The Classical Music Book

82

U

ntil François Couperin’s

Ordres, or suites, French

keyboard music had largely

taken the form of Baroque popular

dances, such as the allemande,

courante, and sarabande. However,

in part due to his connections at

the French court, Couperin was

also familiar with Italian music,

including the sonata, a piece in

several movements for a small

group of instruments, which

involved no dancing or singing.

Sonatas of this period usually

had a two-part structure, with each

half repeated. As seen in the more

than 500 sonatas of Domenico

Scarlatti, they tended to focus on

technical virtuosity and the formal

modulation of melodies, rather than

changes of mood and feeling.

Ornamental flourishes

Although he used the sonata

structure in his music, Couperin

concentrated on grace and gesture,

swayed by the prevailing French

view of music as a sophisticated,

elegant, and even frivolous pastime.

Many of his works have descriptive

titles, which he claimed were ideas

that occurred to him as he was

writing. The careful balance he

struck between the lighthearted

French sensibility and the more

formal, structured Italian approach

gave his work wide appeal.

The keyboard works were

written entirely for harpsichord or

spinet. On these instruments, the

player has no control of volume.

Couperin incorporated subtle

embellishments into his music to

control its flow and intensity and,

unusually for the period, expected

performers not to add to, or

improvise around, what he had

written. Furthermore, he published

detailed instructions for these

“ornaments,” marking the notes

precisely as they should be played,

thereby codifying such signs for

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

French Baroque

harpsichord music

BEFORE

1670 Jacques Champion de

Chambonnières publishes

Les pièces de clavessin (“Pieces

for Harpsichord”), the first major

French work on harpsichords.

1677 Nicholas-Antoine

Lebègue writes Les pièces

de clavessin, the first dance

suites published in France.

AFTER

1725 J.S. Bach includes

Les bergeries (from Sixième

Ordre 1717) in his Notebook

for Anna Magdalena under

the title of Rondeau.

1753 C.P.E. Bach pens volume

1 of Versuch über die wahre

Art das Clavier zu spielen,

a treatise influenced by

Couperin’s L’art de toucher le

clavecin (“The Art of Playing

the Harpsichord”).

THE UNITING OF THE

FRENCH AND ITALIAN

STYLES MUST CREATE

THE PERFECTION OF MUSIC

PIÈCES DE CLAVECIN (1713), FRANÇOIS COUPERIN

I like better what

touches me than

what surprises me.

François Couperin

Pièces de clavecin (1713)

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