Couperin

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The Couperin family was a well-known family of musicians in France, similar to the Bach family in Germany. It can be traced back to the 16th century. As organists, composers, harpsichords, harpists, singers and music teachers, the Couperins and their male and female family members influenced French music for more than 200 years, from the 17th to the middle of the 19th century. Its most important representatives were the two harpsichordists and composers Louis Couperin and François II Couperin "le Grand" ("the great one"). From the latter, an important and one of the earliest harpsichord schools was printed in 1716/1717: L'art de toucher le clavecin .

The three branches of the family go back to the brothers Louis, François I and Charles, who came from Chaumes-en-Brie , and around 1652/1653 by the royal harpsichordist Jacques Champion de Chambonnières during a serenade they gave him in honor , were discovered. From Easter Sunday 1653, Louis Couperin's first day of work there, members of this family held the office of organist at the parish church of Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais for 174 years .

The American event artist and feminist Judy Chicago added two musicians from the Couperin family to her list of 999 women on the Heritage Floor of her dinner party in the 1970s , thus stimulating gender research on the Couperin family. The Sophie Drinker Institute lists a total of 5 female members of the Couperin family in its musicians' lexicon, who, although well-known musicians during their lifetime, were ignored by the canon of modern music history.

Known family members

1. Louis Couperin (ca. 1626-1661); Harpsichordist, organist, viola player, composer.

2. François I. Couperin (1631–1701), also called " l'ainé " (the elder); Musician

  • Marguerite-Louise Couperin (between 1675 and 1679–1728), daughter of François I; Singer (soprano) and harpsichordist.
  • Nicolas Couperin (1680–1748), son of François I; Organist.
    • Armand-Louis Couperin (1727–1789), son of Nicolas; Composer and organist.
      • Pierre Couperin (1755–1789), son of Armand-Louis; Organist.
      • Gervais-François Couperin (1759–1826), son of Armand-Louis; Organist.

3. Charles Couperin (baptized in Chaumes-en-Brie on April 9, 1638, † in Paris in January or February 1678), organist and father of François.

  • François II Couperin “Le Grand” (1668–1733), son of Charles; Harpsichordist, organist, composer.
    • Marie-Madeleine (1690–1742), eldest daughter of François II Couperin “Le Grand” . Nun and organist in the Abbeye de Montbuisson monastery
    • Marguerite-Antoinette Couperin (1705- ~ 1778), daughter of François II Couperin “Le Grand” ; Harpsichordist and first woman Ordinaire de la Musique de la Chambre du Roi pour le Clavecin.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Family tree of the Couperin family. In: Annette Kreuziger-Herr, Melanie Unseld (Ed.): Lexicon Music and Gender . Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel / Stuttgart 2010. p. 177. (Contained in :) Philine Lautenschläger: Couperin, Familie p. 176–178.
  2. ^ Titon du Tillet in: Le Parnasse Français (1732). Here after: Alan Curtis, foreword to: Louis Couperin, Pièces de clavecin ( Le Pupitre LP. 18 ), Ed. par Alan Curtis, Paris: Heugel, 1970, p. XII.
  3. ↑ https://www.sophie-drinker-institut.de
  4. ↑ https://www.sophie-drinker-institut.de/lexikon