Franois Couperin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Franois Couperin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Franois Couperin (French: [f swa kup ;] 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.

Contents
1 Life
2 Works
2.1 Organ
3 See also
4 Notes
5 References
6 External links

Couperin (anon.), collection of the

Chteau de Versailles.

Life
Couperin was born into one of the best known musical families of Europe. His father Charles was
organist at Church Saint-Gervais in Paris, a position previously occupied by Charles' brother Louis
Couperin, a highly regarded keyboard virtuoso and composer whose career was cut short by an
early death. As a boy, Franois must have received his first music lessons from his father.
Unfortunately, Charles died in 1679. The church council at Saint-Gervais hired Michel Richard
Delalande to serve as new organist, with the condition that Franois would replace him at age 18.
Meanwhile, the boy was taken care of and taught by organist Jacques-Denis Thomelin, who served
both at the court and at the famous church of St Jacques-de-la-Boucherie. According to a biography
by vrard Titon du Tillet, Thomelin treated the boy extremely well and became "a second father" to
him. Franois's talent must have manifested itself quite early, since already by 1685 the church
council agreed to provide him with a regular salary even though he had no formal contract.
Couperin's mother Marie (ne Gurin) died in 1690, but otherwise his life and career were
accompanied by good fortune. In 1689 he married one Marie-Anne Ansault, daughter of a
prosperous well-connected family. The next year saw the publication of Couperin's Pieces d'orgue,
a collection of organ masses that was praised by Delalande (who may have assisted with both
composition and publication). In three more years Couperin succeeded his former teacher Thomelin

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at the court. The new appointment was extremely prestigious and brought Couperin in contact with
some of the finest composers of his time, as well as numerous members of the aristocracy. His
earliest chamber music dates from around that time. The numerous duties Couperin carried out at
the court were accompanied by duties as organist at Saint Gervais, and also by the composition and
publication of new music. He obtained a 20-year royal privilege to publish in 1713 and used it
immediately to issue the first volume (out of four) of his harpsichord works, Pieces de clavecin. A
harpsichord playing manual followed in 1716, as well as other collections of keyboard and chamber
music. In 1717 Couperin succeeded one of his most eminent colleagues, Jean-Baptiste-Henry
d'Anglebert, as ordinaire de la musique de la chambre du roi pour le clavecin, one of the highest
possible appointments for a court musician. 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 Pices 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, MarieMadeleine (Marie-Ccile), who became a nun and may have worked as organist at the Maubuisson
Abbey, and Franois-Laurent, who according to contemporary sources left the family after Franois
died.

Works
Couperin acknowledged his debt to the Italian
composer Corelli. He introduced Corelli's trio sonata
form to France. Couperin's grand trio sonata was
subtitled Le Parnasse, ou L'apothose de Corelli
("Parnassus, or the Apotheosis of Corelli"). In it he
blended the Italian and French styles of music in a
set of pieces which he called Les gots runis
("Styles Reunited").

Cinquime prelude
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from L'art de toucher le clavecin,

performed by Robert Schrter on
a harpsichord tuned in equal
temperament
Cinquime prelude
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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.
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

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The same work performed in a

reconstructed tuning of
"temperament ordinaire", which
could have been used in France at
Couperin's time
Sonade from Quatrime Ordre: La
Pimontaise L'Astre from Les
Nations: Sonades et Suites de
Simphonies en Trio (Paris, 1726)
0:00

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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 in
other closely related tonalities. These volumes were
loved by Johann Sebastian Bach and, much later,
Richard Strauss, as well as Maurice Ravel who
memorialized their composer with Le tombeau de
Couperin (Couperin's Memorial).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franois_Couperin

Performed by New Comma

Baroque
Pices en concert prelude, la
tromba et air de diable
0:00

Performed by the Advent

Chamber Orchestra with Stephen
Balderston, cello solo
Plein jeu de la messe l'usage des
couvents
0:00

Many of Couperin's keyboard pieces have evocative,

picturesque titles (such as "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,
who orchestrated some of them.
Johannes Brahms'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 Pices de
clavecin by Friedrich Chrysander in the 1880s.

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Premier couplet du Kyrie

Petit plein jeu de la messe
l'usage des couvents
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Deo Gratias
Rcit de cornet de la messe
l'usage des couvents
0:00

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Premier couplet du Sanctus

Le rveille-matin (The Alarm
Clock)
MIDI file

The early-music expert Jordi Savall has written that

Couperin was the "poet musician par excellence",
Problems playing these files? See media
who believed in "the ability of Music [with a capital
help.
M] to 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".[1]

Organ
Only one collection of organ music by Couperin survives, the Pices d'orgue consistantes en deux
messes ("Pieces for Organ Consisting of Two Masses"), the first manuscript of which appeared
around 16891690.[2][3] At the age of 21, Couperin probably had neither the funds nor the
reputation to obtain widespread publication, but the work was approved by his teacher, Michel
Richard Delalande, who wrote that the music was "very beautiful and worthy of being given to the
public."[4] The two masses were intended for different audiences: the first for parishes or secular
churches ("paroisses pour les ftes 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 (5 movements), Gloria (9),

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Sanctus (3), Agnus (2), and an additional Offertoire and Deo gratias to conclude each mass.
Couperin followed techniques used in masses by Nivers, Lebgue, and Boyvin, 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 firmus 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
Rcits 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."[5]
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-like fugue. Bruce Gustafson has called the movement a "stunning masterpiece of the
French classic repertory."[6] 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, [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."[7]

See also
French organ school
Marguerite-Antoinette Couperin (17051778), Francois Couperin's daughter

Notes
1. Savall 2005.
2. Gustafson 2004, p. 115ff.
3. Apel 1972, p. 736ff.
4. Gustafson 2004, p. 115.
5. Apel 1972, p. 737.
6. Gustafson 2004, p. 116.
7. Apel 1972, p. 738.

References
Apel, Willi (1972). The History of Keyboard Music to 1700. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press. pp. 736738.
Beaussant, Philippe: Franois Couperin, translated from the French by Alexandra Land,
Portland OR: Amadeus Press, 1990. ISBN 0-931340-27-6
Gauthier, Laure (2008). Mlodies urbaines: la musique dans les villes d'Europe (XVIe-XIXe

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sicles) (in French). Presses Paris Sorbonne. p. 256. ISBN 978-2-84050-563-1. Retrieved
2013-05-27.
Gillespie, John: Five Centuries of Keyboard Music: An historical survey of music for
harpsichord and piano, New York NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1965. ISBN 0-486-22855-X
Gustafson, Bruce (2004). "France". In Alexander Silbiger. Keyboard Music Before 1700. New
York: Routledge. pp. 115116.
Higginbottom, Edward. "Couperin: (4) Franois Couperin (ii) [le grand]". In Macy, Laura.
Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. (subscription required)
Mellers, Wilfrid: "Francois Couperin and the French Classical Tradition", London UK:Faber
& Faber; 2nd edition (October 1987) ISBN 978-0-571-13983-5
Savall, Jordi (2005), Franois Couperin: Les Concerts Royaux (CD liner notes), Alia Vox,
AV9840, "Couperin est le musicien-pote par excellence, qui croit en la capacit de la
Musique s'exprimer avec sa prose et ses vers...si on entre dans sa profonde dimension
potique, on dcouvre qu'ils [referring to the occasional pieces such as Les Concerts Royaux]
sont porteurs dune grce qui est, plus belle encore que la beaut...."

External links
Free scores by Franois Couperin at the International
Wikimedia Commons
Music Score Library Project
has media related to
Free scores by Franois Couperin in the Choral Public
Franois Couperin.
Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
The Mutopia Project has compositions by Franois Couperin (http://www.mutopiaproject.org
/cgibin/make-table.cgi?Composer=CouperinF)
Kunst der Fuge: Franois Couperin MIDI files (http://www.kunstderfuge.com
/couperin.htm)
MP3 files of Kyrie movements of "Mass for the Convents": Kyrie 1 (Plein jeu)
(http://www.guibray.org/gui/Sons/couperinplj.mp3) (1.4 MB), Kyrie 2 (Fugue)
(http://www.guibray.org/gui/Sons/couperinfugue.mp3) (2.2 MB), Kyrie 5 (Dialogue)
(http://www.guibray.org/gui/Sons/couperindialogue.mp3) (2.6 MB)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Franois_Couperin&oldid=728145036"
Categories: Couperin family 1668 births 1733 deaths Musicians from Paris
Composers for pipe organ Composers for harpsichord French classical composers
French male classical composers Baroque composers French harpsichordists
French classical organists 17th-century classical composers 18th-century classical composers
17th-century keyboardists 18th-century keyboardists 17th-century French musicians
18th-century French musicians
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