François Couperin, “le Grand” (1668–1733)
Pièces de Clavecin: Ordre VIII and Ordre XXIV

François Couperin was born into a family that was musically illustrious both in Paris and at the royal court, but he surpassed his forebears in fame, and none of his successors was to call into question the designation of him as “the great Couperin”. When he was born in 1668, his famous uncle, Louis, had been dead for seven years, and his father Charles, who had succeeded Louis as organist of St Gervais in Paris, died just ten years later, leaving François the inheritor of a tradition and a prestigious organ post, but without a teacher or rôle-model within the family. Jacques Thomelin became a second father to the promising boy, and it was probably he who shaped his understanding of the harpsichord. Although François Couperin was to compose for many media, it was his enormous output of harpsichord music (more than 200 pieces published in four volumes) that was primarily responsible for his fame in France and abroad. He did not merely continue the stylistic traditions of Thomelin, D’Anglebert, and Louis Couperin, however, and in 1743 Titon du Tillet observed that his harpsichord pieces were “in a new style and of a character that showed the composer to be original”. The two works presented here reflect both Couperin’s place at the apogee of the French harpsichord tradition and his innovations within that style.

Couperin published Ordred VIII in his second book of harpsichord pieces in 1717. Although he used the term “ordre” rather than “suite”, it is fruitless to search for some nuanced distinction between the two terms, as this Ordre clearly demonstrates. Its organization is, in fact, unusually close to the ordering of pieces by composers in the previous century. Their harpsichord suites (rarely so named) consisted of an opening allemande, one or more courantes, a sarabande, and then quicker dance movements, often including a gigue, and often ending with a short and light dance. Couperin’s noble Ordre VIII in B minor, follows this scheme explicitly. Thus, at least in organization, we hear Couperin the traditionalist; but within the individual movements there is much that is individual, particularly the merging of old French and new Italian traits, “les goûts réunis”, in Couperin’s own words.

The opening La Raphaéle, has all the elements of an allemande, even if the composer did not label it as such. Like almost all dance movements, it is in binary form (two sections, each usually played twice), and it projects its seriousness in slow quadruple metre with continuous rhythmic motion. In these qualities it could not be more French, but it is honouring the Italian Renaissance painter, Raphael, and in the second strain the allemande’s motion stops for theatrical rhetorical gestures. The succeeding, lighter Allemande may simultaneously be a homage to Italy (Ausonia—Ausonie in French—was the ancient name for a region of southern Italy and became a poetic name for all of Italy) and to a former pupil of Couperin’s, the Duke of Burgundy, Seigneur d’Ausone.

The pair of Courantes both have the characteristic rhythmic sway of the dance, juxtaposing two groups of three with three groups of two. But here again there are rhetorical interruptions of the traditional rhythms, as if the composer turns his head to speak directly to us, perhaps in Italian. The seriousness of this Ordre is nowhere more clear than in the grave, low, and richly ornamented Sarabande l’Unique. One of the things that is unique about it is the interruption of the slow triple metre, with frequent accents on the second beat, for two flashes of brilliant energy near the end.

After all this seriousness comes a quick dance, the Gavotte, that Couperin tempers with the performance instruction “tenderly”. The Rondeau is so named because of its form. This is the first time in the Ordre that Couperin abandons binary form, presenting a refrain form, the opening strain returning twice after contrasting sections. In spirit and rhythmic characteristics, however, it is a gentle minuet. The Gigue has the rhythmic verve of the dance, and it follows the tradition for French harpsichord gigues of being very linear, focusing on a well defined theme that is imitated as successive voices enter; the second strain’s theme is even more athletic than the first. At this point the crown jewel of the Ordre arrives, a grand Passacaglia in the French style: the majestic opening strain serves as a refrain, as in the earlier Rondeau, but here with no fewer than eight contrasting strains. It is perhaps the best illustration of Couperin’s extraordinary ability to exploit the sonic possibilities of the harpsichord, contrasting low and thick textures with the bright top range, and throughout taking advantage of the instrument’s ability to articulate rapid ornamental notes. The closing movement is a little Italian dessert honoring Couperin’s contemporary, Jean-Baptiste Morin. He was particularly known for his Italianate cantatas, and this movement is in the style of an Italian gigue, but refined with French suavity.

Ordre XXIV is from the composer’s last volume of harpsichord pieces (1730, three years before his death), and it shows how far his style had evolved away from the seventeenth-century dance suite. The old dance forms are still invoked, but pictorial titles and multi-sectioned forms dominate. The Ordre consists of a series of vignettes, contrasting A minor with A major, the noble with the cute, the twittering treble with the rich bass.

The opening pair of movements, the second itself a pair of binary forms, begins with a noble and grave Sarabande to paint a picture of the old lords with their distinguished haughtiness; but their gravity is perhaps illusory, as the piece exploits the treble range. The young lords, or fops, are athletic if given to chatter, their second part turning to the major mode. Les Dars-homicides (Fatal Darts) is to be played cheerfully, not for the sake of irony, but because these are Cupid’s darts; the piece is cast in a refrain form with three contrasting strains, remaining in the major mode. The refrain idea is extended and made much more sophisticated in Les Guirlandes (Garlands), in which the thorny and throaty refrain comes back more unpredictably, and with an entire binary form in the minor mode encapsulated within the major sections. Brinborions (Baubles) is appropriately glittering; it again contrasts the major and minor modes, but this time in no fewer than four binary sections, the last evoking the harpsichord’s primary bauble with a trill-like figure. La Divine-Babiche ou les amours badins (The Divine Little Dog or Playful Loves) presents a delicate balance between the voluptuous (Couperin’s performance instruction) and the coy (Couperin cautions the performer not to linger)—playful perhaps, but in the minor mode. La Belle Javotte, autre fois L'Infante (The Pretty Gavotte, formerly The Infanta) is a little dance apparently originally composed for the Infanta of Spain, ill-fated fiancée of Louis XV and a pupil of Couperin’s during that period. The closing, L'Amphibie, is one of Couperin’s most monumental movements. The title is deceptive, as it certainly is not meant to evoke land and sea. Rather, it refers to changeability. It has the rhythm and spirit of a French passacaglia, but it does not have the repetition scheme of one (although the opening does return at the very end), and it is extremely varied in every sense. It is largely in major mode, but with a significant number of minor strains in the middle, and there are six different tempo or style indications during its thirteen different sections (not counting repetitions). Just as its design differs so greatly from the marvelous passacaglia in the Eighth Ordre, its function here is not the same: it is a climax, not to be rounded off by a succeeding trifle.

Bruce Gustafson

The 1624 Johannes Ruckers harpsichord.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, harpsichords by the renowned Ruckers dynasty were esteemed above all others, and there was a minor industry devoted to ravalement, bringing them up to date.

This wonderful harpsichord was made in Antwerp in the year 1624, in the workshop of Johannes Ruckers. Its case, of willow or poplar, was probably painted in imitation marble on the outside, and covered with printed paper on the inside. The soundboard was gaily painted with flowers, fruits, birds and arabesques. It carried one set of 8’ (unison) strings and one set of 4’ (octave) strings . The two keyboards, each with a ‘short octave’ in the bass (an abridged key layout omitting most of the accidental notes), were at different pitches, the lower keyboard sounding a fourth deeper.

Around 1680, in France, the two keyboards were aligned at normal pitch, still with a short octave, and a second set of 8’ strings was added. The superb lid painting of Apollo, Pan and Marysas, and the elaborate Louis XIV stand were added. Then, around 1720, new chromatic keyboards were made, with the present compass of GG-d3 with no GG#. This was done without enlarging the case by lengthening the treble bridge, reducing the blocks on either side of the keyboard to a minimum and by making all the keys a little narrower in order to squeeze in three extra notes.

At about this point the instrument was acquired by J-F. de Lafaye, passing by marriage in 1806 to the de Sade family.

In 1980 I restored it, in the ‘Tempéraments Inégaux’ workshop, and it was acquired by the Musée d’Unterlinden.

The dark, noble sound of this instrument is witness to the Ruckers’ art and to the anonymous maker who performed the ravalement.

Christopher Clarke