François Couperin on Music Theory Print

L'Apothéose de Lully

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Background#

Lully, a master of French Baroque music and the father of the French overture, famously disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. Couperin, however, wanted to accomplish a : reconciling the national distinctions of style, tradition, and forms of interpretations that differed between France and Italy. As Couperin himself states in the preface to Les goûts-réunis, “I have always highly regarded the things which merited esteem, without considering either composer or nation; and the first Italian sonatas which appeared in Paris more than 30 years ago, and which encouraged me to start composing some myself, to my ming wronged neither the works of M de Lully, not those of my ancestors, who will always be more admirable than imitable. And so, by a right which my neutrality gives me, I remain under the happy influence which has guided me until now.” Despite hailing from a large family of French musicians, Couperin is credited with bringing the trio sonata form, greatly developed in Italy by Arcangelo Corelli, to France. In 1724, he published the Apotheosis of Corelli, as a tribute to the symmetrical and precise Italian Baroque style that made Corelli an Italian Baroque master. A year later, the Apotheosis of Lully was first published, “to do honour to the greatest man in music whom the preceding century had produced”, and to reconcile the differences between French and Italian Baroque music. By depicting the union of Lully and Corelli, both in Elysium and in musical style, Couperin continued to break down the barriers between French and Italian music, proving that a union between the two can be successful. In 1949, the piece was featured on the first microgroove record to be produced in Europe, recorded by André Charlin and conducted by Roger Désormière. Couperin himself called a “harmonic panegyric”. It has been called “the composer’s artistic and aesthetic manifesto” and “one of the final flowerings of Couperin’s ambition”.

L'art de toucher le clavecin

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Publication history and contents#

There are no known autograph copies of the treatise, but copies survive of the two versions published during Couperin’s lifetime. The 1716 edition of the work included eight simple Preludes and an original Allemande, technique exercises and instructions, fingering notes for passages in Pièces de Clavecin, and an essay about ornamentation. The 1717 edition added a new preface and a supplement outlining fingering for the second book of Pièces de Clavecin. L’art de toucher le clavecin was one of the last books to include unmeasured preludes for harpsichord (though bar numbers were added for teaching purposes), along with Nicolas Siret’s second volume of harpsichord pieces (Second livre de pièces de clavecin, published in 1719).

Leçons de ténèbres (Couperin)

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Les Barricades Mystérieuses

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The work is in rondeau form, employing a variant of the traditional bergamasca in the bass in quadruple time rather than the usual triple time. In the view of Tom Service,

Title#

Les Barricades Mystérieuses was originally published with the spelling ‘Les Baricades Mistérieuses’ “single r” in the first word, and “i” rather than “y” in the second word . All four possible spelling combinations have since been used with “double r” and a “y” being the most common. The intended meaning of the phrase has remained an enigma (an example of how musical allusions can remain hidden over time). There has been much speculation on the meaning of the phrase “mysterious barricades”, but no direct evidence appears to be available. The harpsichordist Pascal Tufféry has suggested that, in keeping with the bucolic character of other pieces in Couperin’s Ordre 6ème de clavecin, the pounding rhythm may represent the stamping of grapes in winemaking (given that the French word barrique means ‘barrel’, and barriquade was a designation adopted by viticulturalists of the day in France). ). Other suggested intended meanings for the title include: * impeding communication between people * between past and present or present and future * between life and death * masks worn by performers of Le Mystère ou les Fêtes de l’Inconnu (The Mystery or the Celebrations of the Unknown) staged by one of Couperin’s patrons, the Duchesse du Maine in 1714 * a “technical joke…the continuous suspensions in the lute style being a barricade to the basic harmony”.