François Couperin

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François Couperin, engraving by Jean Jacques Flipart, 1735, after André Bouys.

François Couperin (born November 10, 1668 in Paris ; † September 11, 1733 ibid), also called "Le Grand", was a French organist and composer . He is considered the most important representative of the French organist, harpsichordist and composer family Couperin and, as the court composer of Louis XIV, was one of the most important musical personalities in France between Lully and Rameau .

Life

François Couperin, anonymous portrait.

François Couperin received his first music lessons from his father Charles and his uncle François of the same name. He also got to know the work of his other uncle Louis Couperin . From 1685 to 1723 he was - like most members of his family - organist at the Church of St-Gervais in Paris. After the untimely death of his brothers Louis and Charles, he was still too young for the post which the respected organist Michel-Richard Delalande had temporarily assumed.

In 1693 Couperin was given the post of organist at the Royal Chapel in Versailles. When Lully died in 1687 and Louis XIV became seriously ill, the musical taste of the king and his court changed. Ludwig's second wife, Madame de Maintenon , turned his interest to the more thoughtful church and chamber music. In the official prelude competition for one of the three organist positions, Couperin's play and compositions prevailed against seven other candidates; the king, however, left him (as usual) in the dark for three days.

François Couperin's office was very complex: he became a teacher for the royal family in Versailles, served as an orchestra and organist for three months a year and also worked in the church of St-Gervais. When Ludwig appointed him court composer for sacred music , it meant a considerable investment of time: the musically gifted king wanted to hear each piece only once at the festivities, concerts and the daily ceremonial in the palace chapel .

While Lalande, as the “maître” of the orchestra, composed the great choral and instrumental works in the style of Lully, Couperin wrote mainly motets and psalms in the style of chamber music (three-part works with one or two singers, organ / harpsichord and a bass viola).

Throughout his life, Louis XIV saw faith and the church as important pillars of his power and its legitimation (“ divine right ”). Accordingly, he also cultivated it in the form of music and also appreciated Couperin's masses, of which the “à l'usage ordinaire des paroisses pour les fêtes solemnelles” mass is the best known.

In addition to the organ, Couperin was also a gifted harpsichordist, was soon called "Maître de Clavecin du Duc de Bourgogne" and teacher of princes and princesses. From 1714 he went to Versailles almost every Sunday, where the royal chamber concerts with his “Concerts royaux” took place in the afternoons. The ensemble was mostly just small: harpsichord (mostly Couperin), violin, bass viola, oboe and bassoon. These small concerts, composed exclusively for the king, were entertaining and gracefully charming, which the now 75-year-old Louis XIV highly valued. In them Couperin sought to unite the playful Italian and the more serious French taste, as he himself wrote about his “Concerts royaux”.

When Ludwig died in 1715, Couperin found new patrons at the court, but things became very quiet at Versailles under the interim regent Cardinal Fleury . The cardinal did not think much of representation and celebrations and reduced them to a minimum. So François Couperin was able to concentrate on his organist office in St-Gervais again until he gave it up in 1723 for health reasons. In addition, he continued to give lessons for members of the royal family, including the Polish Princess Maria Leszczyńska , wife of Louis XV.

Couperin has been namesake for Couperin Bay , a bay on Alexander I Island in Antarctica , since 1977 .

Works

The focus of his work are over 240 harpsichord works, which he combined into 27 suites and published in four volumes (1713, 1716/17, 1722 and 1730). He has given the individual movements of these “ordres” headings that are intended to indicate the character of the piece. He also composed motets , chansons , two organ masses, trio sonatas and the programmatic chamber music works Apothéose de Corelli and Apothéose de Lully . His only theoretical work is " L'art de toucher le clavecin ".

Discography

Literature (selection)

  • Eta Harich-Schneider : Tender world: François Couperin in his time. Berlin 1939
  • M. Reimann: Investigations into the formal history of the French piano suite with special consideration of Couperin's Ordres . Regensburg 1940
  • Philippe Beaussant : François Couperin , translation; Alexandra Land, Portland: Amadeus Press 1990, ISBN 0-931340-27-6
  • Hans Rudolf Picard: The representation of affects in baroque music as a semantic process: illustrated and proven using examples from the Pièces de clavecin by François Couperin . Constance 1986

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Couperin, François
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Le Grand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French organist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH November 10, 1668
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1733
Place of death Paris