Harpsichord Pieces, Book 1, Suite 5, No.3: Seconde Courante
Suite in A Minor-Major: Sarabandes I and II. Rowland, Gilbert , harpsichord. Cuckston, Alan , harpsichord. Guillot, Sebastien , harpsichord. Vartolo, Sergio , harpsichord. Keyboard Sonata in D Major, K. Cummings, Laurence , harpsichord. Accentus Ensemble Wimmer, Thomas , Conductor. Halasz, Debora , harpsichord. Nouvelles suites de pieces de clavecin: Suite in G Major-Minor: Keyboard Sonata in F Minor, K. In , two years after the death of Louis XIV, he had one final court appointment, that of harpsichordist to the king—a post he relinquished to his daughter in when he felt his strength diminishing.
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Already seven years before that, he had passed on his post at Saint-Gervais to his cousin, Nicolas. He died on 11 September , just short of his sixty-fifth birthday. So much for the bare facts of his life.
What about his music? From Thomelin he must have received a thorough grounding in contrapuntal technique, but no doubt was also made aware of other styles. His first published works, the two organ masses , show an astonishing maturity for one so young. They also show how he synthesized what others had done before him: When Couperin was seventeen years old, Arcangelo Corelli — published his first book of trio sonatas for two violins and basso continuo. The young Frenchman was totally charmed by them, and wrote:. In order to fully understand Couperin, it is necessary to have an idea of the manners and habits during the reign of Louis XIV.
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Gesture and deportment were taught from a young age. Fluency and grace in movement were stressed, all to be accomplished with ease. Of course all of that is related to the dance, which was considered part of a general education, especially among the nobility. Louis XIV was an excellent dancer and is said to have practised the courante for several hours a day in his youth.
France led the way with dance music, contributing more to the history of music in the seventeenth century in that domain than in any other. The two—music and dance—were virtually inseparable, with gesture taking precedence over thematic discourse. Couperin wrote pieces for the harpsichord. Of those, were published in his four books of harpsichord pieces, grouped into 27 Ordres.
Rather than using the more conventional name of suite with its implied sequence of dances, the title ordre gave him more freedom in arranging the movements. In the first book Ordres 1 to 5 , published in when Couperin was already forty-five, he was no doubt collecting a lot of previously composed material, as the number of movements reaches a record twenty-four in the second Ordre.
Already, though, with the publication of his second book in , we have a new sense of unity that then remains to the end. No autograph manuscripts of any of the four books survive, although we are in possession of the original printed versions that were corrected by Couperin himself. The structure of the individual pieces falls roughly into three categories: In the preface to his first book of pieces, he wrote:.
Two and a half centuries later we are still perplexed by many of these titles. The next thing we are struck by is the huge number of ornaments and unusual signs in his pieces. This is probably enough to put a lot of people off playing it from the start. Leaving them out is not an option!
Fughe e Capricci Prelude in a-moll, BWV Sonata V in Fa Maggiore 6. That is easier said than done, as anyone who has attempted to play this piece knows well. Toccata I in D Major 'del Sn.
Again it is all related to gesture: It is all part of the melodic line and flow. Couperin felt this very keenly and was most explicit with his markings. Still in despair at what he was hearing, he wrote in the preface to his third book of pieces Indeed it takes a great deal of time and patience for it to become second nature. This aspect of his work has not always been well understood. An ornament badly played is like a smile in a toothless mouth. Having initially read through all pieces, I chose those which I felt translated the best to the modern piano, and which I found the most interesting.
This was the first time he used the same key throughout, and that alone gives this ordre a sense of unity that is lacking in many of the others. It is one of the most successful in concert performance as it has all the necessary ingredients to make a satisfying whole. In the third couplet, which moves up the keyboard, the melody is presented in thirds to provide a charming effect. The ornamentation is rich but not unnecessary: Wilfrid Mellers, who wrote the first English biography of Couperin in , remarks on the closeness of such a melodic line to the French language, which I believe is very true.
This is certainly one piece where that is needed. Here we are more reminded of Bach in his use of imitation and harmonic progressions. The title is indeed a mystery and Couperin left no clues. Everything is spread out, yet we hear each individual line clearly.
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Two bits of advice with which Couperin ends his treatise are important here: That is easier said than done, as anyone who has attempted to play this piece knows well. It has a slightly hypnotic effect, no doubt due to the recurring theme and the sounds emanating from the lower register.
Again in rondeau form, it has a musette imitating the drone of a bagpipe as the second couplet. This calm evocation of nature must have made an impression on J S Bach as he copied it into the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach , his second wife.
One interesting difference in the notation concerns the length of notes in the left hand: Hence, the edition is public domain in its country of origin or a government publication. Such editions are also public domain in Canada because they fail to meet the minimum 'threshold of originality' to qualify for copyright as an 'adaptation'. They may not be public domain elsewhere.
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