François Couperin
François Couperin (French IPA: [fʀɑ̃'swa ku'pʀɛ̃]) (November 10, 1668 – September 11, 1733) was a French Baroque 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 Couperin family.
Life
Couperin was born in Paris.
He was taught by his father, Charles Couperin, who died when François was 10, and by Jacques Thomelin. In 1685 he became the organist 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 suites for violin, viol, oboe, bassoon and harpsichord, on which he was a virtuoso player.
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'Apothéose 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 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 keyboard technique. It influenced J.S. Bach. 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 contain over 230 individual pieces, which can be played on solo harpsichord or performed as small chamber works. These were loved by J.S. Bach and, much later, Richard Strauss, as well as Maurice Ravel who memorialized their composer with Le Tombeau de Couperin (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 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 Pièces de clavecin by Friedrich Chrysander in the 1880s.
As the early-music expert Jordi Savall 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).
Couperin died in Paris in 1733.
References
- Philippe Beaussant: François Couperin, translated from the French by Alexandra Land, Portland OR: Amadeus Press, 1990. ISBN 0-931340-27-6
See also:
Media
Listen to François Couperin's Le Réveille-Matin (The Alarm Clock) (MIDI file).
External links
- Recordings of Couperin's pieces (WAV): Plein jeu (c. 4 mb), Fugue (4.1 mb), Dialogue (4 mb)
- Template:IckingArchive
- Free scores by François Couperin at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Kunst der Fuge: François Couperin - MIDI files