he uses plainchant from the
Missa cunctipotens genitor Deus as a
cantus firmusIn music, a cantus firmus is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition.The plural of this Latin term is , though one occasionally sees the corrupt form canti firmi...
in two Kyrie movements and the first Sanctus movement; the Kyrie
Fugue also uses a chant incipit to derive its subject. The Mass for
couvents contains no plainchant, as each convent and monastery maintained its own, nonstandard body of chant. Couperin departs from his predecessors in many ways, however; the melodies of the
Récits are strictly rhythmic and more directional than previous examples of the genre.
Willi ApelWilli Apel was a German-American musicologist.Apel was born in Konitz, West Prussia. He studied mathematics from 1912 to 1914, and then again after World War I from 1918 to 1922, in various universities in Weimar Germany. Throughout his studies, he had an interest in music and taught piano lessons...
writes that "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. The form is akin to that of an expanded
French overtureThe French overture is a musical form widely used in the Baroque period. It is in three parts: the first is slow, often with over-dotted , the second is quick and fugal, and the first part returns at the end.When written for orchestra, the French overture is often scored with trumpets and timpani,...
, in three large sections: a prelude, a chromatic fugue in minor, and a
gigueThe gigue or giga is a lively baroque dance originating from the British jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th century and usually appears at the end of a suite.The Gigue is lively Baroque dance originating from the British jig...
-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 movement is considered by some, along with the rest of the Mass, to be rather inferior to the first. Apel writes, "In general, [Couperin] did 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."
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