Summary

François Couperin (Paris, Nov. 10, 1668 - there, Sept. 11, 1733) was a French composer.

He is the most important and well-known member of the Couperin composer dynasty. Couperin, nicknamed "Le Grand," is counted among the leading Baroque composers, and particularly of harpsichord music. His harpsichord music is characterized by a strong idiomatic character, both for its highly personal style and for its close connection to the characteristics of the instrument. In addition to his harpsichord music, Couperin wrote organ music, religious and secular vocal music and chamber music. In addition, he published theoretical works on playing the harpsichord (L'Art de toucher le clavecin) and on accompanying in music Règles pour l'accompagnement.

The Couperins were from Chaumes-en-Brie: François' grandfather Charles was a skilled amateur organist of the local church and monastery there; his three sons Louis Couperin (1626-1661), François, nicknamed "L'Ancien" (1631-1701) and Charles, François Couperin's father (1638-1679) made a musical career in Paris. Louis as organist of St. Gervais and later as one of Louis XIV's official organists, François also as organist and François Couperin's father as violinist. All three were pupils of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières, with Jean-Henry d'Anglebert one of the leading representatives of the first French harpsichord school. It was also thanks to De Chambonnières that they were able to make their ascent into the professional musical life. After Louis' death, Charles succeeded his brother as organist of the Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais. It was in the organist's residence of that church that François Couperin was born. François probably received the first musical principles there from his father.

Charles Couperin, like his brother, died at a young age, and the then 10-year-old François Couperin inherited his father's organist post at St. Gervais in Paris. The organist Jacques Thomelin took care of him and taught him a solid basic knowledge of counterpoint, knowledge he displayed early on in his first work, the Pièces d'orgue (1690). Actually, Couperin was not to occupy the post until he turned 18, but the interim organist, Michel-Richard Delalande, given his heavy position at court, had no objection to François Couperin being installed earlier. With Delalande's support, Couperin acquired a "privilège du Roi," an official license, in this case to publish music, in 1690. The year before, he had married Marie-Anne Ansault, who had important family connections in social life: for example, the first two harpsichord books were dedicated to important government officials. The good connections ensured his entrance to the court in 1693, as organist, succeeding Thomelin, alongside Jean-Baptiste Buterne, Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers and Nicolas Lebègue.

Couperin also worked on a collection of six sonatas in the late 17th century; in addition to La Steinquerque, La sultane and La superbe, the other three were later included in the collection Les Nations in 1726, under a different name: La pucelle, La visionaire et L'Astrée (included in Les Nations as La Française, L'Espagnole and La Piémontoise, respectively). In the preface to the sonatas, whose name he frenchified to sonade, he tastefully recounts their origins. They were supposedly new works by an Italian composer sent to him by his cousin Marc-Roger Normand Couperin, in service at the court of Naples. Couperin made an anagram of his name under which he initially intended to release them. The works are Couperin's first compositions in imitation of Arcangelo Corelli, whom he held in high esteem, an admiration that culminated in 1724 with Le Parnasse, ou L'apotheose de Corelli. Italian music was not bon ton in France due to the influence of the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, who was otherwise of Italian origin. In Italian music the violin had a prominent place; in France the violin was an instrument for minstrels and for dance masters, domestic servants or "d'autres gens de labeur" (Beaussant, 66), the nobility played lute or viola da gamba.

The violin was used as an ensemble instrument for opera and ballet, but not as an independent and full-fledged instrument. The part in the recognition of the violin as a serious instrument by Couperin, of this "serviteur passionné de l'Italie" (quoted in Anthony), was thus in a sense pioneering in France. In the process, however, Couperin succeeded well in creating a style that retained both Italian and French elements in a proper blend, truly 'goûts réunis'. Especially in his motets one can see the musically balanced way he did this, without imitation of 'la manière italienne'. French are the short phrases, the rhythm and melodic formulas taken from the airs sérieux or dances, the careful ornamentation, Italian the vivid musical images that support the text and help paint the drama, the insertion of vocalises into the melody line, the abrupt change of tonality and the frequently used chromaticism. Sometimes parts are purely Italian in style, sometimes very French. Couperin did not write a single grand motet, as Delalande, Lully or Campra did, with their full psalm settings with and their much more pregnant splendor, but preferred to depict more intimate lyrical feelings within the petit motet (Anthony).

Couperin's appointment in 1693 as organiste du roi opened up opportunities and income that could not be obtained anywhere else in the France of the time. Shortly after his arrival at court, he was charged with giving harpsichord lessons to Louis XIV's grandson, Louis of France, Duke of Burgundy, and other princes and princesses of the blood, such as Louis Alexandre, Count of Toulouse, and his sister, Louise Françoise, nicknamed Mlle. de Nantes, both children of Madame de Montespan and Louis XIV. The daughters of Mlle. de Nantes were also taught by Couperin and live on in the harpsichord pieces he dedicated to them: la Bourbonnaise, la Charoloise and la Princesse de Sens. After only three years, he acquired the privilege - paid for - of bearing his own coat of arms. From 1700 Couperin's musical activities became more varied and he participated in concerts at Versailles, Fontainebleau and Sceaux. In 1717 D'Anglebert's eye problems were so severe that he had to resign his position as court harpsichordist; Couperin was appointed as his successor and from then on he was the Ordinaire de la Musique de la Chambre du Roi pour le Clavecin. As court composer, Couperin was responsible not only for chamber music (the Concerts royaux, published in 1722, and Les goûts-réünis, published in 1724), but also for music for the Chapelle royale.

The famous harpsichord books - containing a total of over 240 pieces for harpsichord - appeared from 1713, after he obtained a printing license for thirty years in that year - enough, it turns out, for the rest of his life. Earlier harpsichord pieces by Couperin circulated in manuscript form, and the publisher Ballard had included pieces anonymously in Pièces choisis pour le clavecin as early as 1707. Couperin arranged his pieces according to key, but called such an arrangement, as the only one, not suites or suites de pièces de clavecin, but ordres. After the death of Louis XIV in 1715, Couperin continued his work at court, including harpsichord lessons to the Polish princess Maria Leszczyńska, wife of the future King Louis XV and daughter of the expelled Polish prince Stanislaus Leszczyński. La Princesse Marie from the third harpsichord book still musically recalls her. The second harpsichord book and L'Art de toucher le clavecin followed in 1716. Between the first and second books lies a caesura, so to speak. The Premier Livre de Clavecin of 1713 is stricter in style and more in line with the common harpsichord style in France. From the second book on, the compositions are much more typical and distinctly "Couperin": very strongly individual character pieces with a very strong melody. The first three Leçons de tenèbres also came out during this period. Couperin had planned a series of nine; whether all of them were actually written is unknown, the last six were never published, nor have they survived in manuscript form. The third harpsichord book appeared in 1722, containing the four Concerts royaux. Les goûts réünis ou Nouveaux concerts came out in 1724, numbered through from five to fourteen, as a sequel to the Concerts royaux. That fourteenth concerto was "une grande Sonade en Trio intitulée Le Parnasse ou l'Apothéose de Corelli. That sonata was followed in 1725 by its logical counterpart, Concert intrumental sous le titre d'Apothéose composé à la mémoire immortelle de l'incomparable Monsieur de Lully. Italian and French tastes were once again united.

As outlined above, in addition to the lute, the viola da gamba (viole in French) was the instrument for the nobility and the emerging distinguished bourgeoisie. Couperin's share in quantity of music for this instrument is not great, in quality it is a high point in the genre. In 1728, his Pièces de violes appeared. In 1730, his last and fourth harpsichord volume was published. In the preface, Couperin complained about his poor health - incidentally, also in music: a title from the 26th Order is "La Convalescente" (his daughter Marguerite-Antoinette took over the harpsichord duties, Guillaume Marchand, Louis Marchand's son, the duties in the royal chapel. Three years later, on Sept. 11, 1733, François Couperin died in Paris.

Shortly before his death, Couperin had renewed his privilege to allow the printing of his unpublished works. None of his heirs performed that task, and thus a significant portion of his works was lost. Little material remains of Couperin that provides any insight into the person Couperin. No correspondence has survived; letters he allegedly exchanged with Bach would have been used as jam closures. Impressions of contemporaries are rare, nor was he the man who played a notable role in the society life of the time.

At the height of his musical career, Couperin was considered a harpsichord and organ composer and teacher second to none. He was also known internationally; Johann Sebastian Bach included his Les Bergeries (6th ordre, second book) in the Notenbüchlein für Anna-Magdalena Bach. In addition to his position at court, which was for the first quarter of the year (the other three quarters the other three musician-composers were in office), Couperin also had to fulfill his obligations at St. Gervais. A busy life, which, as he points out in the preface, explained for him the late appearance of his first harpsichord book. In France, contemporaries - Nicholas Siret, Louis-Antoine Dornel, Michel Pignolet de Montéclair - dedicated works to him.

Antoine Forqueray named one of his gamba pieces after him; and Couperin in turn named one of his harpsichord pieces after him, La Superbe ou la Forqueray in the 17th ordre from the third book. Later composers also dedicated works to him: Claude Debussy his Études and Maurice Ravel his Le tombeau de Couperin. Johannes Brahms, together with Chrysander, provided the first complete edition of Couperin's harpsichord works. Richard Strauss arranged harpsichord works for his 1923 Suite for small orchestra. Interest in Couperin is significantly lower in the Netherlands than elsewhere, and if it is interest in a Couperin here then it is in his uncle Louis Couperin. The strongly sensual nature of François Couperin's music, with a sense of humor and not entirely focused on strict contemplation, means that the kind of compositions Couperin wrote - and those of, for that matter, many of his French contemporaries and later baroque and rocco composers - are dismissed by Dutch baroque music lovers, all too quickly and easily, as woozy and

Couperin's theoretical work L'Art de Toucher le Clavecin (The Art of Playing the Harpsichord) is invaluable because it gives both the view of an early-18th-century composer himself on how he wanted his work performed, but moreover because it provides a wealth of information on the performance praxis of keyboard music of the Baroque and that of the French in particular. Written in a sympathetic, almost endearing style in which the reader is directly addressed, the work includes an allemande and eight preludes. Couperin is not the composer of grandiose musical-architectonic constructions like Bach's Kunst der Fuge or Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata, but the grand master of musical invention on the square centimeter, a miniaturist, who was able to create an atmosphere unparalleled within a relatively short musical scope.

Religious vocal music

Voornamelijk opgenomen in de Recueil d'airs sérieux et à boire (1679-1712)

Sources

1. François Couperin
2. François Couperin
3. ^ Beaussant 1990, p. 348.
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5. 3,0 3,1 (Αγγλικά) SNAC. w6qn6d1k. Ανακτήθηκε στις 9  Οκτωβρίου 2017.
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7. ^ a b "Le Muse", De Agostini, Novara, 1965, Vol.III, pag.478-479
8. (en) « https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francois-Couperin-French-composer-1668-1733 », sur britannica.com