François Couperin, (1668-1733). Anonymous artist, Collection of the Château de Versailles.

François Couperin (pronounced [fʀɑ̃swa kuˈpʀɛ̃]) (November 10, 1668 – September 11, 1733) was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. Events 1444 - Battle of Varna: The crusading forces of King Vladislaus III of Varna (aka Ulaszlo I of Hungary and Wladyslaw Events 9 - The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest ends 506 - The Bishops of Visigothic Gaul Year 1733 ( MDCCXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Baroque art redirects here Please disambiguate such links to Baroque painting, Baroque sculpture, etc François Couperin was known as "Couperin le Grand" (Couperin the Great) to distinguish him from the other members of the musically talented Couperin family. The Couperin family was a dynastic musical family of professional Composers and performers

Life

Couperin was born in Paris. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city 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. An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or Orchestra, or accompany The St-Gervais-et-St-Protais Church of Paris sheltered one of the most famous dynasties of French musicians during more than two centuries since 1653 the 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. Early years Birth and ancestry Louis XIV was born in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye on September 5 1638 and bore the Heir apparent Early years Birth and ancestry Louis XIV was born in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye on September 5 1638 and bore the Heir apparent

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. In Music, a suite is an ordered set of Instrumental or Orchestral pieces normally performed in a Concert The violin is a bowed String instrument with four strings usually tuned in Perfect fifths It is the smallest and highest-pitched member The viol (also called viola da gamba) is any one of a family of bowed, Fretted stringed Musical instruments developed in the 1400s "Hautbois" redirects here for the strawberry variety see Hautbois strawberry. The bassoon is a Woodwind instrument in the Double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and Tenor registers and occasionally A harpsichord is a Musical instrument played by means of a keyboard.

Couperin died in Paris in 1733.

Works

François Couperin, (1668-1733). Etching by Jean-Jacques Flipart, 1735, after painting by André Boüys.

See also List of compositions by François Couperin. The following is a complete list of compositions by François Couperin.

Couperin acknowledged his debt to the Italian composer Corelli. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section --> Arcangelo Corelli (February 17 1653 &ndash January 8 1713 was a French Violinist He introduced Corelli's trio sonata form to France. The trio sonata is a Musical form which was particularly popular around the 17th century and the 18th century 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"). Mythology Mount Parnassus is named after Parnassos the son of the Nymph Kleodora and the man Kleopompus.

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. A keyboard instrument is any musical instrument played using a Musical keyboard. They influenced J.S. Bach. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section.2 This article is written in British English including maximised use of "-ise" 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, published in Paris in 1713, 1717, 1722, and 1730, contain over 230 individual pieces, which can be played on solo harpsichord or performed as small chamber works. These pieces were not grouped into suites, as was the common practice, but ordres, which were Couperin's own version of suites containing traditional dances as well as descriptive pieces. The first and last pieces in an ordre were of the same tonality, but the middle pieces could be of other closely-related tonalities. These volumes 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). Richard Georg Strauss (11 June 1864 &ndash 8 September 1949 was a German Composer of the late Romantic era and early modern era particularly noted Le Tombeau de Couperin is a Suite for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, composed between 1914 and 1917

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. Richard Georg Strauss (11 June 1864 &ndash 8 September 1949 was a German Composer of the late Romantic era and early modern era particularly noted

Johannes Brahms's piano music was influenced by the keyboard music of Couperin. Johannes Brahms ( pronounced ˈbʁaːms (May 7 1833 &ndash April 3 1897 was a German Composer 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. Karl Franz Friedrich Chrysander ( July 8, 1826 - September 3, 1901) was a German music historian and critic, whose

As the early-music expert Jordi Savall has pointed out, Couperin was the "poet musician par excellence. Jordi Savall i Bernadet (born 1941 in Igualada, Catalonia, Spain) is a Viol player conductor, and Composer. " 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).

Organ

Only one collection of organ music by Couperin survives, the Pièces d'orgue consistantes en deux Messes (Pieces for organ consisting of two Masses), the first manuscript of which appeared around 1689-90. ^[1] At only age 21, Couperin likely had neither the funds nor the reputation to justify widespread publication, but the work was approved by his teacher, Michel De Lalande, who wrote that the music was "very beautiful and worthy of being given to the public. "^[2] The two Masses were intended for different audiences: the first for parishes or secular churches ("paroisses pour les fêtes solemnelles"), and the second for convents or abbey churches ("couvents de religieux et religiouses"). These masses are divided into many movements in accordance with the traditional structure of the Latin Mass: Kyrie (5 mvts. Kýrie is from the Greek word κύριε (kyrie the Vocative case of κύριος (kyrios meaning O Lord. ), Gloria (9), Sanctus (3), Agnus (2), and two additional movements (an Offertoire and a Deo gratias to conclude each mass). " Gloria in excelsis Deo " ( Latin for "Glory to God in the highest" is the title and beginning of a hymn known also as the Greater Doxology Sanctus is the Latin word for holy or saint and is the name of an important Hymn of Christian Liturgy. Agnus Dei is a Latin term meaning Lamb of God, and was originally used to refer to Jesus Christ in his role of the perfect sacrificial Offertory (from the Ecclesiastical Latin offertorium, French offertoire, a place to which offerings were brought the Alms

In composing the masses, Couperin follows techniques used in masses by Nivers, Lebègue, and Boyvin, as well as other predecessors of the French Baroque era. Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers (1632-1714 was a French musician who was born lived and died in Paris. Nicolas-Antoine Lebègue (1631 &ndash July 6, 1702) was a French Baroque Composer, Organist and Harpsichordist Jacques Boyvin (c 1649 &ndash June 30 1706 was a French Baroque Composer and Organist. In the paroisses Mass, he uses plainchant from the Missa cunctipotens genitor Deus as a cantus firmus in two Kyrie movements and the first Sanctus movement; the Kyrie Fugue also uses a chant incipit to derive its subject. For the band see " Plainsong (band " For the song on The Cure's 1989 album see " Disintegration " The couvents Mass contains no plainchant, as each convent and monastery maintained its own, nonstandard body of chant. Couperin departs from his predecessors in many ways, however; the melodies of the Récits are strictly rhythmic and more directional than previous examples of the genre. Willi Apel writes that "this music shows a sense of natural order, a vitality, and an immediacy of feeling that breaks into French organ music like a fresh wind. Willi Apel ( October 10, 1893 &ndash March 14, 1988) was a German-American Musicologist. "^[3]

The longest piece in the collection is the Offertoire sur les grands jeux of the first Mass. The form is akin to that of an expanded French overture, in three large sections: a prelude, a chromatic fugue in minor, and a gigue-like fugue. Bruce Gustafson has called the movement a "stunning masterpiece of the French classic repertory. "^[4] The second Mass also contains an Offertoire with a similar form, but this movement is considered by some, along with the rest of the Mass, to be rather inferior to the first. Apel writes, "In general, [Couperin] did not expend the same care for this Mass, which was written for modest abbey churches, as for the other one, which he himself certainly presented on important holidays on the organ of Saint-Gervais. "^[5]

See also

• French organ school

Media

Listen to François Couperin's Le Réveille-Matin (The Alarm Clock) (MIDI file). MIDI ( Musical Instrument Digital Interface, ˈmɪdi is an industry-standard protocol that enables Electronic musical instruments Computers

References

• Willi Apel: The History of Keyboard Music to 1700, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972, p. 736-738.
• Bruce Gustafson: "France" in Keyboard Music Before 1700, ed. Alexander Silbiger, New York: Routledge, 2004, p. 115-116.
• Edward Higginbottom. "Couperin: (4) François Couperin (ii) [le grand]", Grove Music Online, ed. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an Encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians L. Macy (accessed 30 November 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access). Events 1700 - Battle of Narva — A Swedish army of 8500 men under Charles XII defeats Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century.
• John Gillespie: Five Centuries of Keyboard Music: An historical survey of music for harpsichord and piano, New York NY: Dover Publications, Inc. , 1965. ISBN 0-486-22855-X
• Philippe Beaussant: François Couperin, translated from the French by Alexandra Land, Portland OR: Amadeus Press, 1990. ISBN 0-931340-27-6

Notes

1. ^ Information in this section, unless specified otherwise, is from Gustafson 2004 and Apel 1972.
2. ^ Gustafson 2004, p. 115.
3. ^ Apel 1972, p. 737.
4. ^ Gustafson 2004, p. 116.
5. ^ Apel 1972, p. 738.

External links

• Free scores by François Couperin in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• François Couperin was listed in the International Music Score Library Project
• Kunst der Fuge: François Couperin - MIDI files

Organ recordings

"Mass for the Convents":

• WAV files of Kyrie movements: Kyrie 1 (Plein jeu) (2. The Werner Icking Music Archive, often abbreviated WIMA, is a web archive of Public domain Sheet music. The International Music Score Library Project ( IMSLP) is a project for the creation of a virtual library of Public domain music scores, based on the 7 mb), Kyrie 2 (Fugue) (4. 2 mb), Kyrie 5 (Dialogue) (4. 9 mb)