Full text of "FRANCOIS COUPERIN AND THE FRENCH CLASSICAL TRADITION"

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Francois Cotaperin.

and the French Classical Tradition

JSy the same

:IVLTJSXC AISTD

Frangois Couperin le Grand

Wilfrid Mellers

Francois Couperin

and die
French Classical Tradition

ROY PUBLISHERS - NEW YORK

PRINTED AND MANUFACTURED IN GREAT BRITAIN

Contents

PART I

LIFE AND TIMES

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Life 17

II Values and Standards in the Grand Siecle 28

III Taste during the Grand Sicle 49

IV Music, the Court, and the Theatre 59

PART n

THE WORK

V The Organ Masses 83

VI The Two-violin Sonatas 97

VII The Secular Vocal Works 128

VIII The Church Music 146

IX The Clavecin Works 188

X The Concerts Royaux and Suites for Viols 234

XI Chronology, Influence, and Conclusions 272

PART in
THEORY AND PRACTICE

XII Couperin's Theoretical Work, with Comments on

Rhythm, Ornamentation, and Phrasing 291

XIII Couperin's Resources and his use of them, with

Comments on the Modern Performance of his Work 3 22

CONTENTS

XIV Editions of Works by Couperin 337

Appendix A: The Authorship of the Organ Masses 341

Appendix B: The Organists of St Gervais 344

Appendix C: Lord Fitzwilliam and the French Clavecin
Composers 345

Appendix D: On the Tempo of the Eighteenth-century
Dance Movements 347

Appendix E: Georg Muffat on Bowing, Phrasing and
Ornamentation 350

Appendix F: Notes on the titles of Couperin's clavecin
pieces 356

Appendix G: Biographical Notes on the principal per-
sons mentioned in the text 363

Catalogue Raisonn 374

Gramophone Records of Works by Couperin 390

Bibliography 395

Index 401

Illustrations

I Portrait of Francois Couperin le Grand (by

Andre Bouys, engraved by Filbert 1735) Frontispiece

II The Church of St Gervais (Topographia facing page

Galliae Vol. I, 1655) 2 4

HI Veue de la Grande et Petite Escurie et des

deux Cours (La Description de Versailles) 48

IV Gardens of the Due d'Orleans (Topographia

Galliae, 1655) 74

V 'Dans le Gout Pastoral': Cours de la Reine

Mere (Topographia Galliae, 1655) 145

VI 'Dans le Gout burlesque': Watteau, Portrait

of Gilles (Louvre) 227

VII Watteau, Les Charmes de la Vie (Wallace

Collection) 271

VIII The Organ of St Gervais 330

DC The Organ of the Chapelle Royale 330

The design on the tide page is Couperin's coat-of-arms

and to the illustrious memory
of Francois Couperin le Grand

Preface

So FAR AS I am aware, this is the first book on Couperin le Grand
in English; indeed it is possibly the first comprehensive study of his
work in any language, for of die three French books on him known
to me, that of Bouvet is purely biographical while those of Tessier
and Tiersot do not claim to be more than introductory monographs.
(As such, they are both admirable.)

I have divided this study of Couperin into three sections. The first
gives the facts of his life and some account of the nature, values, and
standards of his community. Of the facts of his life, little is known,
and I have not indulged in speculation. For most of the information
contained in my introductory chapter I am indebted to the bio-
graphical sections of the previous books on Couperin referred to
above, with the addition of some documentary evidence more
recently published by M. Paul Brunold.

The chapters on the values and standards of the grand siecle do not
pretend to offer a revolutionary approach. My general attitude to the
period is influenced by the miscellaneous writings of Mr Martin
Turnell, published in Horizon, Scrutiny ', and elsewhere 1 especially
those on Racine, Moliere, Corneille, and La Princesse de Cleves, and
by a most interesting essay by Mr R. C. Knight also published in
Scrutiny, which was in part a criticism of TurnelTs account of
Racine. I have also found many hints worth following up, and
much useful information, in Mr Arthur Tifley's two books, From
Montaigne to Moliere and The Decline of the Age of Louis XIV. Most
of the information in my chapter on the court theatre music is
derived from the writings of the recognized authority on the period,
M. Henri Prunieres. These books are listed in the bibliography. In
this chapter, as in the others, I am of course responsible for the critical

1 Much of Mr TurnelTs work on the period is available in book form. (The
Classical Moment, 1948.)

PREFACE

comments on. the music and for the various analogies between Lully
and other artists.

In general I have tried where possible to base my remarks on con-
temporary documents, creative or critical, and perhaps I may claim
as original my attempt to state and interpret the relationships
between the various facets of grand siecle culture in manners, philo-
sophy, literature, painting, architecture, and music. I am aware that
comparisons between the arts are sometimes considered dangerous,
but I cannot see that, providing some technical basis is given to them,
they can be other than illuminating. One would certainly expect
artists working in different media but in similar conditions, with a
similar philosophical background, to have much in common. In any
case my whole approach presupposes an interrelation between the
arts, as manifestations of the human spirit, and life; and I have taken
pains to establish by frequent cross reference the close dependence of
the second part of the book on the first.

This second part includes some comment on everything Couperin
wrote. Even at the risk of monotony, I wished the book to serve as
a work of reference as well as a critical study. This section thus
stands in lieu of a thematic index. But of course the primary inten-
tion of this part is not merely informative but also critical. It aims to
assess Couperin's achievement in relation to his social and musical
background.

In such an attempt it is always difficult to decide how a book may
be most profitably arranged. Even if the dates of composition of
Couperin's works were all definitely established, a chronological
method would hardly be feasible if adequate consideration is to be
given to the various styles and conventions which Couperin em-
ploys. I have thus dealt in separate chapters with Couperin's con-
tribution to each of the genres current in his time, preserving some
hint of chronological sequence in so far as I deal with each genre at
the time in the composer's career when he showed most interest in
it. Thus I discuss the violin trio sonatas after the organ masses because
it was at that stage in his work that Couperin was most preoccupied
with the problems of the sonata convention. But he wrote other
violin sonatas late in his life, and these I have discussed in the same
chapter, since only as a whole can one assess Couperin's contribution
to this convention.

JTKBFACE

From some points of view it would have been more convenient
to the reader if I had discussed Couperin's predecessors not merely
the theatre music but all that he owed to die past in a preliminary
chapter, instead of scattering the information throughout the
chapters on each genre of his work. For instance, the reader who
knows something about the lutenists is in a better position than the
reader who knows nothing to approach any aspect of Couperin's
music. Yet an account of them undoubtedly fits most cogently into
the chapter on the keyboard music which thus views the evolution
of the clavecin school as a continuous process from the early years
of the grand siecle to Couperin le Grand. Moreover, by inserting a
proportion of general information and theory into the chapters on
particular branches of Couperin's work, I hope I have to some
extent palliated the monotony of many continuous pages of techni-
cal comment and analysis. If in this arrangement some duplication
and cross reference between the chapters is unavoidable, I do not
think this is necessarily a liability.

For Part II my main sources are of course Couperin's music, in
the Oiseau Lyre text (whose spelling and accentuation of tides is
adopted in this book), and the music of other relevant composers in
editions specified in the Bibliography. But I should mention that for
much of the information contained in the chapter on the secular
vocal works I have drawn on Theodore Gerold's study of Le Chant
au XVIIieme Siecle; and that I have found Paul-Marie Masson's com-
prehensive work on the operas of Rameau especially helpful with
reference to the dances and the social background of the Regency.

On the third section of the book no comment is necessary except
to remark that even in dealing with matters of theory and practice I
have tried not to forget their relation to aesthetic and social values.
One need hardly add that anyone who writes on eighteenth-century
musical theory owes much to the work of Arnold Dolmetsch and to
Dannreuther's book on Ornamentation.

Many people have helped me with comment and discussion. In
particular I must mention Mr R. J. White of Downing College,
Cambridge, and Mr Alan Robson of Oxford University, who have
made many useful suggestions about the first part of the book. Mr
Felix Aprahamian has lent me music from his library and has dis-
cussed seventeenth-century French organ music with me; Mr Eric
Mackerness has made various incidental criticisms.

PREFACE

But most of all I must pay a tribute to Mr C. L. Cudworth, of
the Pendlebury Library, Cambridge, and to Mr R. C. Knight, of
the French Department of Birmingham University. Mr Cudworth
has put his extensive knowledge of early eighteenth-century music
at my disposal and has unerringly directed my attention to music
in the Pendlebury, Rowe, and University Libraries which seemed,
however remotely, relevant to my subject. He has also read the
whole of the manuscript, making many pertinent criticisms; and has
compiled the catalogue raisonne of Couperin's music. I cannot too
strongly express my gratitude both for his erudition and for his
enthusiasm.

Mr Knight has undertaken the arduous task of reading and check-
ing the proofs, especially the French quotations. He has corrected
me on several points of fact, and has discussed with me many of my
opinions. Both his knowledge and his sympathy have proved
invaluable.

Finally I must convey my thanks to my publisher for his unfailing
courtesy and generosity in dealing with more than two hundred
music type quotations and many not easily accessible illustrations, at
a time when even the simplest kind of book production is beset with
difficulties.

W. H. M.

CAMBRIDGE, August 1949

Parti

Life and Times

Rien n'est beau que le vrai.

BOILEATJ

We Polish one another, and rub off our Corners and Rough
Sides, by a sort of Amicable Collision.

SHAFTESBURY

I think, moderately speaking, that the Vulgar are generally
in the wrong.

SHENSTONE

Chapter One

The Life

AFTER THE BACH family the Couperins are probably the most dis-
tinguished of all musical dynasties. Little is known about their origin
though it is rumoured that there was foreign blood in their veins
some time in the sixteenth century. At the beginning of the seven-
teenth a Mathurin Couperin was village lawyer at Beauvoir, in Brie.
His son Denis succeeded him and eventually advanced to become a
royal notary. Another son, Charles, set up as a tradesman in the
neighbouring town of Chaumes. He was an amateur musician of
some ability, playing the organ at the parish church and also at the
Benedictine abbey in the town. He was the grandfather of Couperin
le Grand. Three of his eight children became professional musicians,
laying the foundations of the Couperin 'dynasty'. These three were
Louis, born in 1626, Francois I, born some time between 1627 and
1633, and Charles, born in 1633.

The story of how the Couperins entered the fashionable musical
life of Paris is well known, picturesque, and authentic since^it comes
from the reliable contemporary chronicler Titon du Tillet We may
leave him to tell the tale in his own words:

Les trois fibres Couperin etoient de Chaume, petite ville de Brie assez
proche de la terre de Chambonniire. Ils jouoient du violon, et les deux ainez
r&ississoient tres bien sur 1'orgue. Ces trois fibres, avec de leurs amis, aussi
joueurs du violon, firent partie, un jour de la fete de M. de Chambonniere,
d'aller 4 son chateau lui donner une aubade; ils arriverent et se placerent i la
porte de la salle ou Chambonniere etoit a la table avec plusieurs convives,
gens d'esprit et ayant du gout pour la musique. Le maitre de la musique fut
surpris agr&blement de m&ne que tout la compagnie, par la bonne sym-
phonic qui se fit entendre. Chambonniere pria les personnes qui I'ex&utoient
d'entrer dans la salle et leur demanda d'abord de qui &oit la composition
des airs qu'ils avoient jouez; un d'entre eux lui dit qu'elle etoit de Louis
Couperin, qu'U lui pr&enta. Chambonnifere fit aussitdt son compliment
Louis Couperin, et 1'engagea avec tous ses camarades de se mettre a table; il
B I?

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

lui temoigna beaucoup d'amitie, et ltd dit qu'un homme tel que lui n'etoit
pas fait pour tester dans un province, et qu'il falloit absolument qu'il vint
avec lui a Paris; ce que Louis Couperin accepta avec plaisir. Chambonniere
le produisit a Paris et a la Cour, ou fl fut goute". II eut bientdt apres 1'orgue
de St. Gervais a Paris, et une des places d'organiste de la Chapefie du Roi.

The year of this musical tribute is not specified, but it was probably
about 1650, or earlier.

The post of organist at St Gervais was one with which the
Couperin family became intimately associated. Louis also played the
viol and violin in the ballet music of the court. When the great
Chambonnieres incurred the King's displeasure, for some reason
which we know nothing about, Louis was offered the much coveted
post of Joueur de 1'Epinette de la Chambre du Roi. He declined it
out of a sense of delicacy, but that the offer was made testifies to the
esteem in which he was held. It may have been as an alternative to
this position that he was offered a post as one of the King's official
organists; in any case he seems to have been affluent and highly suc-
cessful. He was studying the work of Chambonnieres and Gaultier,
and composing energetically himself when, on the crest of his for-
tunes, he died This was in 1661, in his thirty-fifth year.

The second son, the elder Francois, came to Paris a few years after
Louis. He too became a pupil of Chambonnieres, and an organist
and music teacher, but he does not seem to have shared either the
talent or the fame of his brothers. He lived in the parish of St Louis en
Tile and there is no evidence that he was ever organist of St Gervais,
though he may have helped out occasionally during the interim
period after Charles's death, when the busily fashionable La Lande
was locum tenens. It is certain that he never occupied the St Gervais
organist's house. 2

Charles, the third son, followed Louis to Paris after an interval of
a few years. He too became a pupil of Chambonnieres, and one of
the King's violinists associated with the ballet. When Louis Couperin
died he succeeded to the organ of St Gervais, married, and installed
himself in the ancient organist's house overlooking the graveyard.
Here, after seven years, a son, Francois, was born on die tenth of
November 1668. Eleven years later Charles, like Louis, died at an
early age. The little Francois, although only a child, inherited the

8 The question of the attribution of the great Francois's organ masses to the elder
Frangois is discussed in Appendix A.

THE LIFE

organist's post from his father, and continued to live with his mother
in the old house in the rue de Monceau. The church authorities
arranged that until Francois grew up the brilliant La Lande should
deputize for him on the organ, simultaneously fulfilling the duties of
his two other Parisian churches. Meanwhile Fran$ois had received a
thorough musical training from his father, with some help perhaps
from his uncle at St Louis en Tile and from the renowned organist,
Jacques Thomelin. After Charles's death, Thomelin became, accord-
ing to Titon du Tillet, a second father to Francois. He could not have
been in better hands. It was undoubtedly from Thomelin that
Franois learned the firm contrapuntal science, the mastery of the
old technique which is conspicuous in his first work, the organ
masses.

The contract made with La Lande had specified that he should
carry out the organist's duties until Couperin was eighteen. Owing
to the pressure of his commitments at court, La Lande was only too
pleased to leave St Gervais somewhat before the stated date; he can
have been in no doubt about the young Franois's proficiency either
as an executant or theoretical musician. Couperin took over the St
Gervais organ in his eighteenth year, in 1685 or early in 1686, Four
years later he married Marie Anne Ansault, of whom little is known.
In 1690 were born both his first child and the first fruits of his
musical creativity. He obtained a privilege du Roi to enable him to
publish, with La Lande's recommendation, his organ masses, but
funds ran out and the plan had to be abandoned. Instead, he had
several manuscript copies made, and bound them with an engraved
tide page saying that they were composed by * Francois Couperin de
Crouilly, organiste de St. Gervais'.

Two years later, in 1692, Francois thought he would show his
mettle as a fashionable composer by writing some sonatas in the
Italian manner. Many years afterwards, when he published the
works with some new sonatas, Couperin revealed an innocent
deception he had practised. The passage from the preface to the
sonatas is worth quoting, if only because the prose has so Couperin-
like a flavour:

La premiere Sonade de ce Receuil fat aussy la premiere que je composay
et qiri ait et compose en France. L'histoire meme en est singuliere. Charm
de cellcs de signor Corelli, dont j'aimeray les oeuvres tant que je vivray, ainsi

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

que les ouvrages francaises de M. de Lully, j'hasarday d'en composer une,
que ie fis executor dans le concert ou j 'avals entendu celles de Corelli. Et me

at de moi-meme, je me rendis, par un petit mensonge officieux, un
tres bon service. Je feignis qu'un parent que j'ay, effcctivement, auprs du
Roi de Sardaigne, m'avoit envoye* une Sonade cl'un nouvel Auteur italien:
je rangeay les lettres de mon nom, de facon que cela forma un nom italien
que je mis a la place. La Sonade fut deVore'e avec empressement; et j'en
tairay 1'apologie. Cela cependant m'encouragea, j'en fis d'autres. Et mon
nom italianis s'attira, sous le masque, de grands applaudissements. Mes
Sonades, heureusement, prirent assez de faveur pour que I'&jirivoque ne
m'ait point fait rougir.

It is clear however that by this time Francois was becoming famous
in his own right, without recourse to anagrams; for in the next year,
1693, he entered the King's service as one of the organists of the
Chapelle du Roi, having been chosen by Louis himself as 'le plus
experimente en cet exercice'. Four organists shared the royal chapel
between them, officiating for periods of three months yearly.
Couperin succeeded his old. master Thomelin; his colleagues were
Le Begue, Buterne, and Nivers. Once he had established this link
with the court, Francois progressed rapidly. In 1694 he was appointed
Maltre de Clavecin des Enfants de France, teaching the Duke of
Burgundy and almost all the royal children, at the same time as
Fenelon. He must by now have been in very comfortable material
circumstances; he was also gaining confidence in his creative work
which, although conceived in the Italian fashion, had already re-
vealed a decisive personality.

About this time, probably in 1696, Louis paid a tribute to
Couperin's distinction and celebrity by ennobling him. It was an
honour that was well deserved, for no man has had a more innate
aristocracy of spirit than Francois le Grand. Characteristically he
showed a touchingly innocent delight in the compliment, and was
still more overjoyed when, a few years later, he was made a Cheva-
lier of the Lateran order. He devised a coat of arms for himself,
incorporating a golden lyre as a symbol of his muse, and signed him-
self, with a flourish at once baroque and precise, Le Chevalier
Couperin, at the baptism of his daughter Marguerite-Antoinette in
1705-

During the first decade of the eighteenth century he was engaged
on the production of music which would soothe the King's increas-
20

THE LIFE

ing melancholy. A considerable part of his output was church music
written for Versailles. In much of it, very high and delicate soprano
parts were written for his cousin Marguerite-Louise, a daughter of
Francois the elder, who must have been a singer of remarkable accom-
plishment, if we are to judge from the words of Titon du Tillet:

Une quantit^ de Motets dont douze a grand choeur ont 6t6 chantes a la
Chapelle du Roi, devant Louis XIV, qui en fut fort satisfait de meme que
toute sa cour. La Demoiselle Louise Couperin, sa cousine, musidenne pen-
sionnaire du Roi, y chantait plusieurs versets avec une grande lg&rete* de
voix et un gout merveilleux.

The motet Qui dat Nivem was the first of Couperin's works to be
published except for a few slight airs de cour and clavecin pieces in
miscellaneous collections. It appears that at this period he also wrote
some secular cantatas, including one on the theme ofAriane abandonee,
but these are lost.

In addition to the church music Couperin also regularly produced
chamber music for the concerts du dimanche. Couperin's position as a
court musician is not very clear, for the Ordinaire de la. Musique at
the beginning of the century was officially d'Anglebert the younger,
and Francois did not succeed him until 1717. It is certain however
that Couperin was virtually in charge long before that date, and
probable that he presided at the clavecin from 1701 onwards.
D'Anglebert's ill-health and defective eyesight are possible reasons
for his failure to fulfil an office he ostensibly held; tkegalant sense of
delicacy and moral scrupulousness are possible reasons for his being
allowed to keep a tide which he did nothing to justify. In any case
Couperin had some of the most celebrated musicians of the day in
his charge. Forqueray the violist and Rebel the violinist were among
those who played with him at the concerts, and it may have been at
these entertainments that Marguerite-Louise sang the lost cantatas.
We know too that at this period of his life Couperin became the
intimate friend of the organist Gabriel Gamier, to whom one of the
loveliest of his early clavecin pieces is dedicated.

By 1710 Couperin was already known to his contemporaries as Le
Grand. Montedair, Siret, Dornel and many other disciples dedicated
works to him, expressing their recognition of his pre-eminence.
Francois himself seems to have been serenely conscious of his powers,
though this does not mean that his urbane irony, as revealed in his

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

prefaces, did not extend to himself. He had the true humility of
genius, and was always willing to pay deference to others when he
recognized genius in diem. He had a profound respect for La Lande,
and in the case of the great Marin Marais went so far as to hold up
the production of one of his works because, 'ayant tous deux le
mSme graveur', the publication of his work would have interfered
with the publication of Marais's. The only two musicians of conse-
quence who seem to have distrusted Francois were Lecerf de la
Vieville and Louis Marchand. Lecerf de la Vieville, author of a
famous book on the conflict between the French and Italian styles,
suspected Couperin of a dangerous partiality for Italianism a rather
unreasonable charge when one recalls Couperin's often reiterated
desire to mate the two styles, and his many tributes to his 'ancetres'
and to the incomparable Lully, 'le plus grand homme en musique
que le dernier siecle ait produit'. Marchand seems to have been a
difficult person on any count. He was hostile to Couperin not be-
cause he regarded him as a fanatical adherent of any musical cause
but throughjealousy, partly professional, partly personal. The legend
that there was a woman in tie case, recounted by the unreliable son
ofd'Aquinde Chateau-Lyon, is not otherwise authenticated. Signifi-
cantly, if the stories about him are true, Marchand seems to have felt
about Bach very much as he felt about Couperin. A man of remark-
able talent 3 and originality, he wrote music which is in some ways
frustrated and unresolved; it may well have been the lucidity, the
objectified quality, of Bach's and Couperin's music that so exasper-
ated him. Most probably his exasperation has been grossly exagger-
ated with the passing of the years.

During the period of his court activities Couperin returned to
Paris periodically to teach and to direct the services at St Gervais.
He had moved from the old organist's house as early as 1697 and
lived in a succession of Parisian houses up to 1724, each dwelling
growing more majestic as his reputation advanced. On the four-
teenth of May 1713, he took out a privilege du Roi to publish his

8 Cf. Dr Burney: 'Marchand was one of the greatest organ players in Europe
during the early part of the present century. Rameau, his friend and most formidable
rival, frequently declared that the greatest pleasure of his life was hearing Marchand
perform; that no one could compare with hi in the management of a fugue; and
that he believed no musician ever equalled him in extempore playing.' (A Getterd
History of Music.) * * 7 * \

THE LIFE

work, and this time was able to carry it through. He first printed
his first book of clavecin pieces, which had been written intermit-
tently over the last ten or fifteen years; in the next year he began to
publish his Lemons des Tenebres, but this project was unfortunately
never completed, so that only three out of nine survive. In 1716
appeared his theoretical work, L'Art de toucher le Clavecin; and the
second book of clavecin pieces in 1717, in which year, on the fifth of
March, he at last officially inherited the post of Ordinaire de la
Musique. He was still writing concert music for the king's evening
entertainment during these years, and after Louis's death continued
to act as Maitre de Clavecin aux Enfants de France. (He taught the
little princess, the wife-to-be of Louis XV, from 1722 to 1725.)
Couperin was forty-seven when Louis XIV died. During the
Regency he published his third book of clavecin pieces, and some
of the Concerts, under the tide of Les Gofits Retinis. The success of
these encouraged him to publish some of his early Italian violin
sonatas, adding a * French' suite to each of them to redress the
balance and incorporating one completely new work. The whole
collection, called Les Nations, appeared in 1726.

For two years the Couperins had now been settled in a beautiful
new house in the rue Neuve des Bons Enfants. We know almost
nothing about the kst ten years of his life. In 1728 he published the
suites for viols and also a Benedixisti which seems to have been a
revival of a work dating from 1697. The fourth book of clavecin
pieces, put together with the help of his family, was published in
1730. Never very strong, he was intermittently ailing from his early
forties; the preface to the fourth book is valedictory in tone:

II y a environ trois ans que ces pieces sont achevees, mais comme ma sante
diminue de jour en jour, mes amis me conseillent de cesser de travailler et je
n'ay pas fait de grands ouvrages depuis. Je remercie le Public de I'aplaudisse-
ment qu'il a bien voulu leur donner jusqu'icy; et je crois en mlriter une
partie par le zele que j'ai eu a lui plaire. Comme personne n'a gures plus
compose* que moy, dans plusieurs genres, j'espere que ma Famille trouvera
dans mes portfeuttles de quoy me faire regretter, si les regrets nous servent
a quelque chose apres la vie, mais il faut du moins avoir cette ide*e pour
tidier de me'riter une immortalite chimerique ou presque tous les Homines
aspirent.

The tinge of irony in this gravely measured prose only makes its
cadence the more poignant; in much of the music which follows

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

this preface we may find a comparable union of melancholy with an
objectified precision, a detachment from the merely personal. The
last two clavecin ordres, perhaps the most civilized music that even
Couperin ever wrote, are his farewell to civilization and the world.
In 1723 he had handed over the St Gervais organ to Nicolas, a son
of Francois 1'aine; in 1730 he relinquished his remaining posts, his
daughter Marguerite-Antoinette becoming Ordinaire de la Musique
for the interim period until d'Anglebert died.

Couperin died on the twelfth of September 1733, in the big,
elegant house in the rue Neuve des Bons Enfants. Another daughter,
who was also a musician, became a nun. A son, Nicolas-Louis,
born in 1707, presumably died in infancy, for nothing is known of
him. Six months before his death Couperin had taken out a second
privilege du Roi, on the expiration of the period of twenty years
covered by the privilege of 1713. His intention, referred to in the
preface to his fourth book, that his wife and relations should under-
take the production of his unpublished works, was not fulfilled. His
wife, a shadowy figure throughout, possibly had little business sense
or initiative; his nephew Nicolas, to whom the task was entrusted,
seems to have been irresponsible. Whatever the reason, nearly all
Couperin's music apart from that which he himself published is lost.
The missing manuscripts include a considerable amount of church
music and 'occasional' concert music, but probably not any impor-
tant clavecin works.

After Franfois's death themusical direction of St Gervais remained
in the hands of the Couperin family for several more generations.
Nicolas's son Armand-Louis, and then his grandsons Pierre-Louis
and Gervais-Fran^ois, followed in the succession. They were all
reputable musicians, both as executants and composers, but their
distinction declines progressively with the civilization that produced
them. The Revolution meant die end of the world that had made
the glory of the Couperins possible; perhaps they were ill-adapted to
survival in the strange new world which was inevitably emerging.
Gervais-Fran^ois died in 1826 in circumstances that were a bathetic
reversal of the great days of the first Louis or of Francois the great.
His daughter Celeste was given the thorough musical education
habitually accorded to members of the family and seems to have
been a competent organist. But her father was the last of the
24

THE LIFE

Couperins to officiate at St Gervais; Celeste declined to the status of
a second-rate piano teacher. In 1848, in indigence, she was obliged
to sell the family portraits to the state; the Couperins had become a
museum piece. She never married; and that was the end of the
Couperin dynasty. At least it would have been the end had not the
Couperins of the grand siede and of the age of the Roi Soleil left an
imperishable monument to their name in their music.

We have little direct evidence as to the kind of man the great
Francois was. No correspondence survives a regrettable fact since
we know that Couperin had a long correspondence about musical
matters with Bach; the letters not unnaturally disappeared after
being used as lids for jam-pots. 4 We know that Bach copied out
several of Couperin's scores for himself and Anna Magdalena, and
admired him above all French composers for Telegance et la melan-
colie voluptueuse de certains motifs, la precision et la noblesse dans
le rythme, enn une sobriete qui n'est pas toujours forcee, mais
temoigne parfois d'une louable discretion' (Pirro). From his prefaces
and other writings one gathers that Couperin was, as one might
expect, habitually courteous and urbane though capable of an acidu-
lated irony. Clearly he suffered fools, but did not suffer them gladly.
The beautiful portrait by Andre Bouys gives to Couperin a charac-
teristically compact and neat appearance; it does not surprise us that
this man wrote the music he did, or that he should have taken such
scrupulous pains over the engraving of his works and have left such
detailed instructions for their correct performance. In particular
Couperin's hands seem appropriate to the delicately lucid appearance
of his printed scores. But of course there is more to the portrait than
this; the essence lies not in the precision which belies any hint of
ostentation in the Louis XIV perruque, but in the large, rather
melancholy eyes, at once intelligent and sensitive. It is here that we
see the real Couperin, who is not so much a representative of his age
as its moral and spiritual epitome.

We know very little about the facts of Couperin's life. There are
speculations in plenty which can all be read in the largely hypo-
thetical biography of Bouvet. But the essential facts I have given, and
they are not many. When one has said that, one has only to look at

4 This story was related to Charles Bouvet by Mme Arlette Taskin, who claimed
that it was handed down in her family from an ancestor who was a relative of Couperin.

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

Couperin's portrait to realize that the chain of facts, the sequence of
events, is not very important. We may have little evidence as to
what, on any specific occasion, was going on in Couperin's mind,
what he said or thought on this occasion or the other, what other
people said to him. But if we have little particular information, we
have a great deal of general evidence. As M. Tiersot has pointed out,
in the concerts and clavecin ordres we have Couperin's memoirs, a
microcosm of the world in which he lived. There are movements,
such as L'Auguste or La Majestueuse, which reflect the gallant bearing
of the King himself, and an easy familiarity with the great ones of
Society. There is the gracious gallery of portraits of noble ladies,
proud, tender, languid or coquettish. There are pieces, such as Les
Plaisirs de St. Germain en Laye, which tell of the exquisite pleasures of
the fete champetre. Other movements reflect the sights of the Parisian
streets which Couperin observed from his window in the rue Neuve
des Bons Enfants the martial glitter of soldiers (La Marche des Gris-
Vetus), the comic antics of acrobats and strolling players (Les Pastes
de la Grande etAndenne Menestrandise). Other movements again tell
of his love, as urbanely civilized as that of La Fontaine, for the
country, with memories of days spent in his youth in the pastoral
gentleness of Crouilly (the piece with that name, Les Moissonneurs,
La Musete de Choisy). And yet all these reflections of a world which
to Couperin was immediate and actual, are universalized in the pure
musicality of his technique. A world of life has become a world of
art.

For it is not the surface of the pictures that matters; it is the moral
and spiritual values which the pictures represent. Though we know
little about the facts of Couperin's life, we know much about the
ways people living in his society felt and thought; similarly we know
a good deal about the ways he felt and thought if we can listen
intelEgendy to his music. Knowledge of the values and standards of
his time will help us to listen intelligently ; conversely, listening to his
music is one of the ways, together with reading Corneille, Racine
and Moliere and looking at the pictures of Poussin and Claude,
whereby we learn what the values of his time were. In any case we
do not listen to Couperin's music merely to re-create the past; we
re-create this aspect of the past because we believe that it is of signifi-
cance for us. Apart from Racine and Moliere, no artist presents the
26

THE LIFE

values of his time, purified of all merely topical pomposity, with as
much precision as Couperin. If we can listen to his music adequately
we shall experience one of the most profound conceptions of civiliza-
tion which music has to offer. It can hardly be disputed that, the
conditions of the contemporary world being what they are, any-
thing which helps us to understand what the term Civilization might
mean is worth investigation.

It may be that Couperin's civilization seems hopelessly remote
from the problems with which we are preoccupied. If so, that is not
anything for us to be proud about. He still stands as a criterion: he
serves^ as a reimndgr^fddngs we^are^a^dljLiQr^tting. That we_
sEaUbe any die wiser for the lossof them, few would have the
temerity to claim. For myself, I do not even believe that we shall be
any the 'freer* or the happier.

Couperin's culture was a minority culture, and it was doomed
from tie start; many things about it were foolish, and some were
wicked. This does not alter the fact that it entailed values and stan-
dards which no serious conception of civilization can afford to
ignore. In the first part of this book we shall discuss in general
terms what these values and standards were. In the second part we
shall discuss their manifestation in the technique of Couperin's
music

Chapter Two

Values and Standards in the Grand Siecle

Chaque heure en soi, comme a notre gard, est unique:
est-elle &oule*e une fois elle a p&i entierement, les millions
de siicles ne la rameneront pas: les jours, les mois, les annexes,
s'enfoncent et se perdent sans retour dans Tablme des temps; le
temps meme sera detruit; ce n'est qu'un point dans les espaces
immenses de I'eternite', et il sera efface*. II y a de l^geres et
frivoles circonstances du temps, qui ne sont point stables, qui
passent et qui j'appelle des modes: la grandeur, la faveur, les
richesses, la puissance, Tautorite, Independence, le plaisir, les
joies, la superfluity Que deviendront ces modes, quand le
temps meme aura disparu? La vertu seule, si peu a la mode, va
au dela des temps.

Les extremit& sont videuses, et partent de Thomnie; toute
compensation est juste, et vient de Dieu.

LA BRUY^RE

THERE WOULD NOWADAYS, one imagines, be few dissentient voices
to the suggestion that the France of Louis XIV is one of the supreme
glories of European civilization. Yet if this opinion is now a com-
monplace, it was not such at the end of the last century. To artists
and critics of the nineteenth century, Versailles was anathema. The
romantics loved solitude, bosky nooks, and nature picturesque be-
cause confused: the people of Versailles liked company, were apt to
be afraid of solitude, and regarded the confusion of nature as an un-
mitigated evil. They would do what they could to mitigate it; they
would chop down trees, open up vistas, clip lawns, marshal avenues,
arrange their gardens and houses with geometrical precision. Since
the King was the Sun, they must see that their world rotated around
him. In a very literal manner, they planned the axis of the park and
gardens of Versailles so that it should run from the Avenue de Paris
28

VALUES AND STANDARDS IN THE GRAND SIECLE

in the east, through the centre of the Palace, through the middle of
the King's bedchamber, out at the Parterre d'Eau to Latona, and
from there through the Tapis Vert to the Fountain of Apollo. They
knew that nature had dark corners, and they knew that there were
dark corners in the mind. But they believed, with all the conviction
of which they were capable (and they were nothing if not self-
assured), that the dark corners, where possible, should be illuminated;
and where that was not possible, should be left alone.

The romantics loved shadowy corners and regarded order as
suspect. It is therefore not surprising that they saw, in the attempt of
the grand siecle to order and illuminate, nothing but the superficies.
The elaborate code of values which Versailles evolved to regulate
human behaviour was to them always silly and inhumanly obstruc-
tive; to them the whole of life at Versailles seemed to perir en
symetrie, to use the phrase which Mme de Maintenon permitted her-
self, thinking petulantly of the draughts which whistled through the
carefully balanced windows. The finical code of manners which
involved such unjustifiable emotion, such petty jealousy and such ob-
sequious flattery (for instance the business of die King's lever) was to
to them merely absurd. The geometrical plan of the gardens was to
them not the consummation, but the denial, of art. The ceremonial
stylization of the literature, painting, sculpture, architecture and
music was to them a confession of bankruptcy, as frigid and 'artifi-
cial' as the menageries, the grottoes, the fountains, the temples a
I' antique, the hydraulic organs that imitated the carollings of birds.

It is only with the passing of the 'romantic' attitude to life that we
have been able once again to see what is there, in the art of the grand
sihle. And the renewed response to the art has brought with it a
revaluation of the society that produced it; for we are not naive
enough to suppose that this remarkable crop of artists in almost
every medium Corneille, Racine, Moliere, La Fontaine, Le Notre,
Poussin, Claude, Watteau, Lully, La Lande, Marais, de Grigny,
Couperin, to mention merely the more obvious names occurred
together by accident. If we admit the greatness of the art, we must
look with a modified eye on things that in social intercourse might
otherwise appear pernickety, affected, foolish. We come to see that
when the men of the grand siecle referred to an entertainment as
'galant et magnifique' they meant something that had a whole

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

philosophy a view of the nature and destiny of man behind it.
We see that the unity with which artists in different media worked
together is a factor of profound social significance; we see, from
many a passage of Saint-Simon for instance, that even the insistence
on deportment may not be a trivial thing:

Jamais homme si naturellement poli, (he is speaking of Louis) ni d'un
politesse si fort mesuree, si fort par degres, ni qui distingua" t mieux Tage, le
m&ite, le rang, et dans ses reponses, quand elks passoient Itje verrai, et dans
ses manieres. Ces etages divers se marquoient exactement dans sa maniere de
saluer et de recevoir les reverences, lorsqu'on partoit ou qu'on arrivoit. 11
tait admirable a recevoir difFeremment les saluts a la tete des lignes a Tann^e
ou aux revues. Mais surtout pour les femmes rien n'dtoit pareil. Jamais fl
n'a passe devant la moindre coiffe sans soulever son chapeau, je dis aux
femmes de chambre, et qu'il conoissoit pour telles, comme cela arrivoit
souvent a Marly. Aux dames, il 6toit son chapeau tout a fait, mais de plus
ou moins loin; aux gens titres, a demi, et le tenait en Fair ou a son oreille
quelques instants plus ou moins marques. Aux seigneurs, mais qui I'&oient,
il se contentoit de mettre la main au chapeau . . .

One can well believe, with Mile de Scudery, that Louis played
billiards with the air of a master of the world.

In English Augustan civilization too we can observe how stan-
dards of correctness may be inseparable from standards of value.
Though the romantics did not like Pope any more than they liked
Corneille and Racine, it is clear that when Pope and his contem-
poraries talked about Reason, Truth and Nature they were speaking
of socially tested values which their readers would immediately
recognize as such. And it is an inestimable advantage for an artist if
he can accept the sanctioned values of his time without being ashamed
of them; for although, if he is a good artist, he will lend an additional
depth and subtlety to the conventional valuations, he can always be
sure that what he says will be the richer for having the endorsement,
not merely of his own convictions, but of a civilization. Moreover,
he will have the advantage that the terms he uses will mostly be
comprehensible to his audience.

If the Augustan civilization of Pope and Johnson was a fine one it
had, however, obvious limitations; significantly it produced no vital
tragic poetry and no great music. Though Reason, Truth, and Nature
were values that meant much to Augustan society, to the society of
Versailles, or at least to the more sensitive spirits in it, raison, honneur,
30

VALUES AND STANDARDS IN THE GRAND SIECLE

honnetete, legalant, lagloire meant rather more. They were perhaps a
series of counters; but the counters mattered because they were im-
bued with moral significance. Naturally, the balance was precarious;
the code was always in danger of becoming divorced from its moral
implications. But this society was great because at its best the code
was an incarnation of life, not a substitute for it; because it was re-
lated to the complex of human passions, desires and fears; because it
referred not only to the formal integration of society but also to the
integration of the individual as a part of that society. The simulta-
neous preoccupation of the grand siede both with Caracteres (human
nature) and with Maximes (behaviour and morality) is not an accident.
It is hardly too much to say that seldom if ever in a civilized, as
opposed to a primitive, society has 'living' been so highly developed
an art, and art and life more closely connected. And almost all the
significant art of the period, in social intercourse as well as in poetry,
theatre, music and painting, depended on the moral tension involved
in, on the one hand, feeling deeply, and on the other hand preserv-
ing that self-control which, through reference to an accepted stan-
dard, makes civilization possible. Nothing could be more beside the
mark than to accuse the people of the grand siecle of a deficiency of
passion; the evidence of passion is there not only in Racine and
Couperin but everywhere throughout the copious memoirs of the
period. When they proclaimed as their ideal the honnete homtne they
did not mean that they advocated that last refuge of the spiritually
craven, indifference; they did mean that the individual ought to
realize that his own passions are not the be-all and end-all of exis-
tence. Probably, in the long run, it was best for his own spiritual
health, as well as society's, if he admitted that he had obligations to
the people among whom he lived. So the creed of bienseance, in the
heyday of the Hotel de Rambouillet, maintained that the honnete
homme should have un coeur juste and un esprit bienfait. He should be
considerate of other people's amour-propre, solicitous for their
pleasure, alert to spare them pain or distress, prompt with his
sympathy if pain cannot be avoided; and he should never impose
his personality on others. To these people, Raison was both a per-
sonal and a social virtue; both an intellectual ideal and an emotional
attitude of poise and moderation. They were far too intelligent to
imagine that la raison could necessarily be equated with la verite; they

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

knew that falsehood and wickedness and egoism would exist as long
as man remained fallible and a sinner. But they believed that these
evils were more manageable if one acted reasonably; and that one's
chance of acting reasonably was better if one acted in accordance
with the tested wisdom of civilization than if one trusted implicitly
to one's own whims and fancies. This is why le moi est haissible.

This moral tension between passionate feeling and personal self-
control, with its attendant social implications, functions at widely
different levels. At a fairly frivolous level we may cite Mme de
Sevigne's description of how one behaves at the end of a love affair.
The Chevalier de Lorraine visits a one-time mistress of his, La
Fiennes, who promptly plays the forsaken nymph for him. Is there
anything extraordinary in what has happened? he asks. Please let us
behave like ordinary people, in a grown-up fashion. And as a final
comment he adds, That's a pretty little dog youVe got there. Where
did you get it? Mme de Sevigne adds that that was the end of that
grand amour. The story of course is funny; but there is no need to
depreciate the girl's feeling, or the sincerity of the Chevalier's desire
to put her at her ease. And the remark about the little dog is an
achievement of civilization.

Similarly Bussy-Rabutin's comments to Mme de Sevigne on the
war of the Fronde are not only brilliantly witty; they place the war
in the perspective of civilization. It is odd to think, he says, that we
were on different sides in this war last year, and are so still, even
though we have both changed over. But your side seems to be the
better one, because you manage to stay in Paris. I've come from St
Denis to Montrond, and it looks as though I'll end by going from
Montrond to the devil. Keep gay and lively, he says, and never take
things too solemnly; then you will live at least another thirty years
(they were both quite advanced in years when he wrote this), and I
can talk to you and write to you and love you. After that, I shall be
happy to wait for you in Paradise. He says he is never serious; yet
beneath the poised urbanity with which he says it, we feel the affec-
tion which, despite many violent upheavals, must have existed be-
tween these two. The passion is there, though it is not expatiated on.
It is interesting to note that the only passion which Mme de Sevigne
seems to have been unable to cope with was her love, almost patio-
logical in its intensity, for her daughter.
32

VALUES AND STANDARDS IN THE GRAND SINGLE

A more subtle case is the celebrated affair of Vatel, on the occasion
of the King's visit to the Duke of Conde at Chantilly in 1671. This is
worth quoting in full:

Le roi arriva hier au soir a Chantilly; il courut un cerf au clair de la lune;
les lanternes firent des merveilles, le feu d'artifice fut un peu efface par la
clart de notre amie; mais enfin, le soir, le souper, le jeu, tout alia a merveille.
Le temps qu'il a fait aujourd'hui nous faisait esprer une suite digne d'un si
agrable commencement. Mais voicy ce que j'apprends en entrant ici, dont
je ne puis me remettre, et qui fait que je ne suis plus ce que je vous mande;
c'est qu'enfin Vatel, maitre d'hotel de M. Fouquet, qui l'6tait presentement
de M. le Prince, cet homme d'une capacit distinguee de toutes les autres,
dont la bonne tete etait capable de contenir tout le soin d'un Etat; cet
homme done que je connaissais, voyant que ce matin a huit heures la mare
n'etait pas arrivee, n'a pu soutenir I'afiront dont il a cru qu'il allait etre
accab!6, et en un mot, il s'est poignarde. Vous pouvez penser rhombic
d&ordre qu'un si terrible accident a caus dans cette fete. Songez que la
mare est peut-etre arrivee comme il expirait. Je n'en sais pas davantage
presentement; je pense que vous trouvez que c'est assez. Je ne dome pas que
la confusion n'ait et grande; c'est une chose ficheuse a une fete de cinquante
mille ecus . . .

M. le Prince le dit au roi fort tristement: on dit que c'etait . force d'avoir
de Thonneur a sa mani&re; on le loua fort, on loua et Ton blama son courage.
Le roi dit qu'il y avait cinq ans qu'il retardait de venir a Chantilly, parce qu'il
comprenait 1'exces de cet embarras. Il dit a M. le Prince qu'il ne devait
avoir que deux tables, et ne point se charger de tout; il jura qu'il ne soufiri-
rait plus que M. le Prince en usit ainsi; mais c'&ait trop tard pour le pauvre
Vatel. Cependant Gourville tacha de reparer la perte de Vatel; elle fat
repar^e; on dina tr^s bien, on fit collation, on soupa, on se promena, on
joua, on fut a la chasse; tout &ait par&me de jonquilles, tout 6tait enchante.

This is no doubt a most amusing story; but one may observe that it
involves a very complex tissue of emotions. There is of course the
contrast between the tragedy of Vatel's suicide and the bathetic
circumstances that occasioned it. But the real reasons for his suicide
were not trivial at all; they indicate in a remarkable manner how the
moral values of the society of Versailles permeated all its manifesta-
tions, from highest to lowest. On top of this there is Mme de
Sevigne's attitude to be taken account of Her appreciation of the
element of the ridiculous in the situation (it was a shocking thing to
happen at a fete that cost 50,000 crowns), even a suggestion of
callousness in the way she seems to regard such tragedies as inevit-
able if unfortunate incidents in the running of an ordered society;
these should not lead us to underestimate her sensibility to the issues
c 33

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

involved. In this case, after all, the tragedy was only the result of a
misunderstanding; for the fish may have arrived, just too late. It was
the consequence, society decided, of too nice a sense of honour,
which is a good thing. Vatel's action, some thought, showed courage;
which is also a virtue. Others thought his response a little in excess of
the object; and excess is bad. Even a person as exalted as the King
showed delicacy in realizing that his visit was bound to cause trouble
one way or another; and die pressure of feeling which poor Vatel
must have laboured under can only be imagined. There is plenty of
emotion all round; but the admirable maitred'hotel is dead, and tears
will not bring him back to life. Meanwhile civilization must go on;
so the scent of the jonquils is everywhere, and in short all is delightful.
Some considerable space has been devoted to this apparently un-
important incident because it has so representative a value. Some-
thing comparable with its peculiar balance of feelings is observable
in the most profound manifestation of the culture of the time. The
writings of Sain -Simon are a case in point. He was a man whose
creed was guided by la raison and la loi. However aware he may have
become of the imperfections of the ancien regime, of its failure to live
up to its standards, he none the less believed in those standards pro-
foundly. His preoccupation with details of court etiquette may even
prove exasperating to modern readers ^ior instance his tedious ac-
count off affaire de la qufoe); and yet his concern for the letter of the
law and the urbanity of his mode of expression do not disguise, but
serve rather to reinforce, the intensity of his loves and hates. His
prose has a colloquial flexibility and sinuosity within its sophistica-
tion. The orderly precision of die words, the psychological acumen,
acquire an almost reptilian venom; for all the galanterie and the
politesse the words came out like pistol shots:

De ce long et curieux detail il resulte que Monseigneur tait sans vice ni
vertu, sans lumieres ni connoissances quelconques, radicalement incapable
d'en acquerir, tres paresseux, sans imagination ni production, sans gout, sans
choix, sans discernement, n pour Tennui, qu'il communiquoit aux autres,
et pour tre une boule roulant au hasard par Timpulsion d'autrui, opiniatre
et petit en tout a Texces . . . livre* aux plus pernicieuses mains, incapable d'en
sortir ni de s'en apercevoir, absorbe* dans sa graisse et dans ses t&ebres,
. . . sans avoir aucune volonte' de mal fake, il eut 6t6 un roi pernicieux.

No one can say that this lacks feeling, or that the feeling is not
intensified by the razor-sharp edge of Saint-Simon's mind; just as his
34

VALUES AND STANDARDS IN THE GRAND SINGLE

criticism is the more valid because we know that when he speaks of
vertu, gofit, choix, discernement and so on, he is not merely using words.

The incident of Vatel is a part of contemporary life; the memoirs
of Saint-Simon are perhaps half-way between life and art. With the
poets we are a stage further towards the objectifying of the values of
life in art, and all the significant poets show the same union of deep
and delicate emotion with formal discipline. La Fontaine, for in-
stance, has many qualities in common with Saint-Simon the sharp
intelligence, the slightly acidulated wit, the diction that is close to
polite conversation, but still more taudy disciplined; and he has
many qualities in common with Mme de Sevigne the urbanity and
poise, together with great nervous sensitivity. He has a sensibility to
nature and a sympathy with animals such as are usually supposed to
be foreign to his age but these qualities are always subservient to his
prime interest in human behaviour. The more one reads La Fon-
taine, the more he reveals himself as a great traditional moral poet.
He is witty and charming, of course; but in all his most representa-
tive work (we may mention Le Chene et le Roseau) his sensitivity
combines with the lucidity of his mind to create a noble emotional
power and grandeur. In La Mort et le Mourant the passion rises to the
heights of tragic art.

But it is in the dramatic poets that the relation between poetic
technique and moral values is most clearly indicated. In all of them
the formal alexandrine, like Pope's heroic couplet, is an achieved
order in poetic technique which corresponds to an achieved order in
civilization. The stylized vocabulary is also, as we have seen, indica-
tive of moral values, sanctioned by society; and in each case, to vary-
ing degrees, the poet is concerned with the tension between this
criterion and personal sensibility with some kind of conflict be-
tween passion and social obligations.

The 'tension* is least marked in the earliest of the writers,
Corneille; or at least in his work there is the minimum of ambiguity
as to what ought to be the issue of the conflict. His early plays were
written in the reign of Louis XIII, and represent a consolidation of
values, an attempt to arrive at, to win to, a conception of order and
stability:

Je suis maitre de moi, comme de funivers.
Je le suis 9 je veux fetre.

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

The famous lines splendidly express the connection between per-
sonal and social integration, the proud assurance with which it is
held, and also the effort of will-power involved ( je veux l'etre') in
achieving it. But if Corneille was aware of the effort, he had no
doubt as to what ought to be its outcome:

Sur tnes passions ma raison souveraine
But blame mes soupirs et dissipe ma haine.

He never for a moment doubted that reason ought to dominate
passion, and could do so. In a dedicatory epistle to La Place Royale
he says:

C'est de vous que j'ai appris que 1'amour d'un honnSte homme doit etre
toujours volontaire; que Ton ne doit jamais aimer en un tel point qu'en ne
puisse jamais n'aimer pas; que si on en vient jusque-la, c'est une tyrannic dont
il faut secouer le joug.

He is quite unequivocal; and his superb conviction echoes through
the clang of his alexandrines, through the lucidity with which each
word * stays put', without emotional overtones. He did not advocate
a passive acceptance of the code; but he was convinced that the code
represented the wisdom of civilization, and that it must withstand all
threats from within and without. It was greater than the individual;
but it was for individual men to keep it alive as the safeguard of their
sanity and happiness, and not to seek to destroy it. Though this was
an attitude which could easily droop into complacency, within its
limits its nobility, its heroic quality, was authentic.

The above is the conventional account of Corneille; it has not
gone unchallenged. One interesting account of his work has sug-
gested that his world, far from being unambiguous, is assailed by
fundamental uncertainties and doubts; that his characters, particu-
larly in the later plays, are wilfully living on error. The human will
is prized for its power to impose order on chaos, independently of
ethical considerations; there might almost seem to be, in Corneille's
obsession with the power and the glory of absolutism, an element
of psychological compensation for the timidity of his nature and
the relative lowliness of his origin. If this account is accepted it gives
a slightly different stress to, but does not radically alter, our case.
For it would then appear that Corneille regarded order as so impor-
tant that he was prepared to uphold it even if it entailed in some
respects the substitution of error for truth. Such a view of the world
36

VALUES AND STANDARDS IN THE GRAND SIECLE

must no doubt be considered a confession of failure, in so far as it
sacrificed the grand siecles ideal of a harmonious balance between
collective and individual morality. It is, however, a failure that has
an element of proud and impressive greatness.

Both Moliere and Racine come at the zenith of the reign of the
Roi Soleil. They accept the values that Corneille lived by and
helped to create, and also the alexandrine and the stylized vocabu-
lary that help to express them; but the tension between these values
and the demands of personal sensibility is now more complex. This
is demonstrated in the use which they make of the alexandrine. Their
language has not the ceremonial precision of Corneille's, the rhythms
are more flexible, the imagery 'suggests* more; just as, in the paint-
ings of Poussin and Claude, the precise architecture of the propor-
tions, the grouping of tones, the sculpturesque treatment of the
figures with their stylized heroic gestures, are enriched by the sensu-
ously evocative quality of the colour. In Moli&re's case this increased
flexibility goes alongside the fact that he wrote comedy rather than
heroic tragedy; die language, though still urbane, is less consciously
stylized, more close togalant conversation. We may observe in this
connection that the conversation of so ordered a society slides into
art almost without one noticing at what point the metamorphosis
happens.

This great plasticity of rhythm and metaphor parallels a deeper
psychological interest in the workings of the mind of the per-
sonal consciousness. In Corneille the insistence is primarily on the
moral order; in Moliere the stress is on the complexity of the rela-
tions between the moral order and the personal sensibility. This
tendency reaches its climax in Molire's greatest play, Le Misanthrope,
in which the balance between the two groups of interests is main-
tained with consummate subtlety. To a degree, we are clearly meant
to sympathize with Alceste in his attack on the idiocy and potential
wickedness of empty social conventions; in so far as CelimSme repre-
sents them they are obviously unsatisfactory. But on the other hand
we are clearly meant to feel that the intensity with which Alceste
denounces is not altogether admirable; that it springs from a kck
of 'integration' in his own personality, and is in a sense adolescent.
The poise is held by Philinte, the honnete homme 9 who continually
brings Alceste's transports to the bar ofraison:

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

Laparfaite raisonfuit toute extremite,
Et veut que I 9 on soit sage avec sobriete.

When Alceste breaks out desperately:

Etparfois il me prend des mouvements soudains
Defuir dans un desert I'approche des humains,

Philinte replies:

Mon Dicu, des mceurs du temps mettons-nous mains en peine,
Etfaisons un peu grace a la nature humaine.

All the satire of the frivolous time-serving courtiers, the play seems
to say, is justified, and the imperfections of society are manifold.
But society is human life, and it is for human beings to make it work;
running away into deserts is no answer at all. In no play of Moliere,
however, is the difficulty of the issues more subtly indicated. Mr
Turnell has even suggested that Moliere himself was beginning to
grow doubtful about his positives; for nobody in the play seems to
find Philinte's reasonable advice either helpful or convincing. This is
a point to which we shall return later.

Moliere was less roughly handled than Corneille by nineteenth-
century critics because he wrote comedy rather than tragedy, and
therefore had more excuse for not being sufficiently 'poetic*. Racine
is a heroic writer, like Corneille; but his verse, which is tragic in a
sense which the earlier poet did not attain to, has emotional over-
tones in plenty. Perhaps the nineteenth-century critics vaguely
realized this when they invented the legend of the 'tender' Racine;
though in some ways this may have been an even more damaging
misrepresentation. Couperin, as we shall see, has suffered from some-
thing similar.

In Racine, as in Moliere, the stress is centred on the threat to
organized society occasioned by the unruly impulses of the indivi-
dual. But whereas Moliere emphasizes the folly involved in submis-
sion to the passions, so that his work is both serious and funny,
Racine emphasizes the evil. The intensity of passion in his characters,
especially Phfcdre, sometimes breaks down the conventional norm;
but it is only because of the existence of the norm that the effect of
the passion is overwhelming. The sudden glimpses of an unsuspected
world in the dark reaches of the mind which the imagery and move-
ment reveal to us, are the more terrible because they appear against
38

VALUES AND STANDARDS IN THE GRAND SINGLE

the background of 'les bornes de 1'austfcre pudeur'; we have learned
afresh in the last forty years that in a world of violence, violence
may cease to shock. Racine's psychological penetration and his
poetry are one and the same. They suggest that he is a greater poet
than Corneille not because he believed less in Corneille's positives,
but because he relates these positives to so very much wider a range
of experience.

Phedre is an analysis of evil or of the effects of evil more com-
prehensive and profound than anything attempted by Corneille,
who was not much interested in evil as a problem of the individual.
But Racine's greater subtlety is revealed still more remarkably in his
kst play Athalie, which deals not only with the consequences of sin
in relation to man and society, but for the first time with the relation
between man and God. That this play can so identify la loi with
spiritual sanctions is a testimony to the greatness of his civilization;
it is paralleled only in the greatest work of Couperin and La Lande.
But while this spiritual interpretation of la loi was a possible one, it
was not habitual. It was also possible for la loi to become synony-
mous with brute force; it was possible for it to destroy the very
things it had been intended to preserve.

La Bruyfere cynically remarked that a devdt is a man who under an
atheist king would be an atheist; and Mazarin advised his nieces to
hear Mass for the world's sake, if not for God's. Yet although there
was, particularly in the latter part of the reign after Louis's conver-
sion, a good deal of purely fashionable religion, one would not say
that the average religion of the time was insincere. If there was an
increasing tendency for convents to become homes for the unmar-
riageable but unvicious, and if there was a large number of priests,
like Cardinal de Retz, who were really politicians, there were also
good priests like the Jesuit Bourdaloue, who with genuine piety
stressed the potential ethical significance of the values of the time. In
the sermons of Bourdaloue and Bossuet and in the writings of
Fenelon, there is a mixture of qualities of imaginative passion,
psychological penetration and abstract logical argument very
similar to that in the higher manifestations of the poetry and drama.
But perhaps one could say that it was the mastery oflogical argument,
among these qualities, which excited such remarkable enthusiasm in
congregations during the great days of the classical epoch, and in this

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

connection we may note this significant comment of Mme de
Sevigne: 'Le marechal de Gramont etait 1'autre jour si transporte de
la beaute d'un sermon de Bourdaloue, qu'il s'ecria tout haut, en un
endroit qui le toucha, Mordi, il a raison!'

The religion of the age, that is, did not normally signify much in
purely spiritual terms. It is certainly legitimate to suggest that
Racine's Athalie entailed a conception of spiritual, even of mystical
values which, although not unique, was exceptional. It is probable
that Racine saw some analogy between the persecution of the Israel-
ites and that of the Jansenists in his own day. And although there is
no necessary connection between the spirituality of Athalie and
Racine's conversion to Jansenism, none the less Athalie does help us
to appreciate the significance of the Jansenist movement in the world
of the Roi Soleil. Corneille's heroic plays suggest that through reason
and the human will order may be attained and preserved; Racine's
tragic plays suggest that reason and the human will are helpless
without the intervention of God's grace. Whereas the Cornelian
hero believes that he is ' maitre de moi comme de 1'univers ', Racine's
heroine says *je crains de me connoitre en 1'etat oil je suis'. Impli-
citly, Racine makes the same point about the corruption of the
world in which he lived as Mme de Maintenon makes when she
says:

Otez ces filles qui ne rcspirent que le monde. . . . Otez ces beaux esprits

r" dedaignent tout ce qui est simple, qui s'ennuient de cette vie uniforme,
ces plaisirs doux et innocents et qui d&irent defaire kur volonte. (My
italics.)

Implicitly, Racine offers a criticism of the Cartesian view of the
destiny of man to which Corneille in the main adheres.

Descartes's mechanical view of nature, his belief in the sovereignty
of reason as the only means of obtaining knowledge of material
things, presented the grand siecle with a philosophical formulation of
the values it lived by. 'The whole is greater than the parts' is a creed
reflected no less in social behaviour than in the administration of
Colbert, the gardens of Le Notre, the theatre music of Lully, the
buildings of Mansart, the decorations of Lebrun; and the aesthetic
theories of Boileau are an exact counterpart of Cartesian philosophy,
for both attempt to interpret nature through reason, deprecate en-
thusiasm, start empirically from the present moment, and are com-
40

VALUES AND STANDARDS IN THE GRAND SINGLE

pletely non-historical. (To Moliere, Gothic cathedrals were odious
monstrosities of the ignorant centuries.) Moreover, like most of the
people of his time, Descartes reconciled his instinct for rationality
and order with a profound interest in the workings of the human
mind, expressed in the Traite des Passions de fame. Here he demon-
strates that the passions are good in themselves; that evil consists in
the wrong or immoderate use of them; and that only through reason
can one decide which use is justified, which is not. Descartes, like
Lully and Corneille, remained formally a Catholic, and his theories
of the absolute and infinite Thought which our individual thoughts
presuppose were much exploited by Catholic theologians as a
* rational' proof of God's existence. Even the Jansenists found in the
pre-determinist aspects of his thought something which seemed
superficially to support their beliefs. But in the most important
respects Descartes's thought was fundamentally non-religious.
Bossuet, the exponent of Catholic orthodoxy, perceived that the
insistence on the pre-eminence of reason inevitably led to free
thought; Pascal, more profoundly, realized that Descartes's teaching
was inimical to the concept of Grace*

In some respects a man of the new world, a brilliant mathemati-
cian imbued with the spirit of scientific curiosity, and at first himself
a Cartesian, Pascal was at the same time of a fervently religious
temperament rather alien to the outlook of his age. It was his intel-
lectual equipment that disposed of the Cartesian proof of God's
existence; it was his religious temperament that, when once he had
exposed the fallacies which in his opinion made Cartesianism not a
bulwark of Christianity but its potential destroyer, led him to de-
velop his notion of the dual reasons of heart and mind. The heart has
its reasons, of which raison knows nothing. Descartes, he said, would
much have preferred to have dispensed with God in the whole of his
intellectual system, but had to bring Him in to set his mechanistic
universe in motion; that done, Descartes had no further use for Him.
But to Pascal, whose natural proclivities were encouraged by the
Jansenist preoccupation with St Augustine and by his long brooding
over the stoicism of Montaigne, the opposition between good and
evil cannot be explained in purely rational terms; and the proof of
the existence of God lies in the misery of man without Him.

Such an attitude goes to enforce a peculiar gloom. The proofs of

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

Original Sin and of the Fall are all around one in cynicism, scepti-
cism and folly; only through the crucified Christ can sin be re-
deemed. Crucifixion, in one form or another, is the only hope of life
to come, and by inference the only tolerable form of life here and
now. Beneath the suave lucidity which characterizes not only the
prose of the Lettres Provingiales but even the casual epigrammatic
jottings of the Pensees, the mystic's ecstasy of self-immolation burns
with unquenchable passion. We can see something similar in the
tautness of line which gives such tension to the apparently tranquil
paintings of Pascal's and Arnauld's friend, Philippe de Champagne.
Naturally, die group of Solitaries who met and meditated at the
Cistercian nunnery of Port Royal did not normally carry their
religious fervour as far as Pascal's Augustinian abnegation; but their
outlook did have a two-fold relation to the life of the time. In a
positive sense it was a recognition that there were aspects of experi-
ence which the values of the contemporary world were apt to
neglect. From this point of view it is not, of course, to be considered
in narrowly sectarian terms. Jansenism did not necessarily involve
religious partisanship. The Jesuit Bourdaloue and people such as
Mne de Maintenon and Mme de S6vigne who were the intimates
of Jesuit circles were impregnated with Jansenism; just as the cleric
Fenelon, who took the side of the Jesuits in the controversy over
efficacious grace, could support the case of the later quietist sect in
die affair of Mme Guyon.

And then in a negative sense, it was a reaction from the world of
Versailles, with its absolute identification of Church and State; it was
not so much a search for new values as an admission that the vitality
of society depended on a balance between organization and human
impulses which seemed in danger of growing lop-sided. So elabor-
ately organised a world, calling for so much unity and conformity,
could exist only under a despotism. Racine had dreamed that that
despotism might be the rule of the Holy Spirit; Saint-Simon, look-
ing back, saw clearly that it had become the despotism not of God,
but of an arrogant man, self-deified, so afraid of la verite that he had
to surround himself with an army of sycophants who would tell him
what he wanted to believe, and nothing else. In Racine's attitude
there "was still something of mediaevalism; the course of history
represented die triumph and the tragedy of the Cornelian ideal of
42

VAIUES AND STANDARDS IN THE GRAND Sifccus

'maitre de moi'. The identification of King and God is revealed in
a famous passage from La Bruyere:

Qui consid&era que le visage du prince fait toute la felicite* du courtisan,
qu'il s'occupe et se remplit pendant toute sa vie de le voir et d'en Store vu,
comprendra un peu comment voir Dieu peut faire toute la gloire et tout le
bonheur des Saints;

while in a sermon on the occasion of the Dauphin's birth, Senault
compared Louis with God the Father and the Dauphin with Christ.
Louis himself said, 'Celui qui a donne des rois aux hommes a voulu
qu'on les respectSt comme ses lieutenants'. We must remember
however that the King's absolutism obtained an enormous popular
support; and this was partly due to the fact that the peasants and
bourgeoisie felt that the only alternative was the anarchy of the
nobility and the horrors of the Fronde,

It is easy to exaggerate the degree to which the court culture was
removed from everyday life; we shall later note plenty of evidence
that it preserved some contact with popular elements. Most of the
great artists of the time were not professional courtiers, and many of
them never even visited Versailles. Yet there is some truth in the
conventional account that the artificial removal of the court from
the centre of French life in Paris has a quasi-symbolical significance.
In a sense, it was only because the court was self-enclosed and homo-
geneous that it could evolve such lucid moral values, and achieve
such subtlety and depth within them. But it is interesting that a
person of such exquisite nervous adjustment as Mme de Sevigne can
write with callous indifference of the sufferings of people outside her
circle; that she can cheerfully describe the breaking on the wheel
of an itinerant musician involved in a provincial rebellion, casually
remark that the hanging of sixty scapegoats is to begin tomorrow,
and conclude with the pious reflection that this will no doubt serve
as a lesson to any others who might be thinking of throwing stones
into their betters' gardens. Significantly, it is only after the mid-
summer of the culture that a humane sympathy with other spheres
of life begins in the painting of Chardin for instance to manifest
itself. As we shall see, there is perhaps an anticipation of this in some
of Couperin's kter clavecin pieces.

Towards the latter end of die reign the appreciation of the dangers
latent in its autocracy assumed, in many of the most acute minds of

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

the time, the proportions of a social conscience. Saint-Simon criti-
cized the absolutism of the King, the cult oflagloire and war, the
misery it brought in its wake, and the ultimate stupidity of it:

C'est done avec grande raison qu'on doit deplorer avec larmcs Fhorreur
d'une education uniquement dresse*e pour ^toufier Tesprit et le cceur de ce
prince, le poison abominable de la flatterie la plus insigne, qui le deifia dans
la sein meme du christianisme, et la cruelle politique de ces ministres, qui
I'enferma, et qui pour leur grandeur, leur puissance et leur fortune renivre-
rent de son autorit, de sa grandeur, de sa gloire jusqu'a le corrompre, et a
&ouffer en ltd, sinon toute la bonte*, Tequit^, le desir de conn6itre la verite,
que Dieu lui avoit donne*, au moins l^mousserent presque entferement, et
empech&rent au moins sans cesse qu'il fit aucun usage de ces vertus, dont
son royaume et lui-meme forent les victimes.

Fenelon is no less severe:
Quelle detestable maxime que de ne croire trouver sa surete* que dans

1'oppression de ses peuples Est-ce le vrai chemin qui mene a la gloire?

Souvenez-vous que les pays ou la domination du souverain est plus absolue
sont eux ou les souverains sont moins puissants. Ils prennent, ils ruinent tout,
ils possedent seuls tout 1'Etat; mais tout 1'Etat languit. Les campagnes sont
en friche et presque d&ertes; les villes diminuent chaque jour, le commerce
tarit. Le roi, qui ne peut etre roi tout seul, et qui n'est grand que par ses
peuples, s'ane*antit Iui-m6me peu a peu par I'aneantissement de ses peuples
dont il tire ses richesses et sa puissance. . . . Le me'pris, la haine, le ressenti-
ment, la defiance, en un mot toutes les passions se r&inissent contre une
autorite si odieuse.

This sombre vision is reinforced by La Fontaine's moving fable of
La Mort et Le Bficheron, and by La Bruy&e's terrible picture of life
in the country districts:

L'onvoit certains animauxfarouches . . . repanduespar la campagne, noirs,
livides, et tout bruits de soleil, attaches a la terre, qu'ils fouillent et qu'ils
remuent avec une opiniitret^ invincible. . . . Quand ils se levent sur leurs
pieds, ils montrent une face humaine; et en efFet ils sont des homines. Us se
retirent la nuit dans des tanires ou ils vivent de pain noir, d'eau, et de racines;

though we must remember that conditions in the countryside varied
enormously, and that in many parts a rural folk culture was still very
vigorous. We must remember too that the mere fact that Saint-
Simon, Fenelon, La Bruyere and many others can write such astrin-
gent criticism is itself testimony to the intellectual honesty which
their society permitted them. Their account must be qualified by the
manifest achievements of Versailles, which they not only appreciate,
but represent. None the less, the weakness is there; and how in-
44

VALUES AND STANDARDS IN THE GRAND SINGLE

separably it is linked with the virtues is demonstrated most subtly in
Mme de La Fayette's great novel, La Princesse de Cleves.

The world here described by Mme de La Fayette is one in which
the existence of absolute values is accepted as unquestionably as are
standards of manners; the characters speak of la verite, I'honneur and
so on without any conscious ambiguity. The theme of the book is
the analysis, within this scheme of values, of the passions of personal
relationships, particularly sexual passion. With great subtlety we are
shown how, in such a closely ordered society, personal life is inevit-
ably mixed with public; how amour merges into intrigue, and that
into affaires. Between private and public life a balance ought to be
maintained. But what in fact seems to happen is that amour reveals
a fatal disparity between public affairs and the ideal absolute values
that are supposed to give them meaning. Order is meaningless apart
from what, in human terms, is ordered; yet in practice society does
not regulate amour, but amour proves that the pretensions of society
are not what they seem. It destroys tranquillity of mind, and ulti-
mately, therefore, civilization:

L'ambition et la galanterie etoient 1'slme de cette Cour (the book is
ostensibly set in the court of Henri n, but this is no more than a tactful dis-
guise for the contemporary court) et occupoient tons les hommes et les
femmes. II y avoit tant d'interets et tant de cabales differentes, et les dames y
avaient tant de part, que 1'amour etoit toujours mele aux affaires, et les
affaires a Tamour, Personne n'etoit tranquille ni indifferent; on songeoit a
s'elever, a plaire, a servir, ou a nuire; on ne connoissoit ni Tennui ni Toisivete
et on etoit toujours occupe* des plaisirs ou des intrigues.

This attitude is similar to that expressed in more dolorous terms
by La Bruyere:

II ya un pays ou les joies sont visibles, mais fausses, et les chagrins caches,
mais r&ls. Qui croirait que 1'empressement pour les spectacles, que les eclats
et les applaudissements aux theatres de Moliere et d'Arlequin, les repas, la
chasse, les ballets, les carrousels couvrissent tant d'inquidtudes, de soins et de
divers int&ets, tant de craintes et d'esperances, des passions si vives et des
affaires si s&ieuses?

and broadly parallel to that expressed by Moliere in Le Misanthrope;
and while possibly Moliere and certainly Racine would have said
that the remedy was not to have less love but to have more wisdom
in dealing with it, there is here a paradox by which many sensitive
and intelligent people of the time must have been bewildered. There

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

is no easy solution to it. The end of the book, the woman's entry
into the convent, is as much an evasion of the issues as Alceste's
threat to run off into the desert, since there is no evidence that the
Princess has experienced any spiritual conversion. Such a religious
solution almost certainly calls for some special aptitude, and a type
of mind similar to that of Racine, Pascal or Couperin. The Jansen-
ists, one imagines, must have been composed partly of people like
Pascal, partly of people whose motives resembled those of the
Princesse de Cloves; and there can be no doubt that in the society as
a whole the Princesses de Cleves must greatly have outnumbered the
Racines and the Pascals.

In some ways comparable with the entry of Mme de La Fayette's
heroine into the convent is Louis's own belated religiosity as op-
posed to the religious emotion of the Jansenists, whom the God-
King persecuted as being rebellious to the State Church and to his
absolute authority. The great age of the Roi Soleil was over, internal
corruption was increasing, la gloire was not what it had been. The
succession of military triumphs began to be succeeded by an equally
monotonous series of defeats. Despondency echoed hollowly through
the corridors of Versailles, and the King pathetically pretended, per-
haps even believed for he was not consciously insincere that la
gloire was not what he had lived for; that his nature, at least under the
influence of Mme de Maintenon, was essentially religious; that he
liked nothing so much as to be alone with God. So this King of the
Sun, who abhorred limited horizons, retired to a damp, forest-
enclosed house in a mean valley at Marly ('un mechant village, sans
cloture, sans vue, ni moyens d'en avoir, un repaire de serpents et de
charognes, de crapauds etde grenouilles', Saint-Simon called it);
rather like to descend from the sublime to the tawdry another
addict of power, Henry Ford, who in his old age became a passionate
antiquarian, buying up quaint old pubs, rebuilding the old farm home
stead just as it was when he was a lad, trying to put everything back,
as Dos Passos put it, 'as it was in the days of horses and buggies'. It
almost seems that Louis himself came to accept the irony of La
Bruy&re; *Un esprit sain puise la cour le gout de la solitude et de la
retraite*. The deeper irony of the position is that Louis could not
escape his self-imposed destiny. He ended by transforming his suc-
cessive retreats from pomp and circumstance into the very thing he
46

VALUES AND STANDARDS IN THE GRAND SINGLE
had been seeking to avoid. Marly grew into a miniature Versailles; just
as Ford's rural homesteads glittered withEvery Modern Convenience.

It was in the more melancholy latter end of Louis's reign that
Couperin's genius matured. Of course the gradual changes cannot
have been very perceptible to someone working within that self-
enclosed circle; and it would be utterly erroneous to find anything
valedictory in Couperin's classical, positive, and on the whole serene
art. But we might be justified in saying that the conditions under
which he worked influenced his outlook in two unobtrusive, con-
nected ways. They imbued some of his music with a sensuous
tenderness and wistfulness beneath its elegant bearing which, like
the comparable quality in the painting of his great contemporary
Watteau, springs from an apprehension of transience; from a re-
cognition that all this graciousness and beauty must pass away, per-
haps quite soon. And they encouraged him to develop the religious
aspect of his genius which produced his greatest work and is as
much more 'spiritual' in conception than Lufly's ceremonial art, as
Racine's late work is more spiritual than that of Corneille. (I shall
hope in the course of this book to demonstrate, in terms of the
technique of music, what I mean by these generalizations.)

Couperin's music thus gives an oddly subtle impression of being
simultaneously of his world, and not of it; just as the world oi
Watteau's pictures is simultaneously the real world, and a golden,
idealized, never-never land of the spirit. In one sense, Couperin ma)
still be thegalant homme, the symbol of civilization painted cou^t-
tently if not very profoundly by men such as Mignard and Hyacinthe
Rigaud. In another sense, he is the black-robed figure who, in some
paintings of Watteau, beside the merry throng discoursing and flirt-
ing with such gracious urbanity, stands quietly in his corner, seem-
ing to suggest not that the junketings are meaningless, the gestures
empty, the urbanity a sham, but that, though the company may be
delightful, one may be lonely, still. This is something much more
complex and valuable than the emotion of nostalgia; it is an achieved
equilibrium which, for being sensitive, is no less strong. It was be-
cause Paris, *le th6tre des sc&nes tendres et galantes', seemed to be
becoming a place where 'chacun y est occup6 de ses chagrins et de
sa misre', that many sensitive spirits sought in a mythical He de
Cythre a civilization that was not subject to calumniating Time,

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

where age and bitterness and the complexity of human emotions
did not destroy the qualities that make civilization possible:
Venez dans file de Cythere
En pelerinage avec nous,
Jeunejille rien revientguere
Ou sans amant ou sans epoux,
Et I 9 on yfait sa grande affaire
Des amusements les plus doux.

This was not merely an escape. It was an attempt to achieve in art
omething which the real world could not give. The world which
Watteau and Couperin present to us is one in which the codes and
iie values of the time are not frustratedas they so painfully were in
real life by people's wickedness or stupidity; in which there is no
disparity between intention and realization. In this connection it
seems to me no accident that in the last years of the seventeenth cen-
tury appeared the work of the King and Queen of fairy-tale writers,
Charles Perrault and Mme d'Aulnoy. It is important to remember
that, at their very much slighter level, these tales are not unallied to
the religious aspects of the art of Couperin and Racine.

The society of Louis XIV was not unique in producing some of its
most consummate artistic manifestations when its end was near; one
could say almost as much of Shakespeare's society. But in approach-
ing Couperin it is not the decline we should think of; we should
remember the beauty and magnificence of the achievements of this
society rather than the gossip and intrigue, and the more idiotic
affectations of court etiquette. 5 It was in the walks of the Tuileries
that Racine absentmindedly declaimed his tragedies to a group of
labourers on the waterworks; it was in the theatres and salons of
this community that Lully and Moliere talked over their latest
enterprise, that La Fontaine told his immortal fables, and Perrault
his no less immortal tales. Make all the qualifications you like, but
how many times has there been a better environment for an artist
to be born into? Perrault was justified when he said of Versailles:
Ce nest pas un Palais, cest une ville entiere,
Superbe en sa grandeur, superbe en sa matiere,
Non, cestplutot un Monde, oh du grand Univers
Se trouvent rassembkz les miracles divers.

8 It was a popular saying that courtiers had three things to remember: speak well of
everyone, ask for everything that is going, and sit down when you get the chance.

Chapter Three

Taste during the Grand Siecle

La belle Antiquite* rut toujours venerable,

Mais je ne crus jamais qu'elle fust adorable.

Je voy les Anciens, sans plier les g&ioux,

Ils sont grands, il est vray, mais hommes comme nous:

Et Ton peut comparer sans craindre d'etre injuste,

Le Siecle de Louis au beau siecle d'Auguste.

PERRAULT: Le Stick de Louis le Grand.

Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes

IN THE EAST chapter we have tried to give some idea of the values
and moral concepts of the world which Couperin inherited. In a
general sense these values conditioned the ways in which he felt and
thought, and therefore the nature of his music; but we can adequately
assess their influence on his art only if we supplement our general
remarks on the values of the time with some more particular com-
ments on the evolution of taste and on the relation between the artist
and the grand siecle audience. For it is not too much to say that the
taste of Couperin's day was the consequence of a long maturing
which had gone on more or less continuously since the beginning of
the seventeenth century. Only against this background are some
aspects of Couperin's art intelligible.

The classical conception of a lofty, noble, and heroic art, apposite
to a heroic mode of life, was originally associated with the Renais-
sance attempt to establish a finer discrimination in social tone. The
civilizing influence of women in the early years of the century did
more than create a taste for the exquisite. The tremendous vogue
for Honore d'Urfe's interminable pastoral romance L'Astree was
attributable not so much to its literary merits though it was not
devoid of graciousness as to the fact that it offered a primer of good
manners; a chivalric code going back not only to French, Spanish
p 49

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

and Italian pastoral romances of the sixteenth century, but still more
to the troubadours. "Women, the ornaments of the world, were to be
served and worshipped; and in the pages ofL'Astree men could learn
how to serve them, the phrases to use, the gestures to indulge in, the
refinements of approach and response. If at one level this seemed
frivolous enough, it offered opportunities for civilized intercourse
which the more intelligent and sensitive were quick to seize upon.
Soon Mme de Rambouillet's Blue Room was providing an environ-
ment in which men and women could meet together to discuss
seriously, within a scheme of conventional courtesies, not only the
etiquette of love, but all aspects of human behaviour and psychology,
the values and standards of art, even grammar. The Hotel de Ram-
bouillet offered a series of rules for living, and a rallying point where
artists could meet to discuss their work, as members of society
honoured by virtue of their calling. Moreover, it provided for those
artists an audience which, though not large, had high discrimination
and an adult morality. Mme de Snidery's fictional description of
such a society was not so far from the reality in its heyday:

On y voit sans doute, comme ailleurs, des gens qui ont une fausse galan-
terie insupportable; mais, a parler g&ieralement, il y a je ne sais quel esprit
de politesse, qui regne dans cette cour, qui la rend fort agr&ble et qui fait
qu'on y trouve effectivement un nombre incroyable d'hommes fort accom-
plis. Et ce qui les rend tels est que les gens de qualit de Phenicie ne font pas
profession d'etre dans unc ignorance grosstere de toutes sortes de sciences,
comme on en voit en quelques autres cours ou on s'imagine qu'un homme
qui salt se servir d'une p6e doit ignorer toutes les autres choses; au con-
traire il n'y a presque pas un homme de condition a notre cour qui ne sache
juger assez delicatement des beaux ouvrages, et qui ne cherche du moins a
se fake honneur en honorant ceux qui savent plus que lui.

This was not a society of specialists, but of people whose ' education'
covered every aspect of their lives.

From the early years of the century, the civilizing tendency in
social behaviour is accompanied by a civilizing classicism in litera-
ture. Both the salon of Mme de Rambouillet and the aesthetic of
Malherbe banned 'low' words and provincialisms; and Malherbe's
insistence on lucidity and purity of style in poetry was influenced by
the growing tendency for men of fashion, the representatives of the
salons, to intermingle with the professional men of letters. The
nobility increasingly dabbled in literary and musical composition,
50

TASTE DURING THE GRAND SINGLE

and the professional writers and musicians were increasingly accepted
in aristocratic society; most of the leading artists in the great classical
period were to come from bourgeois stock, later to be ennobled by
Louis. In general, Malherbe's critical aesthetic is a remarkable
anticipation of full-flown classicism, as is Richelieu's transformation
of a polite literary circle into the Academic franfaise. Balzac's
polishing of the cadences of his prose, and Vaugelas's work on the
dictionary and his Remarques sur la languefran$aise, aimed to regulate
language not in accordance with an abstract system of rules, but
with the usage of 'la plus saine partie de la cour et des ecrivains du
temps'. We may note as an example of the centralizing tendencies
of the time, that whereas Malherbe had said that the language of
poetry ought to contain no phrase that an educated Parisian could
not understand, in Vaugelas's prescription the model is narrowed to
that of the court.

None of these men was himself remarkable for creative genius;
their formalizing influence was, however, of as great an importance
as was that of Mme de Rambouillet in the field of social conduct. In
the works of the minor but truly creative poets who, though they
jeered at Malherbe, would not have written as they did but for his
work, we can find a combination of exquisite sensibility with nobility
of bearing which is the product of a high degree of civilization. And
this is something which survives in La Fontaine and, despite many
cultural upheavals, well into Couperin's day. We can trace some
relation between the simultaneous exquisiteness and gravity of one
of Couperin's pastoral pieces and, say, a lyric of Tristan THermite,
for 'exquisiteness' is not a characteristic of the classical age itself.
Perhaps, too, the measured nobility of the great chaconnes of the
clavecinists has something of the lofty purity of the odes and elegies
of the early years of the century.

The society of the Blue Room had created a public with standards
both of technique and morality. It was perhaps inevitable that as it
grew in size it should decline in quality. The great days of the salon
were over by 1650; its material growth outpaced its moral growth,
and its standards were overlaid by a veneer of immature sophistica-
tion. Something of this is expressed in a passage from La Bruyre:

Voiture et Scarron 6taient nes pour leur siecle, et ils ont paru dans un
temps ou il semble qu'ils etaient attendus; s'ik s'etaicnt moins presses de

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

venir, ils arriveraient trop tard, et j'ose douter qu'ils fussent tels aujourd'hui
qu'ils ont etc alors: les conversations legeres, les cercles, la fine plaisanterie,
les enjouees et familieres, les petites parties ou Ton &ait admis seulement avec
de Tesprit, tout a disparu. Et qu'on ne disc point qu'ils le feraient revivre; ce
que je puis faire en faveur de leur esprit est de convenir que peut-etre ils
excelleraient dans un autre genre; mais les femmes sont de nos jours ou
deVotes, ou coquettes, ou joueuses, ou atnbitieuses, quelques-unes meme
tout cela a la fois; le gout de la faveur, le jeu, les galants, les directeurs,
ont pris la place, et la dependent centre les gens d'esprit.

Of course the excesses of the predeuses the ultimate inability to
call a spade a spade were the development of elements which were
present in the society of Mme de Rambouillet. In the salons of Mile
de Scudery and of the other successors of the original Hotel de Ram-
bouillet, however, the conventional stylizations of language and be-
haviour gradually came to have a less intimate relation to life. Mile
de Scudery's super-subtle attempts to define la galanterie are an
indication of the atmosphere of the precious mid-century:

Cependant cet air galant dont j'entends parler ne consiste point pr&ise*-
ment a avoir beaucoup d'esprit, beaucoup de jugement, et beaucoup de
savoir, et c'est quelque chose de si particulier et de si difficile a acquerir
quand on ne Ta point, qu'on ne sait ou le prendre ni ou le chercher. Car
enfin je connois un homme que toute la compagnie connoit aussi, qui est
bien< fait, qui a de Tesprit, qui est magnifique en train, en meubles et en
habillements, qui est propre, qui parle judicieusement et juste, qui de plus
fait ce qu'il peut pour avoir l'air galant, et qui cependant est le moins galant
de tous les homines. . . . Je suis persuade qu'il faut que la nature mette du
moins dans Tesprit et dans la personne de ceux qui doivent avoir Tair galant
une certaine disposition de le recevoir; il faut de plus que le grand commerce
du monde et de la cour aide encore a le donner; et il feut aussi que la
conversation des femmes le donne aux hommes . . . je dirai encore qu'il
faut meme qu'un homme ait eu, du moins une fois de sa vie, quefque
legere inclination amaureuse pour acquerir parfaitement Fair galant.

The epics and romances of such writers as Chapelain and Madeleine
de Scudery, with their jargon ofgalanterie, their ludicrously flattering
portraits of commonplace people, were an inflation beyond the
bounds of sense of qualities which had once been admirable. They
were the result of the too rapid growth of a reading public, for they
appealed to a public which was educated enough to toy with the
externals of the galant conventions, without being sufficiently
educated to understand what, for the original circle, those conven-

TASTE DURING THE GRAND SiiciE

dons had stood for. La Bruy&re gives a trenchant account of this
bogus education:

Avec cinq ou six termes de Fart, et rien de plus, Ton se donne pour
connoisseur en musique, en tableaux, en batfrnents, et en bonne chere; Ton
croit avoir plus de plaisir qu'un autre I entendre, i voir, et a manger; Ton
impose a ses semblables et Ton se trompe soi-meme. La cour n'est jamais
denuee d'un certain nombre de gens en qui 1'usage du monde, la politesse
ou la fortune tiennent lieu d'esprit et suppleent au me*rite; ils savent entrer et
sortir, ils se tirent de la conversation en ne s'y melant point, ils plaisent a
force de se take, et se rendent importants par un silence longtemps soutenu,
ou tout au plus par quelques monosyllables; ils payent de mines, d'un geste,
et d'un sourire. Ils n ont pas, si je Tose dire, deux pouces de profondeur: si
vous les enfoncez, vous rencontrez le tuf.

The members of Mme de Rambouilkt's society wanted to purify
language as well as behaviour, but they did not deliberately put the
stress on the difference of their language from that of ordinary people,
as did the predeuses of the mid-century, according to Somaize's
Grand Dictionnaire des Pretieuses, published in 1661. Moreover, the
very last thing that members of the Blue Room would have said was
that, even in matters of pleasure and entertainment, they valued
imagination more than truth.

At the same time we cannot regard the predeux phase of the middle
years of the century merely as the decline of a highly developed
civilization. The cheaper sophistication prevalent during the early
years of the Fronde, after the retirement of Mme de Rambouillet
and of Julie d'Angennes, was an inevitable consequence of the ex-
pansion of a homogeneous group, and the part it played in mould-
ing the taste of the time was far from ephemeral. At its best the
predeux vocabulary was as much a part of Corneille's moral code as
was the neo-Platonic conception of love he inherited from L'Astree.
Even Moliere, who delivered a frontal assault on the affectations of
the Predeuses Ridicules, assimilated much of the love-etiquette of
preciosite and employed its stylized vocabulary not only in verse but
in prose as well. In a musical form it appears, we shall see, in the
technique of the lutenists, and Chambonniferes' ornamentation may
be considered a manifestation of it. Even as late as Couperin's day its
influence is still discernible.

One literary form which the cult of preciosite assumed was a con-
sciously naive, archaizing, pseudo-popular style of occasional poetry,

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

invented by the celebrated wit of Mme de RambouiUet's salon,
Vincent Voiture. About the middle of the century, this type of
'marotic' verse so called because of its deliberate introduction of
archaisms mostly taken from the work of Clement Marot became
highly fashionable, and it was perfected by La Fontaine in the early
part of his career. The work of the Jesuit Du Cerceau, one of the
most admired humorous poets of the day, proves that in Couperin's
time the marotic line was still vigorous; Du Cerceau wrote a preface
to the first re-edition of Villon in 1723, in which he treats Villon as
a forerunner of the marotic vein. Certainly there is an aspect of
Couperin's work a consciously popular manner, a sophisticatedly
naive interest in * old' French things which are regarded as at once
naturals and ingenieux which relates back to this tradition: and we
may mention too the elegantly rustic galcmteries which Bodin de
Boismortier composed for flutes, bagpipes, and hurdy-gurdy.

Closely associated with this type of occasional verse was the bur-
lesque tradition, an outpouring of sophisticated high-spirits which
were irresponsible because uncritical. Practised mainly by Scarron and
d'Assoucy, burlesque was a travesty of classical literature in an
affectedly 'low' language, a smart game intentionally inverting the
precepts both of Malherbe and of Mme de Rambouillet. 6 Spanish
and Italian drama and literature, particularly Marini, were absorbed
into a local convention, devised to meet a popular demand. The
nobler spirits protested against it; Poussin for instance dismissed
Scarron's Typhon as 'degofttant'. None the less, the burlesque
manner influenced the outlook of the century. Couperin's pieces
'dans le goftt burlesque' are not unrelated to it; certainly they have
an oblique connection with it through the commedia dell'arte.

The Italian players, with their stylized and yet improvisatory art,
had been cultivated in France all through the sixteenth and early
seventeenth century. There is a reference to a 'Maistre Andre italien'
and his company as early as 1530, the celebrated Gelosi troup were
in France in 1571, and Isabella Andreini, as cultured and distinguished
as she was beautiful, died in France in 1604, her memory being feted
all over Europe. During the first half of the seventeenth century, the

$ The burlesque tradition is later found in theatre music, as well as in literature and
the drama. A parody of the Lully-Quinault opera Phaeton was extremely popular in
Paris, towards the end of the century. It may have had some bearing on the growth of
the English ballad opera.

TASTE DURING THE GRAND SIECLE

companies of the Accesi and the Fedeli were in repeated demand in
France. But it was not until the mid-century that die vogue reached
its height, and until 1660 that the Italian players, at the instigation of
Mazarin, founded a permanent Parisian group. The great Scara-
mouche Fiorilli at one time lodged and worked in collaboration
with Moliere himself, at the Petit Bourbon; the story of the friend-
ship between them, and of the way Moliere incorporated many
aspects of the Italian theatre into the French comedy, is well known.
Other celebrated Italian players, including Biancolelli as Harlequin,
were intermittently in the French company, and the conventional
commedia characters soon became a part, not only of the French
theatre, but of French popular culture. As Louis, swayed by Mme de
Maintenon, grew more sober-minded with advancing years, the
vogue of the Italian players declined, until in 1697 they were ex-
pelled for having made some tactless witticism at the expense of
la fausse prude. But their reign had lasted long enough to make a pro-
found impression on the sensibilities of the young Couperin and
Watteau. There is a moving picture of their farewell by Watteau;
and in all his work, and in Couperin's pantomime, harlequin and
other pieces dans lego&t burlesque, the old stylizations are rarefied and
immortalized. Here we can gain some notion of the beauty, pathos
and wit that the improvization of such highly cultured and imagina-
tive artists as Isabella Andreini, Fiorilli, and Biancolelli must have
given to the conventional framework, in the heyday of the commedia.
Like Shakespearean tragedy, the commedia appealed at a number of
different levels. It was of course a popular entertainment; but for
those who had eyes to see and ears to hear, that was not the whole
story.

Here however we are not concerned with what the commedia
meant to a Couperin or a Watteau; we are concerned with it as an
aspect of taste during the middle years of the century; and in this
respect one might legitimately correlate the hardening of the official
attitude to its frivolity with Boileau's attack on the various facets
ofpreciosite. There are certainly many signs, round about the sixteen-
sixties, that a fresh start was considered necessary; we may perhaps
best appreciate the significance of, for instance, La Rochefoucauld's
rather sentimental (melancolique) cynicism if we see in it a recogni-
tion that the conventional counters of etiquette were becoming

FRAN$OIS COUPBRIN: LIFE AND TIMES

divorced from their moral implications, so that la verite began to
look suspiciously like self-interest Within the narrow range of
experience which he allowed himself, La Rochefoucauld had an
acute insight, typical of his time; none the less he is, despite the
metallic precision of his comments, the product of a phase of relative
decadence. The Great Age might have countered his arguments with
the words of Vauvenargues: 'Le corps a ses graces, Tesprit a ses
talents; le coeur n'aurait-il que des vices, et Thomme capable de
raison, serait-il incapable de vertu?'

Boileau has been much castigated for his inadequate appreciation
of the great poets of his time, yet his pedestrian approach has value
in so far as it sums up ideals and opinions from which even the
greatest, consciously or unconsciously, profited. His critical aesthetic
had two main, interlinked purposes. One was to establish a criterion
of naturalness and lucidity, in opposition to the unreality ofprecio-
stie; in this he was the climax of the tradition which had been estab-
lished by Malherbe. The other was to insist on the relationship
between aesthetic and moral standards. He wanted to give the grow-
ing and comparatively irresponsible reading public a standard of
reference by reminding it of classical achievements. Roughly speak-
ing, this phase lasted from about 1660 to the publication of the Art
Poetique in 1674, when it attained a resounding European success.

We have seen in the kst chapter that Boileau's aesthetic was in
some ways a reduction into literary terms of the Cartesian philo-
sophical outlook, and thus a seminal creation of the time; and we
have seen that most of the great writers show some kind of conflict
between Boileau's ideal of Nature ordered by Reason, and the com-
plexity of human passions. What ultimately matters is how the
great artists use the conventional framework; but in this chapter,
concerned as we are with the fluctuations of taste, it is the nature of
the framework itself that interests us. Boileau did not object to die
precieux style per se; he accepted it, with reservations, in Corneifle
for instance. He objected to it only in so far as it had become, in such
works as Mile de Scudery's novels and Scarron's plays and bur-
lesques, frivolous and irresponsible. This is why he insisted on
themes of a high moral elevation and of general, as opposed to
topical and local, interest; and the best way to achieve such a general-
ized significance seemed to him to be through the imitation of
56

TASTE DURING THE GRAND SIECLE

classical antiquity. He did not advocate pastiche; he recommended
the use of a convention which liberated the author from the
ephemeral. The artist should aim to interpret man in his general and
eternal, rather than in particular, aspects. He should exercise his
powers of selection in determining what is important, what is not,
remembering always that 'tout ce qu'on dit de trop est fade et
rebutant'. Above all he should avoid triviality, even in comedy.

While Boileau's attitude is in some respects so closely rooted in
the Cartesian outlook, in others it is clearly irreconcilable with
Cartesianism. For if one fully accepts the supremacy of reason and
the irrelevance of history, art, like human nature, ought to be grow-
ing progressively less imperfect, so that to study the ancients, even
in order to reinterpret them, would be absurd. This latent paradox
became more evident in 1688, in the famous quarrel of the Ancients
and Moderns, in which Fontenelle, Perrault (the author, strangely
enough, of the fairy tales), and Malebranche took the progressively
* modern* scientific view, whereas the leading artists on the whole
defended the Ancients. Boileau himself was reduced to a feeble com-
promise, maintaining that perhaps the Ancients were better at some
things, the Moderns at others. But even this confusion is a part of
Boileau's representative significance, for a mingling of reverence for
antiquity with a progressive modernism is found repeatedly in the
outlook and culture of the time. The classical ideal came to have a
very direct bearing on contemporary life, as we may see from,
among many possible examples, this passage in which Fenelon
recommends

aux jeunes filles la noble simplicity qui parait dans les statues . . . qui nous
res tent des femmes grecques et romaines; elles y verraient combien des
cheveux nou& negligcmment par derriere, et des draperies pleines et
flottantes a longs plis sont agreables et majestueuses. H serait bon m&ne
qu'elles entendissent parler les peintres et les autres gens qui ont ce gout
exquis de Tantiquite. . . . Je sais bien qu'il ne faut pas souhaiter qu'elles
prennent 1'exterieur antique; il y aurait de Textravagance a le vouloir; mais
elles pourraient, sans aucune singularity prendre le gout de cette simplicity
d'habits si noble, si gracieuse, et d'aiHeurs si convenable aux mceurs
chrdtiennes.

Here we see Boileau's literary precepts translated into terms of social
etiquette. Their rational belief in their own standards gives to these
people their self-confidence; their habitual reference to a criterion

FRANCOIS COTJPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

outside themselves in this case antiquity preserves their humility,
their sense of the mean. It is this union of self-confidence with
humility which is so impressively demonstrated in La Bruyere's
essay Des Jug ements. It still survives in Couperin's attitude to his art,
and the part played by the classical ideal in achieving it should not
be lightly estimated.

Classicism begins and ends with the distinction of genres which is
an expression in art of a refinement of social approach. Everything
is well in its proper place; 'tout pome est brillant de sa propre
beaute'. The generation that lived on after Boileau's death into the
Regency marked in some ways a return once more to the precious,
a softening of the outlines, a loosening of the tension between
etiquette and morality. And yet all this veering and tacking between
the noble and heroic, the naive and ingenious, the archaic and
popular, the pompous and intimate is a part of the gradual maturing
of public taste. If the values and standards are becoming less clearly
defined, they are also becoming operative for a wider public. The
autocracy of Versailles is decaying and the life of Paris is beginning
to take its pkce. A tendency towards decentralization is manifested
in every branch of social entertainment. Art, expressing the ideal of
douceur de vivre, becomes easier and more familiar. Architecture
changes from the 'official' grandeur of Mansart to the style of a
Robert de Cotte, which preserves something of the external magnifi-
cence, but inside is gracious, elegantly ornamented, comfortable,
suited to the intercourse of a more amiably intimate society. 7 In
painting the propagandist Lebrun is succeeded by the more per-
sonally emotional Watteau; in music Couperin follows Lully. The
history of the opera and ballet during the last years of Louis's reign
and the early years of the Regency reveals the changing outlook
most clearly. But this is a subject of such crucial importance for the
understanding of the musical culture that Couperin inherited that it
must be dealt with in a separate chapter.

7 For a minor but very revealing illustration of the changing cultural atmosphere
compare the grandly proportioned case of the buffet of the St Gervais organ, which
dates from the great age of Louis XIV, with the more graciously elegant case of the
Versailles organ, which is the work of Robert de Cotte. See Plates VIII and DC.

Chapter Four

Music, the Court, and the Theatre

On trouve dans ses re*cits, dans ses airs, dans ses Chceurs, et
dans toutes ses Simplicities, un caractere juste et vrai, une
varie*te merveilleuse, une melodic et une harrnonie qui
enchantent, et il merite avec raison le titre de Prince des
Musiciens Francois, etant regarde comme 1'inventeur de cette
belle et grande Musique Fran^oise.

TITON DU TILLET

So FAR WE have tried to give some account of the values and the
taste of the society into which Couperin was born, mainly through
reference to the memoirs, literature, and painting of the period. The
musical counterparts of these fluctuations in taste will be discussed in
detail when, in Part II of this book, we examine the various branches
of Couperin's musical activity. There is, however, one aspect of
court music the ballet and opera which Couperin did not touch
upon, but which none the less influenced profoundly both his sensi-
bility and his technique. In this chapter we shall therefore give some
general account of the rise of a courtly musical-theatrical art in
France during the grand siede, and suggest some reasons why
Couperin did not make any specific contributions to the theatrical
genre, even though the whole temper and character of his work is
impregnated with the Lullian spirit.

In order to understand French theatrical music in the seventeenth
century it is necessary to consider briefly the relations between
French and Italian culture during the period and, to a lesser degree,
during the preceding century. There is nothing surprising in the fact
that Italy should have evolved a sophisticated secular art, founded on
aristocratic patronage, earlier than any other European culture. The
breakdown of the social and economic framework of the Middle
Ages occurred in Italy sooner than elsewhere; indeed the fifteenth

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: LIFE AND TIMES

and even the fourteenth century are often referred to as the 'Italian
renaissance', rather than as the end of the Middle Ages. And although
Burckhardt's tendency to attribute everything vital in the Middle
Ages to a premature renaissance is to be deprecated, it is true that the
brilliant fifteenth-century Florentine culture in some ways antici-
pates developments normally associated with the next century. It
demonstrates that, while the church had always provided opportuni-
ties for spectacle of a ritualistic order, a relatively unstable economy
is apt to encourage a heightened humanism, to give a vigorous
impetus to the instinct for rhetoric and dramatization. In the Floren-
tine cities, as later in Elizabethan England, feudalism was dying and
a national, commercial outlook was becoming more obtrusive. Both
because man's economic position was more precarious, and because
his relation to a universal Order was less clearly defined, the claims
of the individual seemed more important, and the relation between
the individual and the community more complex. This heightened
personal and social consciousness found expression in a great out-
burst of pageantry and spectacle; we may note that it was the guild
movements that brought pageantry out of the aegis of the church.
This pageantry in turn gave a fillip to the theatrical aspects of the arts
attendant on it. It is no accident that it was in Italy, which already
had so long a tradition of spectacle and theatre, that the tremendous
humanistic passion of the chromatic madrigal and of early baroque
opera was first manifested.

When the musical-spectacular dramatic art of the Italian renais-
sance spread to France in the sixteenth century, it was rapidly modi-
fied by the native French tradition. Considerably before the full
flowering of Italian baroque opera, the sophisticated court society of
Henry II saw in the Italian masquerades, intermedii, and balletti a
type of entertainment which could be adapted to local court func-
tions. Mascarades a grand spectacle, held in the open air on a lavish
scale, and tnascarades de palais, held less magnificently in a room or
small garden, became the customary accompaniment to the compli-
mentary speeches to the King and nobility which graced all court
festivities.

French composers had no difficulty in providing a stream of dance
movements for these entertainments. The French tradition had
always been rich in dance music. The folk music is itself remarkable
60

Music, THE COURT, AND THE THEATRE

for its sense of physical movement; and although men such as
Josquin and Lassus exhibit in their religious polyphony a rhythmic
variety no less subtle than that of Byrd or Victoria, there flourished
too, all through the sixteenth century, an elegant homophonicchoral
tradition which is linked to folk dance. The symmetry and precision
of this secular line, from Adam de la Halle to Jannequin, to Guillaume
de Costeley, gives to French folk dance a super-civilized reincarna-
tion. The combination of melodic and rhythmic simplicity with a
delicate economy of craftsmanship gives the music a quality, at once
naive and sophisticated, which is not paralleled by the English
madrigalists, who are either more complex and profound, or else
less sophisticated, more directly in touch with a folk culture. Even
some sixteenth-century French religious choral music, for instance
the Psalms of Mauduit, uses a technique of homophonically built-up
choral masses which almost anticipates the majesty of Lufly.

Now the instrumental dance music is complementary to this
elegant choral homophony. Many of the dances were published in
the famous collection of Attaignant in 1557. Some were modelled
on imported Italian dances, for instance the corantos, though the
French soon developed their own version of the dance also. Others,
such as the various types of branles, were a direct transference of folk
dances, indicating that the sophisticated court culture had not yet
lost contact with 'the people'. Others again, such as the pavanes and
galliards, were a compromise between sophisticated and popular
elements. The music, scored for strings, oboes, bassoons, and cornets
a bouquins, had similar qualities to the vocal chansons; the implicit
connection with a vocal tradition lent the rhythm plasticity, without
any sacrifice of verve. The clarity of texture, the sharp definition of
line and rhythm and orchestration, make the music still entrancing
to listen to; it is entertainment music which is admirably designed
for its function, and is also an enlivening of the spirit. The string
parts probably included violins rather than viols, for a version
of the violin more resembling the Italian lyra da braccia than the
modern violin was introduced in France as early as 1530, well
before the appearance of violins in Italy. The characteristic tone
colour of the instrument must have enhanced the music's vivacity
and allure. The following quotation from Philibert Jambe-de-Fcr,
dated 1556, would seem to indicate that in the mid-sixteenth century

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

the attitude of cultivated musicians to the violin was still somewhat
patronizing:

Le violon est fort contraire & la viole. . . . fl est en forme de corps plus
petit, plus plat, et beaucoup plus rude en son. . . . Nous appeflons vfoles
celles desquelles les gentilz hommes, marchantz, et autres gens de vertu
passent leur temps. L'autre sorte s'appelle violon, et c'est celui duquel en use
en dancerie communement et a bonne cause: car il est plus facile d'accorder
pour ce que la quinte est plus douce a ouyr que n'est la quarte. II est aussi
plus facile a porter, qui est chose fort necessaire, mesme en conduisant
quelques noces, ou mommerie. . . .

But by the early years of the seventeenth century violins had become
the rule in court festival music, having lost much of the social stigma
attached to them. That their theatrical glamour was clearly recog-
nized is attested by the appearance in the score of Monteverdi's
Orfeo (1607) of violini piccoli alia francese', and by this passage from
Mersenne's Harmonie Universelle of 1636:

Et ceux qui ont entendu les 24 Violons du Roy, aduouent qu'ils n'ont
jamais rien ouy de plus rauissant ou de plus puissant; de 14 vient que cet
instrument est la plus propre de tous pour faire danser, comme Ton experi-
mente dans les balets, & partout ailleurs. Or les beautez et les gentillesses
que Ton pratique dessus sont en si grand nombre que Ton le peut preTerer
a tous les autres instrumens, car les coups de son archet sont par fois si
rauissants, que Ton n'a point de plus grand mescontentement que d'entendre
la fin, particulierement lors qu'ils sont melez des tremblemens & des flatte-
mens de la main gauche. . . .

The brilliant French dance orchestras soon became famous all over
Europe; some of them travelled to Germany, England, and even as
far as Poland and Sweden.

The greater importance of the dance in art music was, however,
only one aspect of the influence in France of the Italian renaissance.
In both countries and many Italian musicians were, in the second
half of the sixteenth century, resident in France it was felt that the
figured dances of the court entertainments contained latent aesthetic
possibilities which had not been adequately explored. Just as Peri
and Bardi tried to combine the arts of music, dancing, painting, and
poetry into an organized whole, in a manner which they imagined
to be a marriage of modern civilization with the principles of classi-
cal antiquity, so, in France, Ronsard and the poets of the Pleiade
group collaborated with the musicians to work out similar theories.
From the start, the Italians had the drama in mind; the French, to
62

Music, THE COURT, AND THE THEATRE

begin with, were content to insist on the interdependence of music
and poetry. Music was to be 'lasceur puisnee de la poesie'. Without
it, poetry is 'presque sans grlce, comme la musique sans la melodie
des vers, inanimee et sans vie'. (Ronsard.)

The first product of this experiment was the airs de cour for solo
voice and lute. A more detailed account of these will be given in the
chapter on Couperin's secular vocal music. Here it is only necessary
to say that, unlike the finest songs of the English Dowland, these airs
have lute parts which were increasingly divested of polyphonic
elaboration and reduced to a series of continuo-like chords. Le Roy
interestingly contrasted the airs de cour with the chansons of Roland
de Lassus, 'lesquelles sont difficiles et ardues'. In England, this desire
for the simple and tuneful develops very much later.

It is hardly just, however, to suggest that the early airs de cour were
lacking in subtlety. If they had a less delicate balance between
melodic and harmonic elements than the English ayres, they were
no less subtle in the way in which the extraordinarily free rhythm of
the solo line reflected the slightest nuance of the text. Jodelle said
' Meme Fair des beaux chants inspires dans les vers / Est, comme en un
beau corps, une belle &me infuse'. In the hands of a great man
such as Claude Le Jeune, who is also a superb contrapuntist in his
church music, these songs may achieve a limpid beauty which is a
fitting complement to the poetry of Ronsard that Le Jeune so fre-
quently set. Occasionally, through the introduction of the intense
chromaticisms of the Italian arioso technique, the songs may rise to
a considerable passion. Normally, however, such humanistic drama
was left to the Italians; the effect of the airs de cour as a whole we
may take Du Caurroy rather than Le Jeune as typical is of a witty
entertainment of the spirit, or of a gently nostalgic melancholy that
is somewhat emasculating. Mersenne, writing during the height of
the fashion, summed up adequately both the airs' virtues and their
limitations:

II faut avouer que les accents de la passion manquent le plus souvent aux
airs franc.ais parce que nos chants se contentent de chatouiller 1'oreille et de
plaire par les mignardises sans se soucier d'exciter les passions de leurs
auditeurs.

Nothing could be further removed, both in intention and effect,
from the Italian arioso at its best.

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: LIFE AND TIMES

The French tradition of courtly theatre music developed through
the mingling of these airs de cow with the instrumental dances dis-
cussed previously. In 1571 the poet Antoine de Baif and the musician
Thibatdt de Courville founded under royal patronage the Academic
Baif de Musique et de Poesie, to practise and propagate the new
theories about music and prosody, to combine music and poetry
with the dance by creating ballets based on Greek metres, and to
circulate ideas among performers and audience. (There was often
no sharp distinction between the two.)

L'entreprise

D'un ballet que dressions, dont la demarche est wise
Selon que va marchant pas a pas la chanson
Et le parler suivi d'une proprefagon

was, with its insistence on Greek metres, perhaps a rather coldly
academic prescription, but it was not rigidly adhered to. By the time
the work of the Academic was interrupted by the Wars of Religion,
it had impregnated French culture so deeply that its influence was
felt for the next hundred and fifty years.

In 1581 Charles IX commissioned Ronsard,Baif, and Le Jeune to
produce mascarades to celebrate the marriage of the Due de Joyeuse
and Mile de Vaudemont. Stung to emulation, Catharine de Medici
ordered Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx to arrange an even grander affair,
and although the Kong had already obtained the most distinguished
artists, Beaujoyeulx compensated for the lack of glamorous 'names'
in his production, by an element of novelty. He created Circi, ballet
comique de la reine, which although not in any way profound, for the
first time made a conscious attempt to link dance, music, and
spectacle into a coherent whole through the introduction of a
slender story. 'Je puis dire avoir contente en un corps bien propor-
tionne Tceil, 1'oreille, et Tentendement'. Circe immediately created
a furore. The ballet comique superseded the casual mascarade as the
recognized entertainment for all big court festivities; even the
smaller mascarades depalais were influenced by it, introducing more
developed literary and musical elements.

The history of the French ballet through the seventeenth century
is described in detail in Pruniferes's fascinating book on the subject, to
which the reader is referred. Briefly, the ballet fluctuated between a
literary and musical approach, the element of the dance remaining
64

Music, THE COURT, AND THE THEATRE

constant throughout. During the early years of the century, the
presence of Rinuccini and Caccini at the French court encouraged a
development of the musical elements; with the production of the
Ballet fAlcine in 1610 the dramatically inclined ballet comique re-
asserted itself. A new form, embracing dance, song, spectacle, panto-
mime and gesture, was created, and flourished from 1610 to 1621,
when the Constable de Luynes, who had been in charge of it, died.
PruniSres refers to this type as the ballet melodramatique. De Luynes's
successor as master of the revels, the Due de Nemours, had a par-
tiality for the grotesque ballet mascarade; and the classical form of
the ballet de cour was the offspring of a liaison between the ballet
melodramatique and the ballet mascarade.

The classical ballet was usually in five sections, each divided into
several subsections. It opened with the dedicatory chorus to the King
and court ladies, which was followed by a number of entries with
characteristic dances, often of a grotesque nature. Then came the
entry of quaintly masked musicians with lutes and viols to play
instrumental interludes and to accompany the recitative and airs.
Next came the climax with the entry of the King and nobles,
masked; and the ballet concluded with a general dance and chorus.
The songs included airs de cour, and vaudevilles or adaptations, some
satirical, some amorous and pastoral, of popular songs and carols;
another indication of the popular affiliations of this esoteric art. The
one new element was the recitative, and this was a natural evolution
from the freer type of air de cour 9 from which it differed only in
being more consistently narrative and declamatory. One cannot say
that this recitative is in the least dramatic; rather flat and character-
less, it hardly attempts to solve the difficult problem of the relation
between speech and lyrical song. But at least it was a step towards
the opera; it was something that Lully could start from.

Musically, the most interesting section of the ballets would seem
to be the entrees de luth which preserved some connection with the
old polyphonic technique. They are not brisk like the conventional
fanfares, but emotional and melancholy, dreamy and relaxed, ob-
viously related to the elegiac tone of the lutenist music of the salons
and ruelles. The other instrumental sections were not much more
distinguished than the vocal parts the recitative, solo airs, and
choruses. Before Lully, the overtures do not extend beyond a few

E 65

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

conventionally imposing gestures; and the dances appear to have
been less rhythmically alert than those of the sixteenth century.
Prunieres warns us, however, that we have imperfect evidence as to
the nature of the original ballet scores. Comparison of Philidor's
early eighteenth-century transcriptions with the few examples which
have survived in contemporary transcriptions for the lute, indicates
that Philidor has emasculated die dances. In any case they must have
been, in their original orchestration, a bright and colourful addition
to the spectacle.

The dances made animated play with decorative and descriptive
details; soldiers, battles, cock-crows and other bird-calls, 'national'
dances, the more outlandish the better, were especially favoured.
Ornamentation and the French dotted rhythm (which was not an
invention of Lully), were employed to give vigour and point to
physical gestures. Moreover, a case can be made out that the French
were justified in putting the stress on the dance rather than the drama
in creating a musical-theatrical art, because music and dancing are
natural allies which move at the same speed. Music, on the other
hand, is bound to take longer than poetry to make its emotional
effect, and thereby produces a tricky technical problem which few
opera composers have adequately solved. However this may be, the
architectural quality of the French ballet de cour made an immense
impression on foreign artists. It greatly influenced the later masques
of Ben Jonson. Rinuccini studied it in detail, and determined to
introduce it into his own country on his return; Monteverdi's
magnificent Ballo delle Ingrate is one of the fruits of the French influ-
ence. If the French theatre music had originally sprung from Italian
sources, it had certainly developed a character of its own which die
Italians, among other European musicians, were eager to emulate.
During the early years of the seventeenth century the ballet had
one composer of genius, Pierre Guedron. His dances have unusual
virility, and his airs de cour a genuine pathos and dramatic power.
One cannot say, however, that Guedron is the representative com-
poser of the ballet of the grand siecle. It is his successor Antoine
Boesset who, as the most fashionable ballet composer, was univer-
sally honoured and feted; whose work was studied by Heinrich
Albert, one of the leading German composers for the solo voice, and,
according to St Evremond, by no less a person that Luigi Rossi, the
66

Music, THE COURT, AND THE THEATRE

Italian opera composer esteemed in France above all others. Boesset
is a real composer, with a personal melodic gift, but he lacks and
would not, one imagines, have desired Guedron's tautness and
sinew. He is a 'genie de la musique douce', writing music that is
sweedy mellifluous and often subtle. But the soft fluidity of his
rhythms and the elaborations of his ornamentation get increasingly
out of touch with the prosody they had originally been designed to
illustrate. They are indulged in for their own sake, and become in
the long run wearisome and enervating. By the time of the Roi
Soleil the ballet appeared to be in decline. What was needed to weld
its constituents into a musico-dramatic convention of classical matu-
rity was an artist of commanding authority. He came in the person
of Jean-Baptiste Lully.

Lully was, interestingly enough, himself an Italian, and the son of
a miller. Born in Florence in 1632, he was brought up in the
humanistic traditions of Italian music. At the age of fourteen he
came to France as gargon de chambre and unofficial instructor in
Italian to Mile d' Orleans; by the time he was twenty his precocious
musical gifts and headstrong temperament had carried him into the
court ballet, where he excelled both as dancer and musician. He ac-
quired a thorough grounding in the French traditions of composition
from two men of the old school, Roberday and Gigault, and was
himself soon composing, with equal fluency, ballet music in the
French style, and Italian airs in the manner of Rossi and Carissimi. A
brilliant fiddler, Lully had little use for the famous Vingt-quatre
Violons du Roi; indeed of them he 'faisait si peu de cas qu'il les
traitait de maitres aliborons et de maitres ignorants ', in particular pro-
testing against their habit of introducing unauthorized ornamenta-
tion into their parts. Lully's appeal for naturalness and simplicity
applied of course to his vocal writing as well as to his instrumental.
Lecerf de la Vieville reports him as saying: 'Point de broderie; mon
recitatif n'est fait que pour parler, je veux qu'il soit tout uni.' It is
worth noting that Lully's first appeals for dignity and lucidity in
performance and composition correspond in date with Boileau's
attack upon the excesses of predosite.

That Lully's personality had remarkable power is indicated by the
fact that the King listened to his complaints even though, at the time,
Lully was not a person of much consequence. Louis put him 'a

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

la tete d'une bande de violons qu'il peut conduire a sa fantaisie*.
Lully soon proved that the King's confidence in him was not mis-
placed; according to Lecerf de la Vieville, the new band, called Les
Petits Violons, 'en peu de temps surpassa la fameuse bande des
Vingt-Quatre'. Lully introduced many improvements into string
technique, mostly for the purpose of achieving greater brilliance and
more incisive rhythm. There can be no doubt that his experience of
playing string music as an accompaniment to physical movement
was of great value to him in his subsequent career as a theatre
composer.

When Lully, with his Italian background, first came to France,
Italian music, and in particular the opera, was in vogue among the
French intelligentsia, largely because of Mazarin's insatiable passion
for it. Mazarin's vindication was that he *ne faisoit pas ces choses
tant pour le public que pour le divertissement de leurs Majestes et
pour le sien, et qu'ils aymoient mieux les vers et la musique italienne
que la frangaise'. (Perrin). It was at his invitation that Luigi Rossi
and Carlo Caproli spent long periods in France, and through his
efforts that in the sixteen forties Rossi's opera Orfeo was given a
sumptuous Parisian production. It enjoyed a considerable succes
d'estime, or possibly succes de scandale, among the dilettanti; and
undoubtedly the aristocratic refinement and hyper-subtlety of both
Rossi's and Caproli's music must have appealed to an audience
which admired the sophistications of the lute music and the airs de
.COM. But it cannot be said that the perfervid Italians made any lasting
impression on the French temperament. If the French liked the
Italians' emotional subtleties, they distrusted their violence; the
dolorous intensity of Rossi's music, its vehement chromaticisms,
were admired less than its languishing elegance. On the whole the
Italian musicians were regarded with suspicion. After Mazarin's
death it was inevitable that the Italian influence should decline.

The much heralded visit of the great Cavalli in the sixteen sixties
was thus somewhat of an anti-climax. His opera Serse passed, musi-
cally speaking, almost unnoticed, and when, a little later, his L'Ercole
Amante was produced, it was the additional ballets written by Lully
that aroused all the enthusiasm. Not unnaturally Cavalli was piqued
that a composer of international celebrity such as himself should be
ousted by a composer of pleasant dances which were almost all
68

Music, THE COURT, AND THE THEATRE

Lully had to his credit at that date. He returned to Italy, leaving
Lully in full musical possession of the country of his adoption. But
although opposition to things Italian was temporarily so strong that
Cavalli's music was not generally appreciated, Lully himself was not
slow to recognize its virtues. He was aware that, though the French
might not know it, there were things in Cavalli's theatre music that
the French tradition could use to its own advantage.

For while Cavalli could employ a passionate Italian chromaticism
when he wanted, as in the famous lament from Eg isto, the general
tendency of his work was towards balanced periods founded on the
integration of melody and bass, and simple diatonic harmony of the
type that reaches its culmination in Handel. Rossi and Caproli were
transitional composers in the sense that their dramatic harmonic
audacities and sensuous glamour still have contact with the poly-
phonic methods of the past. Cavalli differentiates much more sharply
between his supple but highly stylized declamation, and his formal
arias. He has not Rossi's baroque imaginativeness, but he has drama-
tic power combined with a sense of architectural order and of the
alternation of mood. Cavalli deliberately avoids the subtle harmonic
effects of false relation and appoggiatura that Rossi delighted in;
avoids, too, Rossi's contrapuntal complexities in choral and instru-
mental part-writing. He aims at a broad effect; and this was just
what Lully wanted if he was to establish a criterion of order in music,
as Boileau established it in poetic technique; if he was to discipline
the floridity ofpredeux line and harmony, as Mansart regulated and
stabilized the proportions of baroque architecture. After the produc-
tion ofL'Ercole Amante all Lully's ballets show an expansion of the
traditional French technique (which he had helped to formulate
with his Ballet de la Nuit of 1653) by means of the sense of harmonic
proportion he had learned from the Italians, and from Cavalli in
particular. This debt remains, even though Lully, having thrown in
his lot with the French cause, came bitterly to resent any Italian
interference.

To the traditional French methods Lully added, at the start, little
that was new. But he gave the ceremonial dances and corteges on
the classical model a more organic unity with one another, and a
more intrinsic elegance and zest. Early on he showed a clear under-
standing of the tonal principles on which a convincing homophonic

COUPBRIN: LIFE AND TIMES

architecture was to depend; and he developed the ground-bass tech-
nique of the chaconne, that most primitive expansion of a symmetri-
cal figure through the simple process of repetition, into a medium
capable of an intense emotional expressiveness, exploiting the possi-
bility of tension between the regularly repeated bass and the varied
groupings of the melodies above it. This development of the
chaconne is an example of how the seventeenth-century composer
turned to his advantage a practical necessitynamely, the repetition
of the symmetrical ballet tune as long as the dancers wished to go on
dancing. The somewhat kter development of the rondeau with
couplets is a further example, as we shall see, of a technique of expe-
diency turned to an expressive purpose. Both techniques are a com-
promise between a dance music for practical use and the melodically
generative technique of the sixteenth century. Though the rhythmic
conception is now more accentual, there is still a link between the
chaconne and rondeau technique of Lully and Couperin respectively,
andjfor instance, the variation technique of the Tudor virginalists.
/Important as was Lully's work in developing the dance element in
the ballet, still more significant is his transformation into the theatri-
cal overture of the formal introductory fanfares heralding the arrival
of the maskers./ ^This reconciles all the transitional elements of the
technique of composition which were then current. The slow majes-
tic opening harks back to the polyphony and false relations of the
instrumental fantasia, the bouncing dotted rhythms and the orna-
mentation deriving from Lully's knowledge of the physical move-
ments of the ballet, acquired when directing Les Petits Violons;
while the quick fugal section is a compromise between polyphonic
procedure and the regular rhythms and simple harmonies of the
dance. If the Lullian overture is a transitional technique, it is none
the less mature. It is not surprising that its influence spread far
beyond the confines of the French court

In addition to his expansion of the symphonic aspects of the ballet,
"Lully developed the vocal elements. His interest in vocal music was
considerably encouraged when, in 1664, he entered into collabora-
tion with Moliere and produced a long series of comedies-ballets^' Le
Manage Force, La Princesse d'Elide, L* Amour Medecin, Le Sicilien, Le
Ballet des Muses, Le Grotte de Versailles, George Dandin, Les Amans
-Magnifiques, Monsieur de Pourceaugna^Le Bourgeois Gentilhomm%
70

Music, THE COURT, AND THE THEATRE

and, to complete.. the ..cyde r .,P^c&4~fe, collaboration with Pierrej
CornejUejln all these, care is taken to relate the musical interludes
tcfthe action. Some of them, La Princesse d' Elide, Les Amans Magni-
"fques^^^^ were heroic works in the grand style, with consider-
able cnoraTpassages, treated vertically in massive homophony, and
with ekborate stage machinery; they were almost grand operas, but
for the absence of dramatic recitative. The lighter work, on the
other hand, Le Manage Force, L 9 Amour Medecin, Le Bourgeois Gentil-
homme and Pourceaugnac, led on to the French comic opera. Here, in
the dance movements we find a crispness and bubbling zest which
is enhanced by the scrupulously clean orchestration, a vein of ex-
quisite pastoral elegance (Le.Sicilien.h .thejovejiest^example) and a
lyrical idiom sensitively moulded to the inflections of the French
language. The line is unbroken from Pourceaugnac to Chabrier's Le
Roi MalgreLuL Moreover, in Le Grotte de Versailles, George Dandin,
and Les Amans Magnifiques, Lully has gone far towards creating a
recitative as well as a lyrical style which is a musical incarnation of
the French language. All these bergeries and comedies-ballets are full of
intimations of the later operas. The gay satirical scenes of Pourceau-
gnac and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, with their extravagant local
colour, their serenades, drinking-songs and descriptive details, are
already the creation of a mature comic genius which M t Prunieres
rektes to Rossini. In Les Amans Magnifiques, the sommeil of Caliste
and the scene of the Jtux Pithiens, with its ceremonial dialogues
between choir and resplendent orchestra of trumpets, flutes, oboes,
strings, and percussion, gbEjdforefeasl^of 1 ^^

The creationjpf ballets comiques continued from 1664 to 1671, the
-date of Psyche^ln. the following year, after complicated and UDH
scrupulous legal negotiations, Lully obtained an exclusive privilege
of founding an Academic Royale de Musique. As a result of this,
he established a school of opera centred at the Palais Royal, and
between 1673 and 1686 produced his famous series of operas, twelve
of them in collaboration with Quinault, three with Campistron and
Thomas Corneille, the brother of Pierre. If Lully had been fortunate
in having the wit and urbanity of Moliere at his disposal for his
ballets comiques, he was hardly less fortunate in having for his tragic
operas the services of a poet who, though not a genius, had habitual

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

distinction and good taste. We have already referred to the reward-
ing collaboration between artists in different media, as being indica-
tive of the cultural unity and vitality of Versailles; in this case the
collaboration appears to have been especially intimate, for Quinault
was much influenced by Lully's ideas and allowed the composer a
considerable share in the shaping of the librettos. 8 The plan of the
operas was highly stylized. After the overture, a more spacious
version of the ballet overture already described, came the prologue
with complimentary speeches to the King and allusions to the latest
victories, followed by choruses and dances of patriotic intent. All
this was a direct survival from the masque. Then followed the
tragedy, usually concerned with sexual passion, and involving super-
natural agencies which provided opportunities for complicated stage
mechanism.

"The centre of interest, the unfolding of the story, lies in the
recitative; this is the principal difference from the ballets. This
recitative is far from the perfunctory declamation of the old cere-
monial addresses. Lully modelled it with the greatest care, studying the
inflections of the great Racinian tragedians such as La Champmesle,
trying to create a line which should be scrupulously attentive to the
effect of the spoken word, while at the same time having sufficient
musical interest to stand on its own feet. There is a good deal of
evidence, as Romain Rolland has shown, that Racine's own notion
of declamation was dose to song: leaps in pitch as great as an octave
were encouraged in the more passionate passages. It is probable,
therefore, that Lully's recitative reflects fairly accurately the contour
of Racine's declamation. The latter was closer to song than are our
notions of declamation, whereas Lully's recitative was closer to
speech than our, or at least nineteenth-century, recitative. If today
Lully's recitative sounds dull, it is usually because it is sung too
stolidly and formally. It should have the flexibility of animated, if
always elegant, conversation; contemporary opinion insists re-
peatedly not only on its majesty, but on its liveliness and natural-
ness. If Lully studied the tragedians as a model for his recitative, it is
equally true that they in their turn studied his recitative as a model
for their declamation.Nhr1Blayfe^ decay -of .das relation

8 A most interesting account of Lully's method of work and of his association with
Quinault is given in Bonnet's Histoire de la Musique, vol. iii, p. 95 etseq. (1725 edition.

Music, THE COURT, AND THE THEATRE

between the dramatic and operatic traditions that led to the wide-
spread misunderstanding of Lully's idiom.

Th^ghj^^

line attains a convincing Cavalli-lilce balance between jtnelodic
Interest and harmonicelements, exemplified for instance in the .line's
"use H^iminished^fftE and sevenths. Since die French language per-
ta^3oernof naturally Tend itself to musical expression, Lully's
achievement was, even on purely technical grounds, of no mean
order; but what is most remarkable is the range of emotional expres-
sion he compasses within his restrained utterance. The use of melodic
intervals is carefully graded according to the intensity of the emotion
to be expressed; but the fact that the idiom is stylized, as are the
values of Lully's civilization, does not mean that it is insincere. As he
matures, Lully tends to make his recitative more lyrical without
sacrificing its fluidity, while he tends to submerge his arias in the
recitative. In the last operas he almost discards the late baroque
differentiation between aria, arioso, and recitative in favour of the
early baroque's continuous arioso which absorbs into itself both
recitative and lyrical song. The arias now give the impression of
being merely the overflow of the recitative's more passionate
moments. They are infrequent not more than two or three mark-
ing the high points of the opera; when they do occur, they are some-
times derived from the air de cour (and therefore still fairly dose to
speech), sometimes brief strophic melodies with refrain. In no case
are they allowed to assume a self-subsistent importance or to inter-
rupt the flow of the voice's intimate relation to the poetry and the
orchestra.

The orchestra on the other hand is given a more independent
function. The stylized action offers plenty of opportunities for the
introduction ofbergeries, dances, and interludes, treated in an expan-
sive style by both chorus and orchestra^ The vocal and symphonic
elements are clearly differentiated in the early operas; through the*
succession of Alceste (1674), Thesee (1675), Atys (1676), and Isis (1677)
we can observe that the recitative acquires a more lyrical swell and
continuity, while the symphonic elements are more closely linked
to the recitative.

With the great operas of the last years of the Lully-Quinault col-
laboration, Proserpine, Persee, Phaeton, Amadis, Roland, and Armide,

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

the French classical tradition comes musically to fruition. The heroic
parts of the central characters are not only more lyrically rich, but
roles of some psychological power. Moreover, while formal ballets,
bergeries and marches in the line of the ballet de cour are still intro-
duced these symphonic elements begin, too, to acquire psychological
significance to have bearing on the dramatic situations, on the
desires and fears, joys and despairs, of the characters. Lully now fre-
quently employs recitative accompanied by the orchestra, making
die instruments underline the emotional implications of the scene;
the battle pieces, thunder-storms and the like become less decora-
tively descriptive, more descriptive of 'states of mind*. In particular,
the sommeil scenes in Armide, Roland, and Amadis, with their vague,
vaporous murmur of muted violins, are almost impressionistic in
effect, though the texture and structure remain meticulously clear
and the effect does not depend on the confusion of line and timbre,
as does late nineteenth-century impressionism.

The combination, in passages such as these, of grand symmetrical
architecture in the symphonies, with intimacy in the inflections of the
vocal line and the harmony of the inner parts, suggests some analogy
with the gardens of Le Notre. For the broad, clear horizons of Le
Notre's gardens are planned with geometrical precision, while with-
in that lucid framework the detail is of extraordinary complexity;
the total impression owes something to both the lucidity and the
elaboration. A similar but still more significant analogy may be
established between Lully's music and the painting of Poussin and
Claude. Poussin, of course, died in 1665, before the great days of
Louis XIV, and both he and Claude spent most of their careers in
Rome another instance of the relations between French and Italian
culture in the seventeenth century. But we can regard them as more
imbued with the Racinian spirit than the conventional court painters
like Lebrun, who see only the surface grandeur; and Poussin at least
was much admired at Versailles Le Notre had a fine collection.
Just as Lully groups his periods with ceremonial equilibrium, so the
architectural proportions, the relations of part to part, in Poussin's
classical mythology and Claude's landscapes, are calculated with
mathematical exactitude. On the other hand, the quality of the
colour has sensuousness and translucency, just as has Lully's harmony
in such things as the scenes de sommeil. But these colours are pkced in
74

Music, THE COURT, AND THE THEATRE

balanced groups, put on smoothly, with no gradations, no impres-
sionist flowing of one shade into another; the colours, even the
sharply defined shadows, are part of the architecture. We remember
Louis Testelin's remark which became one of the key-phrases of the
period 'Le dessin est intellectuel, tandis que la couleur n'est que
sensible'; and Poussin's statement of principle, which stands as an
epitome of the ideals of the grand siede: 'Mon naturel me contraint
de chercher les choses bien ordonnees, fuyant la confusion qui m'est
aussi contraire et ennemie comme est la lumiere des obscures
t&ibres/

Exacdy comparable with Poussin's architectural use of colour is
Lully's use of the sensuous colour of his harmonies and orchestration.
These elements he employs not in the intentionally blurred manner
of the nineteenth-century orchestra, but in clearly defined groups, as
part of his tonal architecture. The effervescent and resilient orchestra-
tion of Lully or La Lande consider for instance the latter's Sym-
phonies des Noels or the magnificent Musiaue pour les Soupers du Roi
of which M. Roger Desormiere has made a recording is the pokr
opposite of Wagner's 'harmonizing with the orchestra'. Together
with the sonorous brilliance which should characterize the chamber-
music combinations of the time, it has been buried as deeply beneath
the incrustations of nineteenth-century academic convention as the
luminosity of Poussin and Claude was buried beneath the incrusta-
tions of begrimed varnish. The re-created classical mythology, the
heroic gestures in the painting, seem to have as great a weight of
traditional experience behind them as does the stylized vocabulary
of the dramatic poets. If Lully 's last operas were produced with a
sensitive appreciation of his idiom and with adequate resources, it is
possible that we should find a comparable sublimity in his heroic
gestures and noble perorations. The argument which maintains that
Lully's operas are impractical for modern performance because they
depend on out-moded fashions, does not seem to me impressive; so
do the plays of Corneille, and even Racine. A producer and audience
that cannot appreciate a sense of stylization are not worth their salt.
The plots of die operas, qua plots, are, like the plots of Shakespeare's
drama, of little consequence; what matters is what the music, or the
poetry, does to them/ ft is interesting that the most remarkable"
instrumental and colouristic development in Lully's work coincides

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

.with the flowering of his lyrical speech* Compared with the Italians,
the lines in the last operas are still quiet and close to speech; but we
can hardly deny to the composer of the famous Bois epais the com-
mand, when he wanted it, of a melodic line of distinction.

Despite its restraint the work of Lully was considered, by the con-
temporary opinion of Bonnet's Histoire de la Musique of 1715, to be
moving enough to melt hearts and to make the very rocks groan
with him; while speaking oAlceste Mme de Sevigne remarked 'On
joue jeudi 1'opera qui est un prodige de beaute, il y a des endroits
de la musique qui ont merite des larmes. Je ne suis pas seule a ne les
pouvoir soutenir, l'me de Mme de la Fayette en est alarmee.' It is
also worth noting that when the last great operas were presented in
Paris at the public theatre they enjoyed a spectacular popular success;
Phaeton was even called 'I 9 opera du peuple'. 9 This certainly suggests
that the court culture was not as out of touch with French life as is
sometimes suggested; if it had been, it could hardly have given so
triumphant a manifestation of vitality. It is precisely this zest com-
bined with elegance that Lully expresses in his last work, Ads et
Galathee, a return, after the cycle of tragic operas, to the pastoral
convention. This beautiful work, the most obvious candidate for
revival, unites the rhythmic exuberance and melodic allure of the
early ballets with the linear subtlety and architectural gravity of the
late operas. It is the ripe fruit of a great civilization; and it suggests
the direction in which the opera is to tend after Lully's death. In its
more amiable and intimate atmosphere it is also of all Lully's works
the closest to Couperin.

From the start tie opera had not been without opponents. To the
logical French mind, absurdities which might be tolerated in a super-
ficial entertainment were inappropriate in a music drama which
purported to be a representation of life. La Bruyre, Boileau, and
St Evremond, among other celebrated people, deplored the frivolity
of the spectacles, the incredibility of the recitatives. Yet in many
ways, as we have seen, Lully's aesthetic was complementary to
Bofleau's; and in general the classical stylization vindicated itself.
Marmontel's defence that 'la musique y fait le charme du merveil-

9 'Et je vous apprends, mon petit cousin, qu' Amide est 1'opera des femmes; Atys
l'ope*ra du R.oi; Phaeton I'op&a du peuple; Isis l'ope*ra des musiciens. Mais enfia
revenons au recitatif. C'est principalement par 11 que Lully est au dessus de nos autres
musiciens. . .'

Music, THE COURT, AND THE THEATEB

leux; le merveilleux y fait la vraisemblance de la musique', seemed
convincing so long as the opera dealt with themes parallel to those
of the classical drama. Lully's triumph was complete; even the acid
St Evremond made an exception in his favour:

Would you know what an opera is? I'll tell you, it is an odd medley of
Poetry and Musick, wherein the Poet and Musician, equally confined one
by the other, take a World of Pains to compose a wretched Performance.
... It remains that I give my advice in general for all Comedies where any
singing is used; and that is to leave to the Poet's discretion the management
of the Piece. The Musician is to follow the Poet's direction, only in my
opinion, Lully is to be exempted, who knows the Passions and enters further
into the Heart of man than die Authors themselves.

When the opera finally fell out of favour it was not because it was
stylized but because the stylization ceased to have a purpose. In the
last years of Louis's reign, lagloire was in decline, festivities were no
longer officially in fashion. In the circumstances the patriotic celebra-
tions with which the opera had always been associated were hardly
in the best of taste. Mme de Maintenon encouraged Louis to regard
the opera as frivolous; it became so when it no longer had the back-
ing of the quasi-religious cult of the state.

As soon as the King had definitely thrown over the opera, the
rationalist Boileau and the devout Arnauld and Bossuet came out
into the open with their moral denunciations of it. Despite its
generic and structural relation to the noble classical tragedy, the
opera was regarded with disapproval by these men because it
tended to idealize love at the expense of duty. The main theme was
considered to be lubricious; while the incidental divertissements
were condemned because they were frivolous and trivial. Ironically
enough, when the opera decayed with the grand go&t of the Roi
Soleil, it was precisely the divertissement that once more took its
place. As culture became more decentralized, the divertissement
became more a private party than a state function; entertainments
were less sumptuous, but more exquisite. The revival of the opera-
ballet, instead of the tragic opera, 'sympathise', as a contemporary
writer put it, *avec Timpatience frao^aise'; 10 the 'moral' implica-

10 Roy: Lettre sur Fopera, in La Nouvette Bigarmre, quoted by Massonin V Opera de
Ratneau.

With reference to the changing cultural atmosphere, the tide of one of the entries
in Campra's delightful Ftoes Venitiennes of 1710 seems especially significant; it is called
Le Triomphe de la Folie sur la Raison.

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: LIFE AND TIMES

tions of the theatre music of the classic age had been lost because *le
public n'est plus ouvert & une certaine sensibilite et il est bien plus
flatte des choses agreables i ses yeux que de celles qui touchent le
coeur. 9

Yet this new phase is not simply, or at all, a decline, as the above
rather extravagant quotation from Destouches would suggest. For
it goes together with the other manifestations of a more intimate and
familiar culture which we mentioned in the last chapter; if it means
a loss in some of the virtues of Versailles's autocracy, it is also a gain
in so far as it applies to a wider, more centrally Parisian, public. So
the vivacious pastoralism of the opera ballet of Campra, Mouret and
Destouches is the link between the court opera of Lully and the next
great opera composer Rameau who, in the early part of his operatic
career at least, wrote for the Parisian public.

Campra is especially interesting from this point of view, for
although his music has plenty of aristocratic finesse it has also a
popular allure, a sun-baked vitality, which seems to spring from his
Proven9al origin. His exuberant sense of physical movement and of
orchestral colour makes him perhaps the most enchanting of all
dance composers. Something of this resilience is found even in his
fine religious motets, which resemble Couperin's in mating the
French and Italian gofa. Mouret, 'musicien des Graces, si gai, si vif,'
as Daquin said, was also a Provencal and manifests, in his Divertisse-
ments pour la Comedie Italienne and his Suites des Simphonies pour des
violons, des hautlois et des cors de chasse, a comparable popular
buoyancy of rhythm and glittering clarity of orchestration. De
Noinville, in his Histoire de I 9 opera en France of 1767, said that 'tant
des ouvrages de Mouret ont un go fit de leg&rete qui semblent
repondre a son temperament, et ils ont toujours plu extremement
aux connoisseurs.'

Destouches has less vigour, but the seductive emotionalism of his
harmonies likewise testifies to the more relaxed atmosphere. His
originality is his charm, though his unconventional harmonic pro-
gressions may often be due to his technical inexperience. He was a
rich dilettante and a pupil of Campra; his work shows a slender but
remarkable talent exactly suited to the temper of his age. These
three composers have an easy geniality which is seldom found in the
music of the great days of Louis XIV's reign; and of Couperin, as of
78

Music, THE COURT, AND THE THEATRE

Rameau after him, we may say that the highest point of French
musical culture since the late Middle Ages comes at a time when it
is not too late to remember and live by the old classical virtues while
avoiding, in the new more intimate environment, die dangers of
autocratic rigidity.

The first twenty years of Couperin's working life correspond with
the last twenty of Lotus's reign. During this period, therefore, he was
called upon to provide music that could soothe in the relative quiet
of chamber or salon, that could enliven the ceremony of eating, that
could elevate or inspire in the ritual of the church. Thus he did not
follow Lully in composing ballets and operas. He concentrated on
domestic music, concert music, and church music, fields which had
been cultivated in Lully's day only as accessories to the all-important
theatre music. By the time of the Regency he had discovered that
the forms of chamber music suited him best, for he made no attempt
to follow Campra and Destouches into the more relaxed delights of
the ballet-opera. It is hardly necessary to add that, while Couperin
did not write any theatre music, all his musical thought is influenced
both by the divertissement and by recollections of Lully's art. The
pastoral and mythological subjects, the dances, the sonorous texture
of Lully's orchestra, Lully's combination of architectural dignity
with subtle sensuousness of detail all these are latent in Couperin's
work. The clavecin ordres might even be considered as a series of
miniature ballets, expressed in absolute instrumental form.

But the change from a techfc. jue of theatre music to a chamber
music idiom involved certain developments which Lully had not
fully anticipated. The elder man had shown how it was possible to
weld the heterogeneous elements of a theatre music into a convinc-
ing organism. He had created the structure of the operatic overture,
and shown a grasp of tonal relationships, somewhat before the com-
parable work of Alessandro Scarlatti; his influence is unmistakable
both in the early overtures of Scarlatti and in those of Cesti. But it
was the Italians again who, at the end of the century, were to make
the classically final reconciliation of Italian harmonic drama with
the French sense of physical movement and architectural proportion.
It was the Italians who were to indicate with classical economy how
dances could be imbued with intense emotion, how dramatic har-
mony could be given formal discipline, and how the two could be

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LIFE AND TIMES

combined in an entity which could stand by itself as 'absolute'
music without reference to a theatrical framework.

Here we see the significance of the vogue for the Italian violin
sonata, which was at its height when Lully's death in 1687 removed
the main impediment to a renewed enthusiasm for things Italian.
For the Italian sonata might be said to summarize in instrumental
microcosm the technique of baroque opera. It is fitting, therefore,
that our survey of the position as Couperin found it should close
with this' brief reference to a convention to which composers all
over Europe felt obliged to pay homage. For the moment the
reference must suffice. We shall have occasion to discuss the tech-
nique in detail when we come to Couperin's own experiments in
the idiom. His first work, on the other hand, does not greatly depend
on this 'modern* Italian technique. It is rather a tribute to his fore-
bears, a recognition of the nature of his inheritance.

Part Two

THE WORK

Mon naturel me contraint de chercher les choses bien
ordonne*s, fuyant la confusion qui m'est aussi contraire et
ennemie comme est la lumiere des obscures tnbres.

POUSSIN

La clart6 orne les pens^es profondes.

VAUVEN ARGUES

Polissez-le sans cesse et le repolissez: soyez-vous a vous-
un severe critique.

BOILEAU

Chapter Five

The Organ Masses

STARTING JUST AFTER the heyday of French classical civilization,
and in his youth at least unaware of the impending collapse,
Couperin can never have been in any doubt as to the kind of music
he wanted to write. His first work, however, partly owing to the
circumstances in which it was written, pays a tribute to the long
tradition which lay behind him by being deliberately an exercise in
the manner of the past. The two organ masses were composed when
Couperin was twenty-one, four years after he had become organist
of St Gervais. The first of them, ^4 1* usage ordinaire des paroisses pour
les fetes solemnelles, was presumably employed by Couperin at St
Gervais; the other, Propre pour les Convents (sic) de Religieux et
Religieuses, was probably written for some specific community.
These works do not betray much conscious modernism; but like
PurcelTs string fantasias, composed at the same age, they reveal more
about their creator and the society he lived in than he may have
realized. Though their modernism is implicit rather than explicit, it
is none the less real.

Like most of the work of the seventeenth-century organ schools,
the masses were intended as music for religious ritual. Yet as far
back as the early years of the century we are aware of a gradual
change in instrumental church music. The supreme figures of the
baroque organ school, Titelouze, Sweelinck, Frescobaldi, Bull, and
Gibbons, all follow Cabezon in starting from the vocal conventions
of sixteenth-century polyphony. But their use of a keyboard, and of
a technique derived from the fingers, suggests harmonic and figura-
tive developments which, despite the experiments of a Gesualdo,
were beyond the scope of the human voice. Bull, Frescobaldi, and
Sweelinck exhibit this passionate intensity in harmony and figura-
tion more consistently than Gibbons or Titelouze; they are closer in
spirit to the violent humanistic genius of Monteverdi. But all the

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

early baroque organ composers used this technique because the im-
pulses behind them were changing. The crowning glory of Euro-
pean organ music the line stretching unbroken from the early
baroque composers to Buxtehude and Bach appeared when vocal
music was forced to learn a new technique. Though they did not
know it, the early organists were on the way from a religious out-
look to the ethical humanism of the eighteenth century; from poly-
phony, to diatonic harmonic structures founded on the dance, not
the voice. And beyond those harmonic structures lies the instru-
mental 'drama* of opposing key centres, and the great world of
classical symphonic music.

If one compares Gibbons's string fantasias with those of Purcell
which are modelled on them, one may observe a clear example of
this tendency. Gibbons's harmonies are often audacious enough; but
he remains sixteenth-century in approach in that he is primarily
interested in the flow of his lines and regards the harmonies as a
consequence, albeit not a fortuitous one, of that flow. Purcell tends
to use shorter, more easily memorable, phrases so that the grouping
of his themes in sequence produces a more rhetorical effect. The
fourth four-part fantasia creates, through its chromaticisms, dis-
sonant suspensions and overlapping false relations, a more directly
* personal* and dramatic effect than anything in Gibbons. It might
be a lament from one of PurcelTs operas; it has even been called
Wagnerian! The balance between melodic and harmonic organiza-
tion, characteristic of sixteenth-century polyphony, is being super-
seded by a preoccupation with the poignant phrase and expressive
harmony per se. These harmonic elements could be given coherence
only through some new type of organization, such as we discussed
in general terms in the last chapter, involving the dance and the stage.

Purcell did not succeed, for reasons for which he was not per-
sonally responsible, in establishing such a system. When Couperin
started work in Paris the form had already been developed in the
opera of Lully. PurcelTs fantasias represent the more or less uncon-
scious emergence of impulses which the composer, during the re-
mainder of his short life, must attempt to subdue and organize.
Couperin's organ masses may start from a similar point, but they
contain other elements that help us to understand why, in France, a
great classical and operatic tradition survived;. whereas, after Purcell,
the English tradition withered.
84

THE ORGAN MASSES

Besides containing much lovely music, the two organ masses are
thus a case-book demonstrating the growth of the French classical
tradition. They amalgamate, without any immature experimental-
ism, the many different tendencies observable in seventeenth-century
French organ music. Basically, there is the austere, religious poly-
phonic technique of the plainsong fantasia, inherited from the great
Titelouze; it was from the German Protestant complement to this
tradition that J. S. Bach started. Then there are passages which use
chromaticism and dissonant suspensions to convey a peculiar impres-
sion of the dissolution of the senses. This technique is more extremely
employed by Gigault and Marchand, and we have already referred
to its appearance in Purcell. It is significantly used by the subjective
and emotional Frescobaldi to accompany the most mystical moment
of the Catholic ritual, the Elevation of the Host. The greatest and
most celebrated of all examples of the technique is, of course, the
Crucifixus of Bach's B minor Mass.

At a further extreme from these chromatic passages there are
movements showing a lively sense of physical movement, which
Couperin learned from the ballet. This links up with the more naive
popular type of air de cow such as the vaudevilles; as one may see
more obviously in the relatively unsubde work of Nicolas Le Begue.
From the more sophisticated aspects of the air de cour, and from the
clavecinists and lutenists, Couperin and the other organ composers
derived a symmetrical graciousness in their melodies and some con-
ventions of ornamentation. And over all there is a concern for the
proportions of the whole which he learned from the theatre music
of Lully. Most of these contributory features will be discussed in
more appropriate contexts in kter chapters of this book. In this
estimate of Couperin's start, it is the synthesizing process that we are
most interested in.

The form of the masses is simple. Since they were intended for
liturgical use, any elaborate musical development would have been
unsuitable. The Catholic Church in France did not allow the organ
the importance it came to have in Protestant Germany; unpreten-
tiously, it had to fill in any gaps in the service with brief comments
or variations on the liturgically important plainsong motives. 11

11 This convention still survived in 1770, as we may see from Dr Burney's patroniz-
ing description of a service at Notre Dame: * Though this was so great a festival, the
organ accompanied but little. The chief use of it was to play over the chant before it

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

Couperin's couplets on the Kyrie, Gloria, Offertory, Benedictus
(Elevation), Sanctus, and Agnus Dei have, like those of his contem-
poraries, mostly lost their connection with the plainsong base; they
are short pieces, headed by a phrase of the Latin text, some in the
old fugal idiom, others more operatic in technique. Most of the
couplets in the minor end on the dominant, suggesting their func-
tional position as a preparation for some part of die service. We may
note that Couperin and his contemporaries usually employ the term
couplet for the episodes of the rondeau. The use of the term in the
organ masses would seem to imply that the pieces are episodes in the
liturgy. The (normally unstated) theme is the plainsong melody.

In discussing the music we shall in the main follow the catalogue
of its constituent elements, given earlier in the chapter. All the real
plainsong fantasias, those directly rooted in the old technique, occur
in the bigger work, the Messe Solemnelle. Of course, Couperin's
plainsong pieces are not monumental music like the tremendous
hymns of Titelouze. Those are the culmination of a great religious
age; their polyphonic embroideries around the plainsong stem attain
great intensity, but even at their most baroque they remain cathedral
music as much as the masses and motets of Lassus, with never a hint
of theatricality. Some of the finest movements in Titelouze's ceuvre
(and he seems to me one of the most profound and noble of all
keyboard composers) have a pure, other-worldly suavity in the
vocal contours of their lines which is almost medieval in feeling,
closer to Josquin than to anything in the later sixteenth century. 12
We may mention as one instance a truly celestial fantasy on

was sung, all through the Psalms. Upon enquiring of a young abbe", whom I took
with me as a nomenclator, what this was called, "C'est proser " ('Tis prosing), he said.
And it should seem as if our word prosing came from this dull and heavy manner of
recital.' (The Present State of Music in France.)

12 From this point of view, it is interesting that Titelouze deprecated modal altera-
tion and encouraged rhythmic freedom as a means of achieving variety: ' Quant au
changement du mode, je croy qu'il feudroit plustot changer de mouvement, hastcr
aux paroles violentes et furieuses et tarder aux tristes et pesantes, car pour le change-
ment de mode il est d6fendu par les lois musicales en mdme ouvrage, et le changement
de mouvement est permis et a un grand effet par la vari&6 qu'il y apporte.' (Corres-
pondence with Mersenne, 1622.)

Titelouze must have acquired a thorough grounding in the old style vocal poly-
phony of the Franco-Flemish school at the Walloon Jesuit College of St Omer, where
he received his elaborate education. On the other hand he would also have become
familiar with more advanced instrumental techniques. The college was much fre-
quented by English Catholics escaping persecution, and it seems reasonably certain
that Titelouze must have met Bull and Peter Phillips.
86

THE ORGAN MASSES

Ave Maris Stella, which employs a more or less continuous pedal
point:

ffi F0mO "

r | [f

ST" " n

^m
j.

*=*

>' [HI

IMI

etc.

Nowhere does he indulge in the chromaticisms and recitative-like
rhapsodic passages that we find in, say, Frescobaldi's toccata eleva-
tions. It is noteworthy, however, that although Titdouze adheres
always to the medieval plainsong-variation convention, and theo-
retically at least to the scholastic basis of the church modes, his con-
cern for an effective keyboard technique constantly leads him into
devices (chains of suspended sevenths, for instance), which give a
curiously rich and 'modern* tonal impression:

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

Now it is this polyphonic-harmonic aspect of Titelouze's tech-
nique which Couperin develops in a more extreme form in his
plainsong pieces and fugues. The rich sequential sevenths in the last
few bars of the tiny Deo Gratias that forms the epilogue to the Messe
Solemnette are a beautiful example of this; and the yearning upward
lift of the diminished fourth in the little fugato motive illustrates the
more 'harmonic* nature of Couperin's linear writing:

Jjlj

J uJJ-lj J

THE ORGAN MASSES

A comparable and highly impressive example of this harmonic-
contxapuntal technique is contained in the four organ fugues on one
subject, by d'Anglebert, with their powerful false relations, parallel
sevenths, and appoggiaturas:

Another composer who was partial to the sequential technique
was the organist of Chartres, Giles Jullien, who employed kfsome-
times with nobility, as in the Prelude du Premier Ton, sometimes with
a rather doying!pathos:

Couperin, however, never loses his balance. Later, a merging of
this harmonic-contrapuntal idiom with the overlapping suspensions
which he learned from the Italian violin sonatas is to produce beauti-
ful results not only in chamber music but also in church motets and
elevations.

These passages represent the basis of Couperin's technique in
organ music; and they are, as we have seen, half-way between poly-
phony and harmonic thought. We next come to the passages and
movements which are ostensibly harmonic in effect, depending
mainly on chromaticisms and dissonant suspensions. They are per-
haps best regarded as an intensification of the basic contrapuntal-
harmonic technique, since although they are not usually fugal, they
are always the product of fluent part-writing. The point of depar-
ture is the same; only the harmonic impact of the passage takes the
centre of the stage, ousting the linear element.

The couplet Et in Terra Pax is a fine example from the Messe

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE WORK

Solemnelle, almost identical with a passage in one of PurcelTs fanta-
sias; one chromatic chord resolves on to another until they sink to
rest on a serene major third:

UJ-

Still more remarkable is the whole of theBenedictus elevation from
the same mass. There is nothing here which is astounding in the
manner of the contemporary organist Louis Marchand, whose sus-
pended dissonances are so elliptical as to produce an almost Tristan-
esque dissolution of tonality, paradoxically violent in its emotional
effect, considering that the piece is so consistently quiet:

(Very slow)

r .

THE ORGAN MASSES

But Couperin's idiom is as a whole more coherent and mature.
Though Couperin's dissonances are intense, there is nothing emotion-
ally virulent in his style, as there is in the work of Marchand and
Gigault, or in the earlier generation, Bull, Sweelinck, or Frescobaldi.
The acridity of Couperin's dissonances is rounded off in the flow
and the warm spacing of the parts. Those of Gigault are uncom-
promising, and at times even ferocious, as witness this coruscation
of sevenths, ninths, and seconds:

/ll b 1

jJuJ. Jil

F^F

=fr

"1 1"

1 J I II

pr r r

(Li [

=f= :
-j .

?l ? *.,.,!

VJ^xT , CT . 1

4=1

">*

*m***^

"j_

fe)I O

fJ=t

F-

-H

_^f

" *^.

,U-

' r rr

i \ i

J -ij-

J ^n

Ji i: ^ -=^ f -ttf^f ^

Even quite unimportant composers such as Boyvin, or elegiac ones
such as Dumont, occasionally have a similar muscular quality:

'i =.. i i i. i

frrcfrfr
v J J J

T frr^

r-?

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

What counterbalances the emotional harmonies in Couperin's
organ music is the lucid diatonicism of his melodies, which have a
simplicity and freshness perhaps derived, deep down, from French
folk song and its relation to the French language. The elegance of
the clavecinists here meets the austere passion of the organ com-
posers, so that the * linked sweetness' of the double suspensions is
reconcilable with the sonorous simplicity of a wonderful little piece
like the Qui tollispeccata mundi of the Messe des Convents. The poise
of this the pure yet flexible line, the clear yet fluid part-writing
gives the music a luminosity which is, if possible, a refinement on
die most fragrant triple-rhythmed melodies of the lutenists and
Chambonnieres. The tender strophic tune and the diatonic harmonic
period appear to be related to the Italian operatic aria; yet how com-
pletely different is its mood from that of the slow airs of Handel:

fefe

((jl* J 1 J 1

M J J I

p 1

r~~i

\f$=^

-4 ^ *-

^r-s

-J-4

tt=

etc.

This music has a spring-like innocence, a premier matin du monde
atmosphere which is also supremely civilized; we may compare it,
perhaps, with Racine's Esther. The couplet is interesting, too, in that
it shows how Couperin's voluptuous delicacy, which like Lully's is
capable of a theatrical interpretation, is not irreconcilable with the
religious roots of his art in sixteenth-century polyphony. Both spiri-
tually and technically he stands between the melodically (and reli-
giously) founded Titelouze and the harmonically (and socially)
92

THE ORGAN MASSES

centred Rameau. We shall note a more significant instance of this
compromise when we examine Couperin s vocal church music.

The chromatic harmonic technique of emotional drama, in* the
organ pieces of Marchand no less than in the madrigals of Gesualdo,
had been disruptive of the old conception of tonality rather than
re-creative. It was assimilated into a coherent form of theatre music
only through a preoccupation with harmonic clauses based on the
symmetry of the dance such as we find principally in the works of
Rameau and Handel. Couperin is neither Handelian, nor disrup-
tively baroque. His methods of achieving a balance between melodic
flexibility and harmonic symmetry are more mature than those of
Purcell, and in some ways comparable with those of Bach.

Some couplets, particularly the trumpet pieces such as the delight-
ful fourth couplet of the Gloria of the Messe Solemnelle, are simply
symmetrical in their dance rhythm, although their lucid harmonic
periods are enlivened by contrapuntal treatment. But more subtle
pieces, for instance the beautiful eighth couplet of the same Gloria,
achieve an equilibrium between the calm fluidity of the part writing,
the melancholy of the ckomaticisms which the flexible parts create,
and the regularity of the underlying metrical pulse. As in so much oif
Bach, the level flow of the rhythm and the tranquil arching of the
lines 'distances' the melancholy of the chromaticisms, divests them
.of any subjective emotionalism which would be inapposite to a
music conceived for religious ritual:

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE
la other pieces the symmetry of the pulse is counteracted by the
unmetrical flow of a baroquely ornamented solo line, the ornaments
playing an integral part in the line's expressiveness. (See the Benc-
dictus elevation of the Messe des Convents.} In the complementary
movement from the other mass, both elements, fluid chromaticisms
and ornamented solo part, are combined together with a regular
rhythmic pulse:

This method is more maturely developed in many of the greatest
of Bach's choral preludes and in the finest of Couperin's later church
music. Significandy the technique is less used during Couperin's
most Italianate period.

The way in which these elements can be brought together to make
a musical-theatrical form on a fairly extensive scale is revealed in
the two Offertoires, the biggest pieces in the collections. That from
the Messe Solemnelle is especially remarkable. It is modelled on the
operatic overture, with a massive introduction embodying chains of
harsh suspensions, rooted in vocal technique but much more aggres-*
94

THE ORGAN MASSES

sivc in their instrumental form; a plaintive fugal section, with
piquandy dissonant entries; and a virile, contrapuntally treated gigue
to conclude. This last movement uses dear dominant-tonic key rela-
tions, but its contrapuntal treatment of them is less harmonically
formalized than the dance movement structure of the eighteenth-
century suite. In this respect the piece as a whole is closer to the key-
board suites of say, Kuhnau, which resemble Lully's overture in
that they occupy with dignity and beauty a position somewhere
between fugal polyphony, operatic lyricism, and the dance. It lives
without confusion in both a religious and an operatic world.

Nicolas dc Grigny, the greatest of Couperin's contemporaries in
the French organ school after Titelouze, shows the same compromise
between religious polyphony, fluid baroque ornamentation, and
dear architectural period; so does the powerful if less profound Du
Mage, and the subtly refined Roberday. It is interesting that the
organ composers who come out 'progressivdy' on the side of the
new, secular, dance-like elements are musically the least satisfying.
They have relinquished the old tradition without having learned
how to deal adequately, in a purely instrumental form, with the
new. Even a composer with a boldly experimental talent such as
Marchand displays in the slow chromatic piece previously referred
to, or in the richly dissonant Pleinjeu with the double-pedal part,
fails on the whole to achieve a coherent idiom; while Gigault, who
has a really impressive technique and a vigorous personality, makes
no attempt to reach the paradoxical mingling of voluptuousness and
spirituality which is the subtlest feature of the work of Couperin
and de Grigny. The lesser men, such as Le Bgue, can substitute for
the old polyphonic craftsmanship nothing but sequences of (often
very charming) dance tunes. The final secularization of the tradition
occurs in the Noels and other pieces of Claude Balbastre, which
although often in two parts are unequivocally dances built on sym-
metrical harmonic periods, with figuration and ornamentation as
appropriate to the harpsichord as it is inapposite to the organ. The
lutenist school declined when the clavecin composers took over
many of the essentials of lute style. The clavecinists absorbed some
features of organ polyphony also, but in this case there was little
direct continuity because the technique of the organ, unlike that of
the lute, is fundamentally opposed to that of the clavecin. Thus

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

Couperin is the kst of the French organ school and even he wrote
all his work for the instrument in his early twenties.

But Couperin was a man of the future as well as of the past. It was
for him to show what the dance tune could be made to yield, for
him to develop his work towards a classical stability. It was with this
in mind that he turned, after the composition of the organ masses, to
a deliberate study of the technique of the Italian trio sonata for
violins and continuo.

Chapter Six

The Two- Violin Sonatas

fl faut ecouter souvent de la musique de tous les gouts. . . .
Exnbrasser un gout national plutot qu'un autre, c'est prouver
qu'on est encore bien novice dans Tart.

RAMEAU

Ax THE END of the seventeenth century the Italian trio sonata was
accepted everywhere as the supremely fashionable musical conven-
tion. If it was 'modern', however, it was not revolutionary. There
was no element in it that was altogether new; its importance lay in
the fact that it provided a synthesis of tendencies which had been
developing all through the century. These trends towards technical
lucidity accompany, of course, the trend towards an autocratic,
highly stylized order in society.

There were two types of instrumental sonata, the sonata da chiesa,
and the sonata da camera. As its name suggests, the former had the
closer links with the past. It was normally written for violins, lute,
and organ, and comprised a slow prelude, a fogal allegro, a lyrical
grav e, and a more dance-like presto. All the movements inclined to
imitative treatment; and the very fact that the composers favoured
the two-violin medium rather than the solo violin suggests a reluc-
tance wholly to relinquish polyphonic methods in favour of the
homophonic continuo.

There are still frequent passages, in the classical Corelli as well as
the more intrepid Purcefi, in which the lines produce the most
dramatic intensity through chromaticisms, false relations, and over-
lapping figurations, similar to those in the toccata technique of the
brifliant Frescobaldi or Gabrieli. In general, however, the tendency
which we have already noticed in the organ masses, for the poly-
phony to be ordered by harmonic considerations rather than itself
G 97

FRANCOIS COUPERIN^THB WORK

producing the harmony, is here more explicit. The polyphonic
element is represented by the solo instruments, the homophonic
element by the continuo which articulates the harmonic periods not,
as in the opera, in accordance with a series of events on a stage, but
with a musical logic of its own. This logic graded all diatonic chords
in accordance with their distance from a tonic centre, distance being
measured by reference to the cycle of fifths. Certain harmonic proce-
dures such as the use of chains of suspended sevenths and to a lesser
degree 6 : 3 chords, or the use of the dissonant diminished seventh
chord to gather tension before the resolving dominant-tonic cadence
gradually became accepted methods of defining tonality. To this
definition the soloists' polyphony had to be adjusted.

Gabrieli had used a melodically generative technique whereby the
initial subject grows into other themes, so that the movement often
ends with five or six related motives. The sonata composers employ
a basically similar technique, but seek for greater unity and cogency,
usually restricting themselves to a mono- or bi-thematic treatment.
It is true that they sometimes, when they use two themes, suggest a
contrast of mood between them, thus remotely anticipating the
development of 'shape* music in the second half of the eighteenth
century. They never attempt, however, to investigate the possibili-
ties of contrasted tonalities. Even to music of the late baroque period
the dramatic tonal contrasts associated with the Viennese sonata are
entirely foreign. The late baroque sonata still functions by way of a
continual melodic generation and expansion; it differs from the early
baroque principle of division and variation mainly because the con-
tinuous expansion of the initial motive or motives is now ordered by
the scheme of tonal relations based on the cycle of fifths. The growth
of the figuration moves through a series of fresh starts in different
keys, usually the dominant, sub-mediant, sub-dominant, super-tonic,
and relative minor or major, the dominant having an importance
equal with but not greater than the other keys. The structure is
essentially architectural rather than dramatic.

The other type of sonata, the sonata da camera for one or two
violins usually with harpsichord continuo and string bass, was not
radically different from the current dance suite. This will be dis-
cussed in detail in a later chapter; here we must note that the dance
movements in the sonatas showed an increasingly mature under-
98

THE TWO-VIOLIN SONATAS

standing of the principles of tonal relationship and, as a corollary, an
increasing independence of the dance itself. In achieving this inde-
pendence the sonata da camera borrowed many characteristics from
the sonata da chiesa, into which convention it in turn introduced a
more dance-like secularity. The two types soon became but vaguely
differentiated. The sonata da chiesa acquired airy dance elements and
lyrical passion from the theatrical inclinations of the sonata da
camera, and the latter stiffened its backbone with some of the contra-
puntal vitality of the sonata da chiesa; just as baroque opera incor-
porated many elements of religious polyphony and was then reab-
sorbed into the church. By Corelli's time the two sonata conventions
though still flexible had more or less settled down as follows: Sonata
da chiesa; slow overture (majestic and inclined to the polyphonic),
free fugal movement (canzona), slow air (usually in 3 : 2 with some
imitation and smooth chorda! progressions), and finally a fugued
dance. Sonata da camera; slow overture, canzona or aUemande or
coranto (the dance, particularly if an aUemande, inclining to contra-
puntal treatment), slow air or sarabande, quick dance (often a gigue,
and often quasi-fugal). In his works for solo violin Bach applies the
term sonata only to the sonata da chiesa; the da camera sonatas he
describes as partitas. His solo violin works thus offer a neat illustra-
tion of the difference between the two types.

As the two kinds of sonata merge into one another, one sees that
the sonata owes its historical importance to the fact that it mates the
technique of voice and dance. The violin can do things which the
voice cannot, yet it is not anti-vocal in conception. The violin line
modifies the traditional vocal phrases by the introduction of intervals,
such as the diminished seventh or augmented fourth, which have a
high degree of tension and passion; but it does not deny vocal prin-
ciples. All the contemporary commentators refer to the cantabile
character of Corelli's playing; Martinelli points out in his Lettre
familiari e critiche of 1758 that Corelli's unenterprising partiality for
the middle register of his instrument was due to his desire to pre-
serve a singing sweetness and naturalness of tone. He wanted his
violin to sound like someone singing with ease and purity; the very
high and very low registers of the instrument were used only rarely
and for some special effect, as an opera composer might, in excep-
tional circumstances, demand from his singers a shriek or a growl.

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

One might almost say that during the later baroque period the violin
became the moulding influence on operatic vocal line itself. In the
operatic arias and the bel-canto-like slow movements of the violin
sonatas, the ornaments with which violinist and virtuoso singer
embellish their lines both counteract the rigidity of the harmonic
periods and help to build up the climax in the line itself; there is a
beautiful example in the largo of Handel's D major sonata.

Only gradually did the violin composers overcome a deep-rooted
distrust of the simple symmetrical 'tune', which had for so long
been regarded as unworthy of inclusion in a serious composition.
But even in fugal movements a more dance-like symmetry becomes
noticeable. Fugal entries increasingly concentrate on a simple metri-
cal motive with clear harmonic implications, and there is a leaning
towards the 'thematic development' of a pithy phrase in place of the
technique of lyrical growth. This procedure may have been sug-
gested by the operatic splitting up of words for dramatic effect. On
the other hand, the violin composers of Corelli's school do not
approach the harmonically systematized fugue of the middle
eighteenth century. Their fugal subjects are 'harmonic' in character,
but their method of treating the subjects preserves much of the
seventeenth-century freedom. Perhaps one might say that there is
about an equal proportion of old-fashioned, quasi-vocal fugues
'instrumentalized', and of bright symmetrical dances 'fugued'.

Formally, as we have seen, the sonatas usually start from the old
method of melodic generation and expansion. The influence of the
dance, however, leads to frequent phrase-groupings in sequence, to
repetitions of phrases in related keys, and, still more important, to a
repetition of material at the ends of the sections. From this point of
view there is an interesting development in the dance forms. The
majority are in binary structure, state their melodic material and
develop it with contrapuntal passage-work to a dose in or 'on' the
dominant, thus concluding die first section. The second section
repeats the material in the same order, only starting from the
dominant and working back to the tonic. On the other hand, a
later type of dance movement, much favoured by Domenico
Scarlatti, has a similar first section, then a section of development or
mild contrast in related keys, then a restatement of the original
material in the original key at the end. This is a remote anticipation
100

THE TWO-VIOLIN SONATAS

of the 'inveterately dramatic' sonata form of Haydn and Mozart. In
both Bach and Couperin the more archaic convention still holds its
own with the new. This latter type of ternary structure should not
be confused with ternary da capo form, which has a first section end-
ing in the tonic, middle section of development in related keys, and
restatement of the original material in the original key. The conclu-
sion of the first section in the tonic deprives the da capo form of any
sense of progression, and makes it more suitable for reflective and
.meditative, than for dramatic, expression; many of Bach's arias in
the cantatas are a case in point. The sonatas have a few movements
constructed on this relatively static principle, but they are not
frequent.

The technique of the violin sonata is usually associated with the
name of Corelli, though he did not 'invent' it it was rather an
autonomous growth. Fine sonatas of the da chiesa type by Marini
and Mezzaferratta, and by composers of other nationalities such as
Biber and Rosenmiiller, had appeared some years before Corelli's
famous volumes. It is perhaps pertinent to mention the extremely
beautiful French H.M.V. record of Rosenmuller's E minor sonata,
both because the performance, with its solo violins and organ,
harpsichord and string continue, gives a convincing notion of the
baroque richness of sonority which should characterize these works,
and which is so pitifully misrepresented by the usual performance
with piano; and because the work itself is of such superb quality.
It illustrates all the features of the early baroque sonata, having a
massive slow introduction, a lovely second movement which is
half-way between vocal polyphony and the operatic aria, a strange,
rhapsodic transitional movement derived from operatic recitative,
and a fugued dance to conclude. It demonstrates clearly with its
long, finely balanced lines which at the same time do not make much
use of crude repetition the compromise which we have remarked
on between the soaring polyphony of the solo lines and the homo-
phony of the continue.

If Corelli did not invent the sonata, however, there is some excuse
for associating it with his name in that he did, in his scrupulously
pure and polished examples, give it its classical form. His work has
both lyrical ardour and incisive precision; and this union of qualities
prepares the way for the great classical baroque composers whose

101

FRANCOIS COTJPERIN: THE WORK

work for his instrument and in an idiom in part derived from him,
may be said to surpass his work in sublimity and power. These
composers are Vivaldi, J. S. Bach, Ledair, and the Couperin of
L 9 Imperials.

There were three main reasons why Corelli's sonata attained so
remarkable a popularity in France. One reason, as we have seen, was
that its technique could not be ignored by any European composer
who wished to create a vitally 'contemporary' music. Another
reason was intellectual snobbery, for even people who could not
understand the implications of the sonata realized that so advanced
and sophisticated a society as the French could not afford to be
musically behind the times. And the third reason was that there was
much in Corelli's sonatas that the French could recognize as a native
product. It is hardly surprising, considering the high point to which
Lully had developed the forms of theatre music, that Corelli should
have made use of many facets of Lully's work in his classical sonata.
Many of Corelli's gavottes and minuets have a flavour of the French
theatre, and, particularly in the concerti grossi, there are movements
for instance the largo and allegro of the third concerto which
derive directly from the Lullian overture. Corelli acquired a thorough
knowledge of Lully's work from the francophile Muffat, and cannot
himself have approved of the animosity which was later shown by
the partisans of both the French and Italian cause. 18

We have seen that during the^rW siecle, in France as in England,
the violin had been regarded as a somewhat ribald instrument; as
Peter Warlock pointed out, the attitude of cultivated musicians to
the violin was similar to the attitude of such people to the saxophone
today. The viol, lute, and clavecin were the instruments of polite
society; the violin could be used for dance music, on festive occa-
sions, and in operatic tutti when a considerable noise was required.
But even as late as 1682 Father Menestrier referred to the violin as
'quelque peu tapageur', while six years earlier, in England, Mace
had written: 'You may add to your Press a Pair of Violins to be in
Readiness for any Extraordinary, Jolly and jocund Consort Occa-
sion: But never use them, but with this Proviso 9 . We should remember,

18 It can, however, have been only in his late work that Corelli was conscious of the
influence of Lully. We remember the well-known story of Handel's exasperation with
Corelli, when the Italian performed with inadequate passion one of Handel's works;
Handel is said to have snatched the fiddle out of Corelli's hands; whereupon Corelli.
retorted, 'Ma, caro Sassone, questa musica e nel stilo francese, di ch'io non m'intendo/
102

THE TWO-VIOLIN SONATAS

of course, that Mace was a valetudinarian in his attitude to con-
temporary music.

It was by way of the church that the violin became respectable in
France; for an instrument that could be used to accompany the
cantatas of a Carissimi was clearly worthy of serious attention. The
cantata was related to the sonata da chiesa, which could also be per-
formed in church; when once the French public had observed the
dignity which Corelli could give to the instrument there was no
more ground for suspicion. Then, in 1705, even Lecerf de la Vieville,
the bitterest opponent of Italianism, could admit that although the
violin *n'est pas noble en France, mais enfin un homme de condition
qui s'avise d'en jouer ne deroge pas'. The vogue spread with
phenomenal vigour. 'Quelle joie, quelle bonne opinion de soi-
meme n'a pas un homme qui connoit quelque chose au cinquieme
Opera de Corelli', complained Lecerf de le Vieville, in despair.
Couperin's innocent deception in producing his early sonatas under
an Italian name, as described previously, had shown which way the
wind was blowing. Soon, 'cette fureur de composer des sonates a la
maniere italienne' obsessed almost all French composers, and from
1700 a continuous stream of sonatas appeared, culminating in the
four volumes of the great Leclair's sonatas from 1723 to 1738, the
kst two violin works of Couperin in 1724 and 1725, and the noble
sonatas of Mondonville in 1733.

In 1692, two years after the composition of the organ masses,
Couperin wrote four sonatas in the Italian da chiesa manner. In 1695
he added two more. Nearly thirty years later, in 1724, he added to
three of the original four sonatas, sets of dances or partitas in the
French manner, thus producing a series of diptychs analogous to the
Bach violin sonatas and partitas. He then rechristened them; (La
Pucelle became La Fran$oise 9 La Visionnaire became L'Espagnole, and
L'Astree became La Piemontoise] ; added another double sonata called
L'Imperiale, the da chiesa part of which may have been written about
1715; and published them all together under the tide of Les Nations.
In these double works we can thus see the French and Italian manners
placed side by side. Finally, in the two Apotheose sonatas which he
composed in 1722 and 1725, we can see the two manners mated.
We shall examine these works more or less in chronological order,
first dealing with the Italian sonatas of 1692 and 1695, then with the
partitas added to them, then with the two parts of L 9 Imperials, which

103

FRANgois COUPERIN: THE WORK

are both manifestations of Couperin's maturity, and lastly with the
two Apotheoses.

As though to emphasize its experimental nature at this stage of his
career, La Steinaueraue, one of the earliest of the 1692 group of
sonatas, is the work that most reminds us, not only of Corelli, but
also of Handel. In these sonatas Couperin is investigating some of the
possibilities of the harmonic 'shape', as opposed to the melodic
texture; so, whereas the organ masses had been to a considerable
degree polyphonic in impetus, he here produces a work which
relies mainly on the balance of spacious harmonic clauses, in which
even the fugal subjects are, like so many of Handel's, built largely
out of the notes of the common triad. The result is an Italianized
version of Lully's battle musics, a work in the grand manner, be-
fitting a ceremonial occasion the piece is in honour of the victory
at Steinkerque. But compared with the mature reconciliation of
polyphonic and harmonic principles which we find in Couperin's
later work, or in Bach, or even in the earlier organ masses, its spa-
ciousness is achieved at the expense of subtlety. Being in some ways
a ceremonial piece, and in others a technical experiment, the music
lacks personality; it has few of the unmistakable Couperin touches.

Its form is a free descriptive version of the sonata da chiesa, with
a strong dance influence. It opens with a vigorous overture con-
structed out of the martial fanfares of the introductory flourishes to
the ballet; the interest centres almost entirely in the massive march
of the harmonies. This is followed by a simple symmetrical air, on
the model of the airs of Lully, though perhaps with a slightly
Handelian solidity. A powerfully harmonized grave musically the
most interesting section of the sonata makes extended uses of over-
lapping suspensions and leads to a jaunty, but not very sustained,
fugue. An interlude of fanfares, impossible to perform convincingly
on the piano, introduces a swinging theme in 3 : 2, fugally treated,
but very harmonic in character. There is a further grave passage, and
then the movement bounds in triple rhythm to a joyous close, the
violins playing in consistent homophony in thirds and sixths.

The E minor sonata, finally called La Frangoise, is of deeper musi-
cal interest than La Steinqueraue, but it is still hardly representative of
Couperin's intrinsic quality. This time it is closer to Corelli than
Handel, though the opening grave displays an almost lush 'Italian'
indulgence in chromaticisms, such as the classical Corelli himself did
104

THE TWO-VIOLIN SONATAS

not often sanction. Though short, the movement rises to a most
impressive climax:

(Reduction)

The atmosphere is refined, elegant, and melancolique', it has pos-
sibly something of the elegiac self-indulgence of La Rochefoucauld.
The briskly contrapuntal second movement is quite elaborately
developed, and makes jocular use of a little descending scale passage.
Here too the atmosphere is highly charged and emotional; the brisk
rhythm is counteracted by some extraordinary passages in dissolving
sequential sevenths:

Violins

Continue

&
Bass

105

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

efc.

The other movements are not at the same level as these two. A
simple, quasi-operatic air half-way between Lully and Corelli, two
measured grave interludes, and a couple of very Corellian gigues (the
second of which has an agile cello part), are all beautifully made but
compared with Couperin's finest work are lacking in character.

UEspagnole sonata, in C minor, opens with a very fine grave which
produces a dark sonority through frequent use of augmented inter-
vals, and dissonant appoggiaturas and suspensions:

Violins

=#=

i =h

|j;j

^r
k.

rtf-

=^=

etc.

U... .

THE TWO-VIOLIN SONATAS

The quick section into which the grave leads also has tension and
excitement, and mounts to its B flat climax in the first-violin part,
with inevitable momentum. The air in siciliano rhythm makes
fascinating use of the opposition of solo voices and a quasi-tutti
effect. It often uses a falling scale passage, diatonic or chromatic, in
the bass, grouping above it melodic patterns, decorative figurations,
and seductive harmonies of sevenths and ninths:

rtr

U j J. J)J

J
/)

J JJ

r ? r r -

The feeling, at once noble and pathetic, suggests the lamento of
seventeenth-century baroque opera; one is reminded of Purcell, or
even of the airs on a chromatic bass in Monteverdi. A merry canzona
is notable for the whirling descending scale passages in the bass part,
combined with chains of suspensions in the violins and continuo. A
brisk, rather 'harmonic' and Handelian gigue is followed by a
chromatically accompanied air, and the work concludes with a
powerful double fugue on a stable, diatonic theme, with a chattering
countersubject

The opening grave of La Piemontoise sonata, in G minor, is perhaps
the most PurceUian movement in Couperin's work. In this passage

107

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE WORK

it is not merely the chromatically moving bass, but the long arch of
the lines, the habitual syncopations, the augmented fourths and
diminished fifths, which remind us of Dido's lament:

Reduction

=U:

^ =-

etc.

Something of this operatic passion is preserved in the elaborately
syncopated quick fugal movement, where the part-writing has an
agility and rhythmic independence which is common in Bach, but
rare in Handel or Corelli; in this respect it presages Couperin's most
mature work. The next grave is in the mood of the opening, and has
some acute dissonant suspensions. Here, too, the level flowing
movement, the dissonances, and the sudden change to the major
anticipate some of Couperin's most characteristic effects in later
work. The delicate canzona is based on two instrumental figurations
derived from the common triad and the major scale. Two quasi-
operatic airs, one in the major, the other in the minor, are gently
symmetrical and have a more personal voice than the similar move-
ments in the other 1692 sonatas; the suspensions and ornamental
resolutions in the inner parts suggest the influence of the davecinists,
and may be compared with the similar devices in the sarabande of
Chambonnieres, quoted on page 198. A return to Purcellian inten-
sity occurs in the brief grave, with its chromatic progressions and
energetic marque dotted rhythm, in ascending and descending scales.
108

THE Two -VIOLIN SONATAS

It leads without break into a simple Corellian gigue, charming, but
not especially significant.

The two 1695 sonatas, La Sultane and La Superbe, use the same
idiom as the 1692 group, but within their deliberate Italianism they
allow for a much freer expression of Couperin's sensibility. Here
Couperin absorbs the Italian convention into the French tradition as
consummately as Purcell adapted it to the linear and harmonic
vigour of the English. La Sultane, in particular, is conceived on a
grand scale, and is remarkable not only for its extensive develop-
ment but also for the fact that it-includes two more or less indepen-
dent cello parts. It thus has four free string parts in all; the second
cello sometimes, but by no means habitually, doubles the bass of the
continue.

The first grave is on a much bigger scale than any of the overtures
to the earlier sonatas. It is more than twice as long, and, over a level
flowing crochet pulse, imitatively develops proud, spacious themes
in overlapping suspensions which reinforce the majestic progression
of the harmonies. In passages such as this:

Violins

! :

1 .

II i rpi

-to -J

" f-f

r r

J ^ J 1 -*--!

V'M f

-^ =1 J* iS-

Ifef p 3

r r 7 f

109

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE WORK

persistent suspended seconds have a sinewy power, balancing the
richness of the harmonies, which we meet with for the first time in
Couperin's work for the comparable passages in the organ masses
have not this linear vigour. It is the first intimation of that union of
solidity with subtlety which relates Couperin's finest work more
closely to Bach than to any other composer. This controlled but
highly emotional prelude also includes a remarkable, dark-coloured
passage for the two cellos, over long-sustained dominant and tonic
pedals.

The second, quick contrapuntal, movement is thematically re-
lated to the grave and is also designed on a broad scale. It is notable
for its close, Bach-like rather than Handelian, texture, both in its
harmonic progressions:

Reduction

etc.

and in its linear organization:

Violin I.

Cello

The air tendre is a dialogue between the two cellos, dark-hued in
the minor, and the two violins, softly glowing in the major. It leads

THE TWO-VIOLIN SONATAS

into a grave, built on drooping appoggiaturas, wherein Couperin,
for the first time in his Italianized music, recovers the quintessential
Couperin of the finest movements of the organ masses. Predomin-
antly harmonic in effect, the chains of appoggiaturas are suavely
sensuous, and yet paradoxically create an unearthly feeling that the
ego (le mot) and the will (la volonte) are dissolving away. Note the
insistent dotted rhythm; the caressing ninth; and the augmented
fifth chord which almost suggests that the tenderness of the emotion
is about to break into tears:

A.I) J ij.j)hj

The words of Fenelon 'C*est dans Toubli du Moi quhabite a
paix' are relevant to this aspect of Couperin's music. We shall
discuss it in detail in the chapter on the church music, and shall then
have occasion to note many examples of the technical features re-
ferred to above. The two remaining fast sections of this sonata are
less personal, though the gigue has some typical harmonic acridities
and rhythmic surprises. It provides, in any case, an appropriately
festive note to conclude this most beautiful work.

The A major sonata, La Superbe, though this time for the normal
resources, also has a certain ampleur of conception. It opens with a
grave and canzona which have a maturely experienced majesty com-

iii

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

parable with Handel's finest work, and far removed from the more
naively noble gestures of La Steinquerque. None the less, these move-
ments are not among Couperin's most representative work. The
next section, ires lentement, is, however, one of his finest inspirations,
combining the superbe Handelian manner of this sonata with a subtle
use of false relation reminiscent of the organ masses. Through the
dotted rhythm and the hushed progression of the harmonies it
evokes a tremulous quietude similar to that of fat grave interlude of
La Sultane. The harmonies are often of a most unconventional
nature for instance, this 'sobbing' use of the diminished fifth in an
interrupted cadence, followed by the melting sequence of seventh
chords; the last of them produces one of those * catches in the breath'
that we have had occasion to refer to once or twice before:

Reduction

sfet

,_, ,,..

rrr

The canzona and final gigue are sprightly and well developed, but
have not the closely wrought texture of Couperin's best work in
this manner. The air tendre is one of the simplest and most beautiful
of Couperin's pieces in the triple-timed brunete convention.

The dance suites which Couperin added to three of the 1692
sonatas in 1724 are identical in technique with his concerts royaux,
published about the same time. In some ways it would thus be
logical to discuss them together with the concerts, as the most
central expression of the French instrumental tradition. By con-

112

THE TWO-VIOLIN SONATAS

sidering them beside the sonatas to which they were attached, how-
ever, one can understand more clearly how the classically developed
form of the French suite approximated to the binary convention of
the Italian partita or sonata da camera. We shall therefore leave
detailed consideration of the suite until the chapter on the concerts;
and in this context we shall say on the subject only so much as is
necessary to indicate the relationship between the French and Italian
genres. The two-violin suites all date from the last years of Couperin's
life, and may stand with Bach's cello, violin and keyboard partitas as
examples of an apparently limited convention used with the maxi-
mum of imaginative significance.

As with Bach and in conformity with tradition the alle-
mandes are, apart from the chaconnes, the most musically extended
movements, and often have considerable polyphonic complexity.
Couperin's more discreet sensibility does not often call for the
whirling linear arabesques typical of Bach's most baroque work, as
exemplified in the great allemande from the D major cello suite, or
those from the D major and E minor harpsichord partitas; but there
is something of Bach's disciplined melodic profusion in the treat-
ment of the aspiring scale passage in the allemande of the first
(E minor) suite. The C minor allemande is less free melodically, but
more involved harmonically; it is at once richly chromatic and
gravely elegiac. This quality is found, too, in the allemande of the
G minor suite, perhaps the finest of the three, very subtle in its
phrase groupings.

Each suite has two courantes, the first of which (the French type)
carries the traditional rhythmic ambiguity of the dance to an extreme
point. Couperin rivals Bach in the complexity of the alternations
and combinations of 3 : 2 and 6 : 4 which he extracts from his
material. These movements are usually highly ornamented, the
ornamentation being an integral part of the line and harmony:

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

^EEEfc

efc.

These rhythmic and harmonic elaborations of a simple dance struc-
ture testify to the high degree of sophistication in Couperin's com-
munity. The second courante is usually more airy and flowing,
more dance-like; though Couperin does not confine himself to the
6 : 4 Italian form, and never gives the courante the straightforward
harmonic treatment of Handel.

Couperin writes two types of sarabande. One (like that of the G
minor suite; it is actually in the major) is tendre and cantabile in
character, of exquisite refinement and fragilely ornamented, in the
manner of the theme of Bach's Goldberg Variations. This type of
sarabande, as we shall see in a later chapter, is a part of Couperin's
legacy from Chambonniferes, who in his turn inherited it from the
lutenists. The other type is grave and powerful, congested in har-
mony, like that of Bach's E minor partita; it often uses dissonant
appoggiaturas and acciaccaturas, and employs a slow but strenuous
dotted rhythm, conventionally performed with the dots doubled.

Couperin's gigues are sometimes of the amiable Italian type in a
lilting 6 : 8 (that for instance from the G minor suite); sometimes of
a French type in 6 : 4, more complicated rhythmically than those
of Corelli or Handel This type of gigue Couperin derives from
Chambonniferes and the lutenists; he treats the dance with a tautness
which is again suggestive of Bach, though his gigues are usually
slight and rather frothy. They are scherzo movements, and he has
no crabbed, almost ferocious gigues such as Bach writes, in a contra-
puntal style, in the E minor partita. The little gavottes, bourrees and
minuets are not much more than occasional music, and do not call
for comment in this chapter.

The crowning glories of the suites are the rondeaux and the
chaconnes both being a further development of Lully's treatment,
which we have already discussed, of the ballet dances. The rondeau
of the C minor suite is suavely melancholy but not especially re-
114

THE TWO-VIOLIN SONATAS

markable; the rondeau in G, from the fourth suite, is on the other
hand a delightful example of Couperin's sophisticated-rustic manner,
producing a silvery flute-like sound through canonic overlapping
and dulcet thirds:

This mode is even more beautifully expressed in the rondeau of
Ulmperiale, which we shall describe shortly.

In the chaconnes, the regular flow of the repeated bass (with the
accent on the second beat of the traditional 3 : 4) provides a founda-
tion over which the lines and figurations grow cumulatively more
impassioned until they break into quicker movement. The opening
suspensions across the bar, in the E minor chaconne, have a tone of
noble melancholy; the level crochet pulse splits into quaver move-
ment, then into a vigorous dotted rhythm with great animation in
the bass part, and finally into resplendent staccato descending scale
passages combined with extended trills. The chaconne of the C
minor suite is an even grander work. The opening statement (noble-
ment) is itself massively harmonized, with appoggiaturas suggesting
an anguish almost comparable with that of the great B minor
clavecin passacaifle. There is an exquisite couplet for the two violins
unaccompanied, in canon, and then the movement begins to build
up a remorseless crescendo of excitement. A vivement couplet is
founded on trumpet fanfares; the bass acquires greater animation,
while the violins chant long chains of suspensions. Tentatively, the
bass introduces chromatic elements, and the climax is reached in the
mingling of the chromatic version of the bass with triple suspen-
sions in the continue and a powerful duo in double-dotted rhythm
for the two violins:

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE

Violins

The Bachian quality which we have noticed in our account of the
suites finds its most consistent manifestation in the two parts of
L'Imperiale, a work in which both the da chiesa and da camera
sections have an equal maturity. The classical ripeness is demon-
strated most clearly in the power and length of the melodic struc-
ture. The opening grave has a melodic span that one finds but seldom
outside Bach's work; its amplitude of structure is combined with
subtlety in its linear and harmonic details:

THE TWO-VIOLIN SONATAS

The contrapuntal movement that follows is fiery, with acute dis-
sonant suspensions. The second three-time grave is a galant et magni-
fque piece over a pulse in dotted rhythm. Its subsidiary chromati-
cisms have a dignified restraint, compared with the more fervid
chromaticisms in the first two movements of the early La Fratqoise.
This piece is in the relative major, as is the next, a gracious minuet in
rondeau. A return to the triple rhythm provides a lyrical transition
back to D minor, and the sonata ends with a vigorously developed
fugue on this muscular subject, with its prominent tritonal sequences:

Vivemeat

p *

This is music of tremendous power, even ferocity, with a Bachian
closeness of texture. This one movement is sufficient to dispose of
the legend of Couperin the 'exquisite'.

The sonata da camera has a deliciously tenuous gigue and a
massive sarabande, but is notable chiefly for its two big movements,
the rondeau and chaconne. The rondeau has a theme of a tender
diatonic simplicity which, in conjunction with the level rhythm, like
a quietly breathing pulse, suggests a sense of light, space, and tran-
quillity comparable with the emotional effect of the ordered land-
scapes of Claude:

117

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

jjf

Like so much of Couperin's finest work, this music sounds as though
it was written to please, to entertain, and yet is at the same time, in
its purity, a spiritual rejuvenescence. The mood of the chaconne is
similar, though the piece is on a grander scale. The broken rhythm
and violently contrasted sonorities of the couplet in the minor key
have an unexpected dramatic force, and, as in the graver C minor
chaconne, the gradual introduction of chromatic elements gives the
piece a cumulative momentum:

It ends, however, in happy tranquillity.

Couperin's last word in the sonata convention is contained in the
two Apotheoses, dedicated to Corelli and Lully respectively; and
there is no more effective demonstration of the distance Couperin
has travelled than to compare the prelude of the Corelli Apotheose
of 1722 with that of La Steinquerque of 1692. In the late work there is
no sacrifice of majesty in the proportions. The balance of the move-
ments as wholes is preserved, as is the lucid sequence of tonalities
which do not adventure far beyond the dominant, sub-dominant,
sub-mediant, and relative major and minor. But the incidental vita-
lity and subtlety of melodic life have increased enormously. The
lines are more nervously sensitive, so the polyphony is more flexible;
and, as a consequence of this flexibility, the harmony has an added
118

THE TWO-VIOLIN SONATAS

richness. Such a passage as this, with its eloquent augmented and
diminished intervals, indicates admirably this interior vitality, which
is on the one hand so much more supple than the rather beefy homo-
phonic texture of La Steinquerque and is on the other hand so much
more mature than the chromaticisms of La Fran$oise (see next page).
Something of this quality is found, too, in the fugal movement that
expresses Corelli's joy at his reception on Parnassus; the tight har-
monic texture is enhanced by fascinating syncopations. In such
passages we shall meet them throughout Couperin's work the
music, like the painting of Watteau, achieves a moving union of
strength with sensitivity. The sensuous quality of the harmony
parallels Watteau's glowing use of colour, which he in part derived
from Rubens, and to a lesser degree from Titian and Veronese; the
supple precision of the three string lines parallels Watteau's nervous
draughtsmanship, the most distinctive quality of his genius, which
he in part inherited from the Flemish and Dutch genre painters;
while die stable sense of tonality in the movements as wholes corres-
ponds to Watteau's instinct for proportion and 'composition',
which was in part encouraged by his study of the noble serenity of
Giorgione and the Venetians. 14

The tranquil movement describing Corelli drinking at the spring
of Hypocrene is one of those quintessential Couperin pieces which,
however often one hears them, strike one anew with their freshness.
The material a level quaver movement proceeding mainly by step,
accompanying serene minims which form quietly dissonant suspen-
sions is simple; yet the result has a spirituality which is perhaps
Couperin's unique distinction. The piece is a still more rarefied distil-
lation of the serenely 'dissolving' movements in the early La Sultane
and La Superbe sonatas. It produces the same feeling of the dissolu-
tion of the ego and the will, and thus may, not altogether extrava-
gantly, be termed 'paradisaT. In particular we should mention the
modulation to A minor which comes at the end of the movement
after two pages of unsullied D major. In the fluidity of the har-

14 This account of Watteau's work indicates how he reconciles the two opposing
parties of the Poussinists and the Rubenists. The conflict between the two schools, led
by Felibien and De Piles respectively, was not dissimilar to the quarrel between the
Ancients and the Moderns. For the contending factions, Poussin stood for
draughtsmanship and die classical ideal, Rubens for colour and a 'modern* sensuous-
ness. Both Watteau and Couperin and for that matter Poussin himself showed that
the two conceptions need not be opposed, but could mutually]enrich one another.

119

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

Violins

THE TWO-VIOLIN SONATAS

monic transitions here, we have a reminiscence of the technique of
the organ masses the paradox of a voluptuous purity. Note for
instance the heart-rending false relation in the penultimate bar,
before the tender resolution on to the major third:

121

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

The reminiscence of the earlier technique in no way compromises the
music's integrity. Couperin no longer feels it necessary, as he did in
La Steinquerque> to insist on his command of the modern homophony.
Another movement in this radiant manner is the sotnmeil music,
one of the few intrusions into this Italianate work of an element
intimately associated with Lully, even though originally derived
from the Italian opera. It is remarkable for its delicately intertwined
figuration. The progression of the lines by conjunct motion, in even
quavers with a crochet pulse, was the accepted musical stylization of
die idea of repose. The two sections flanking it, describing Corelli's
enthusiasm and his awakening by the Muses, have a gaily glittering
texture. In the first, Corelli's happiness bubbles and swirls in rapid
scale passages and florid arabesques for the violins unaccompanied;
in the second, the French dotted rhythm bounces through some
closely wrought modulations from D to A, to F sharp and C sharp
minor. The work concludes with an elaborately developed fugue on
this excitingly syncopated subject:

Gayement

This also breaks into florid passages for the violins towards the end.
We are a long way from the rather perfunctory, chordally dictated
fugato passages of La Steinquerque.

Despite the interpolation of descriptive movements suggested by
the ballet, the structure of the Corefii Apotheose is basically that of
the sonata da chiesa; or it is the Italian sonata modified by Couperin's
long experience of the French tradition. In the Lully Apotheose
Couperin first gives, as it were, a summing up of the tradition on
which he had been nurtured; and then demonstrates how he has,
through his career, managed to incorporate the Italian sonata into it
The Apotheose begins with a suite of pieces which are a microcosm
in instrumental form of the Lullian opera; only when Corelli
appears on the scene in the second part does the sonata technique be-
come obtrusive. Then it is not merely in such superficialities as the
quaint device of making Lully and Corelli fiddle in the 'French'
and 'Italian* clefs respectively that we see how their two idioms
have merged into one another.
122

THE TWO-VIOLIN SONATAS

Couperin's preface explains that the work is not conceived for
violins exclusively; it may be performed on two clavecins, or on
various appropriate combinations of instruments. This is true to
some extent of all the sonatas; but it is interesting that it should be
this explicitly theatrical work which prompts Couperin to say so.
The Overture (Lully in the Elysian fields) moves with grave simpli-
city in a regular crochet pulse, achieving a noble patios through
groupings of a falling scale passage. It is a theatre piece which is more
consistently homophonic than the Corellian da chiesa prelude 'usually
is, but the relationship between the two types is clear enough. The
airs of the ombres liriques, the Vol de Mercure, the Descente d'Apollon
(contrapuntal but dance-like), and the Rumeur souteraine of Lully's
contemporaries and rivals, are all chamber music versions of opera-
tic devices. The Tendres Plaintes of Lully's contemporaries, which
Couperin specifies should be performed by flutes or by violons ires
adouds, is a beautiful instance of Couperin's rarefied sensuousness,
built on a faux-bourdon-like procession of 6 : 3 chords. Again it
differs from the 'rarefied' movements in earlier sonatas in being en-
tirely homophonic. The enlevement de Lully to Parnassus for the first
time introduces the contrapuntal method of the Italian canzona, and
makes fascinating play with a syncopated rhythm.

When Lully reaches Parnassus he is met by Corelli and the Italian
muses who greet him with a largo strictly in the da chiesa manner,
majestically proportioned, with acrid augmented fifths:

Violins

Continue

Bass

123

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

h ir r r

^ ff
y^=:

=*=

r Lr '

=-( =

t) n*^. -.

r r

-**T 1

^w=*^-

\- '*r i* j

-Tf

c/c.

^1, /2 _

^-P-P

L-R

The Retnerciement de Lulli a Apollon is a symmetrical operatic aria
which illustrates the absorption of the Lullian air into the tonally
more developed Italian arias of Handel; note the solid sequences and
the figuration. The ornamentation remains, however, more French
than Handelian:

Violins

Continue

r r

[ ?

J v

"e/c.

c/c.

^FS

124

THE TWO-VIOLIN SONATAS

Next Apollo persuades Lully and Corelli that the union of Les Gofits
franfois et italiens would create musical perfection; so the two muses
sing together an Essai, en forme d'ouverture, elegantment et sans lenteur.
This opens with a brilliant fanfare in dotted rhythm, which is
followed by a 3 : 4 tune in flowing quavers, making considerable
use of arpeggio figures. Then come two little airs legers for the violins
without continuo; in one of them Lully plays the tune and Corelli
the accompaniment, in the other the roles are reversed. And the
whole work is rounded off with a full-scale sonata da chiesa, in
which Lully and Corelli play together, the Italian technique being
finally, as it were, translated into French. 15

Musically, this sonata is the finest part of the Lully Apotheose.
The grave is in the main Italian, with astringent augmented intervals
and a Bachian closeness of texture. But the canzona, Saillie, is
French in spirit and worthy to be put beside Couperin's best pieces
in the burlesque vein. (We shall discuss this in detail in the chapter
on the clavecin pieces.) The 3 : 2 grave, ronclement, recalls the
fragrance of the Messe des Convents, though it has now a more
Italian amplitude. The last movement combines a Corellian contra-
puntal technique with the dotted rhythm of the French theatre, and
includes some interesting modulations, such as this from G to the
minor of the dominant (see next page) .

Although the Lully Apotheose is one of the most important of
Couperin's works from a documentary point of view, it seems to
me musically inferior to the CoitQi Apotheose. The latter work, with
the Imperiale sonata, perhaps represents the highest level of Couperin's
achievement in this convention; and both impress by their Bachian
maturity. From this point of view, Couperin offers an interesting
comparison, and contrast, with Purcell. Both experimented in the
Italian sonata technique in the early sixteen-nineties, and for the same
reason they knew that if their country's music was to have a future,
they had to take account of the new directions which the Italian
sonata stood for. When they started to compose their sonatas, Purcell

15 For an interesting anticipation of this mating of a 'French* and 'Italian' melody,
see J. J. Fux's Concentus Musico-instrumentafa, published at Nuremburg in 1701. The
seventh Partita of this work includes a movement in which an aria italiana in 6 : 8
is played simultaneously with an air franfois in common time. Most of the pieces have
French titles (Lajoye desjitilessujets, Les ennemis confus, etc.);the Sinfonia combines a
French triple rhythmed middle section with an Italianate contrapuntal opening. See
Chapter xi for a general account of the French influence in Germany.

125

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

Violins

Continue
&

had behind him the Tudor tradition and the seventeenth-century
baroque polyphonists such as Lawes and Jenkins; Couperin had be-
hind him the organists, the lutenists, the ballet, and the theatre music
of Lully. PurcelTs more direct relation to the 'inflectional' methods
of the sixteenth century was in some ways an advantage, for through
it he was able to create those bold modulatory and harmonic effects
which are the glory of his finest sonatas, such as the F minor or A
126

THE TWO-VIOLIN SONATAS

minor. But if Couperin's early sonatas have not PurcelTs fiery origi-
nality, their relatively polite urbanity brings its own reward. Purcell,
without a developed theatre music behind him, was unable to estab-
lish an English classical tradition; Couperin, with Lully behind him,
had merely to modify in a contemporary manner a tradition that
was already there.

This is why Couperin was able in later years to create sonatas, such
as L'Imperiale and the Corelli Apotheose, which in their classical
poise are beyond anything which Purcell attempted in this style;
this is why Couperin was able to produce music that can seriously
be rekted to the work of Bach. It is not so much a question of the
comparative degree of genius with which nature endows a particular
composer; this is always difficult to estimate, since so many contribu-
tory factors have to be taken into account. It is a question of the
value of a tradition; and while Couperin, like Bach, could have made
nothing of the tradition without his genius, it is possible that, with-
out the tradition, his genius might have been frustrated.

127

Chapter Seven

The Secular Vocal Works

IN DISCUSSING COTJPERIN'S concern with 'les Gouts Tunis', we
have broadly equated the French 'gout' with the style of Lufly.
This style, however, incorporated a number of elements from
French traditions of domestic music for the solo voice; and to these
traditions Couperin himself made a modest contribution. Intrinsi-
cally his secular vocal music is of no importance; but the conven-
tions which he employed in it have a direct bearing on his church
music, and an implicit bearing on almost everything he wrote. In
this chapter we must therefore offer some account of French conven-
tions of solo vocal music in the seventeenth century, in order that
we may understand how, in his church music, Couperin was able to
translate Italian techniques into French terms; in order that we may
have a more adequate appreciation of the native traditions to which
he belonged.

During && grand siecle there were in French song two main lines
of evolution, which are not always sharply differentiated. The first
of these is the sophisticated air de cour, on which a few preliminary
remarks have been made in Part I; the second is the more popular
chansons a boire, vaudevilles, and brunetes. In the early years of the
century there was not much difference between the two lines. Both
were variations of the simpler homophonic madrigal in which the
melodic interest was centred in the top line, so that the under parts
could be with equal effectiveness either sung or pkyed upon instru-
ments; and both were associated with the dance, whether folk dance
or the sophisticated ballet. The collection of airs de cour made by
Adrien le Roy in 1597 makes no attempt to delineate the characteris-
tics of the genre, beyond indicating that simplicity and a gentle
graciousness were prerequisites of it.

Under the influence of precieux society, the air de cour became
128

THE SECULAR VOCAL WORKS

explicitly monodic and more sophisticated. It was not an attempt to
embrace the Italian humanistic passion, but the deliberate creation
of a refined, virtuoso stylization. It is true that the greatest of the
early air de cour composers, Pierre Guedron, showed, under the in-
fluence of the ballet melodramatique, some influence of the methods of
Caccini, and in some of his airs attained to an almost operatic
intensity:

\jfi i J^JyT^

|J g f p =H

"* 1 *

(m * *'*'rJ 1
Que je puis

i b i i =\

-y )-

biensouffnr
1 J

4 J 4 P

mais, mais

i I II

r i i

**T f p =

f-h^

1 I =J

'i ^

j e

^ \ r r

-T5 *

' F '

but such passages are exceptional. In general the air de cour composers
remained recalcitrant to the Italian style not because they were
ignorant of it they themselves composed 'Italian' settings of
Italian words but because they sought a difierent efiect. Like every
artist of the salons, they wanted a certain proportion and refinement
combined with a highly charged emotionalism of a sweetly 'melan-
colique* order. The atmosphere is indicated by this quotation from
Sorel's novel Frandon:

i 129

F&AN90IS COUPERIN: THE

Alors il vint des musiciens qui chanterent beaucoup d'airs nouveaux*
joignant le son de leurs luths et de leurs violes a celui de leurs voix. Ah, dit
Francion, ayant la t&e penche'e dessus le sein de Laurette, apres la vue d'une
beaute* il n'y a point de plaisir qui m'enchante comme fait celui de la
musique. Mon cceur bondit a chaque instant; je ne suis plus a moi; les
tremblements de voix font trembler mignardement mon Sme.

The date of this passage, 1663, places it in the second florescence
of the air de cour; it is quoted here because it demonstrates so clearly
the impulse from which the air de COM grew. The concentration on
an esoteric emotionalism, the deliberate cultivation of sensuous
subtleties, is found also in the contemporary lutenists; it produced a
kind of escape art which links up with the pastoral convention of the
highly fashionable Astree. This pastoralism had itself been bor-
rowed from Italian sources from Guarini, Tasso, and Sannazar; it
was not surprising that it prospered in the hyper-sophisticated
French community. The pastoral life became an ideal because it was
supposedly free of complications, free o intrigue; because it seemed
to offer, regressively, a simpler mode of existence. From this point
of view we can see the significance of Mersenne's remark:

fl faut premierement supposer que la musique et par consequent les airs
sont faicts particulierement et principalement pour charmer 1'esprit et
Toreille, et pour nous faire passer la vie avec un peu de douceur parmi les
amertumes qui s'y rencontrent.

This is an ambiguous attitude which we have met before in La
Rochefoucauld, for instance. The self-protective irony should not
lead us to underestimate the degree to which the authors meant
what they said.

In terms of musical technique, the sense of proportion was realized
in the very simple formal structure which the composers adopted
the strophic tune in two parts, both with repeats (AA, modula-
tion to dominant; BB return to tonic). The emotionalism and
sensuousness within this formal framework were achieved partly
by the incidental rhythmic subtleties, suggested by the text and by
the composers' experiments in Greek prosody:

A efc.

t+-' rrrr

CesNyraphes hos-tes-ses des bois, Bravantles a . mou-reu - ses loix

130

THE SECULAR VOCAI WORKS

and partly by the ornamentation which, with increasing complexity,
embellished the vocal line. The elegant emotionalism was thus
almost entirely a rhythmic and linear matter; the composers were
not greatly interested in the Italian harmonic audacities, and were
content if their lute parts 'accompanied' with flatly homophonic
chords.

Even in the early days of the air de cour > the ornamentation was
thus an integral part of the preciosite, of the mlgnardise which all the
artists of the salons cultivated. It gave the line its suppleness of
nuance; it made hearts tremble. Some of the ornaments were sug-
gested by sixteenth-century conventions, particularly those of a
descriptive nature. Thus references in the text to upward or down-
ward movement, to flight, to flames literal or metaphorical, to pain
or distress, are accompanied by appropriate melodic stylizations:

si la

and there is some approach to a scheme of musical symbols, analo-
gous to the conventional vocabulary of the poems of a Tristan
THermite, There was, however, a growing tendency to indulge in
ornamentation for its own sake as a virtuoso exhibition of mignar-
disc. Formulae such as the following were sometimes appropriate to
the words:

Que n'es - tes vous Us - U es,

at other times purely conventional:

D'un-

.si doux trail,

In either case they rubbed any sharp corners off the lines and pro-
vided some compensation for the melodies' unenterprising range,
which seldom exceeded an octave, was often restricted to a fifth,

131

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

and, except in the case of Guedron, avoided leaps with any degree of
harmonic tension. The ornaments helped to create a stylization suit-
able for the expression of douceur and mollesse.

Between 1630 and 1640 the airs de cour seemed to be in decline, A
new impulse came from Pierre de Nyert, a wealthy dilettante, born
in 1597 and educated in musically 'progressive* circles. He lived in
Rome for a while, and made a study of the Italian theatre and
Italian song: Maugars tells us that de Nyert himself announced that
he wished to 'ajuster la methode italienne avec la fran^aise'. He must
have been a singer of virtuoso accomplishment; Bacilly remarks that
the great Luigi Rossi 'pleuroit de joie de luy entendre executer ses
airs'. He must also have been a man of some force of character, for
all the composers followed his lead in attempting to reconcile the
French and Italian techniques. La Fontaine's famous epitaph:

Nyert, quipour charmer le plus juste des Rois,
Inventa le lei art de conduire la voix,
Et dont legofyt sublime a lagrandejustesse,
Ajouta VAgremnt et la Delicatesse 9

does not seem hyperbolical when compared with the mass of con-
temporary tributes to de Nyert's * genie prodigieux, discernement
merveilleux', and so on. His schools for singers, teaching voice
production, pronunciation, style and gesture, soon became nation-
ally celebrated: and it was partly through de Nyert's work, which
encouraged a more declamatory technique and a more systematized
harmonic sense, that the air de cour became one of the constituents of
the classical opera.

Perhaps the most impressive evidence of de Nyert's influence is
the re-emergence of Antoine Boesset, after a silence of some years,
during which he was presumably studying the new techniques. The
work of Boesset's old age has a lyrical vitality which cannot be
found in the cloyingly 'sensitive' music he wrote in the first part of
the century; we may note, for instance, his use of melodic progres-
sions which have a clear harmonic basis:

Me veux tu

132

THE SECULAR VOCAL WORKS

It is also worth noting that the final volumes of Boesset's work are
still published with lute tablature. Henceforth, the songs are pub-
lished occasionally with lute tablature, more often with an instru-
mental bass, sometimes with a bass intended to be sung. The more
modern methods increase at the expense of the old.

The leaders of the new movement were men of a kter generation
than either de Nyert himself or Boesset Le Camus, de la Barre, and
Michel Lambert (whom Lecerf de k Vieville called 'le meileur
maitre qui ait ete depuis des siecles') wrote their airs consistently
with figured bass, and are more interested in problems of form and
proportion than were the composers of the first half of the century,
though they preserve much of the traditional rhythmic freedom.
Their air serieux is the old air de cour, modified by Italian harmony
and virtuosity. None of them has a talent of the order of Guedron, but
they can create melodies which have a genuine dignity and pathos,
as we may see from Lambert's setting of Jacqueline Pascal's poem,
Sombre desert, retraite de la nuit. Although Mazarin imported Italian
singers, and encouraged Italianism in every way, the native tradition
was not swamped. Italianate violence was never allowed to imperil
propriety, good taste, and mignardise. The distinction made by J. J.
Bouchard, in a letter to Mersenne, was still upheld:

Que si vous voulez sgavoir mon jugement, je vous dirai que, pour 1'artifice,
la science, et la fermet6 de chanter, pour k quantite de musiciens, principale-
ment de chanteurs, Rome surpasse Paris autant que Paris fait Vaugirard.
Mais pour la delicatesse et une certa leggiadira e dilettevok naturalezza des
airs, les Francois surpassent les Italiens de beaucoup.

Mersenne himself makes the same point:

Les Italiens . . . represent tant qu'ils peuvent les passions et les affections de
Time et de Fesprit, par exemple k colere, k fureur, le dpit, k rage, les
dtfaillances du cceur et plusieurs autres passions, avec une violence si extra-
ordinaire que Ton jugeroit quasi qu'ils sont touchez des memes affections
qu'ils represented en chantant, au lieu que nos Frangais se contentent de
flatter 1'oreille et qu'ils usent d'une douceur perpetuelle ^ leurs chants, ce
qui en empesche I'&ergie.

Even the Italians themselves seem to have been susceptible to the
virtues of the French idiom, while recognizing its limitations, if we
may judge from J. B. Doni's Traite de la Musique of 1640 :

Ou est-ce que Ton chante avec tant de mignardise et delicatesse et ou
entead-on tous les jours tant de nouvellcs et agr&bles chansons, meme en k

133

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

bouche de ceux qui sans aucnn artifice et tude font paroistre ensemble la
beaute de leurs voix et la gentillesse de leurs esprits; jusqu'a tel point qu'il
semble qu'en autres pays les musiciens se font seulement par art et exercice,
mais qu'en France ils deviennent tels de nature.

It may seem a little odd that Bouchard should break into Italian in
attempting to describe the characteristics of the French style, and
that Doni should find this most highly stylized technique remark-
able for its naturalness. But all the authorities are agreed as to the
general character and value of the French convention; and it is
interesting that Cambert, who of all French composers approached
most nearly to the Italian cantata technique, was considered crude
compared with the most civilized French standards. *Les sentiments
tendres et delicates lui echappaient ', said St Evremond; and a <lisciple
of preciosite could hardly make a more damning comment than
that.

The second generation of air de cour composers not only systema-
tized the formal and harmonic structure of the genre, they also
organized the haphazard decorative techniques of the early part of
the century into a fine art. The elaborate system of ornamentation
which they evolved was partly an extension of traditional practice
the port de voix, the coule, the flexion, the descriptive vocalise and
the tremllement had all appeared in the airs of Guedron and Boesset.
But now the various resources are systematized, 'and the system is
more or less synonymous with the invention of the double or
diminution. This ornamentation was the basis of the ornamentation
of Couperin and the clavecinists, and it is therefore important that
we should have some notion of what it was like, and of what the
composers thought they were doing when they used it. A detailed
account of Couperin's own ornamentation will be reserved until
our consideration of his theoretical work, in the third part of this
book.

The origins of the double are obscure. It is said that Bacilly may
have invented it, through singing embroidered versions of airs by
earlier masters such as Guedron and Boesset, though in so doing he
may merely have been imitating an Italian fashion. Titon du Tillet
seems to suggest that Lambert celebrated equally as composer and
singing teacher was responsible for the development of the
technique:
134

THE SECULAR VOCAL WORKS

On peut dire qu'il est le premier en France qui ait fait connoitre la beaute
de la Musique et du Chant, et la justesse, et les graces de Texpression; il
imagina aussi de doubler la plus grande partie de ses airs pour faire valoir la
lgeret de la voix et Tagrement du gozier par plusieurs passages et roulades
brillantes et gracieuses, ou il a excellemment rdussi.

Li any case, it soon became the custom to compose and to sing one's
airs more or less 'straight' in the first stanza, adding increasingly
complex passage work in subsequent verses. Bacilly himself offers a
somewhat unconvincing analogy with painting as an explanation of
the method:

Tout le Monde convient que le moins qu'on peut faire de passage dans un
premier Couplet c'est le mieux, parce qu'assurement ils cmpeschent que Ton
entende 1'Air dans sa purete*, de mme qu'avant d'appliquer les couleurs qui
sont en quelque fac. on dans la Peinture, ce qu'est dans le Chant la Diminu-
tion, il faut que le Peintre ait preincrement d&ine son ouvrage, qui a
quelque rapport avec le premier Couplet d'un air.

The strophic build of the air is, as it were, the draughtsmanship; the
ornamented couplets are the sensuous elements of colour applied to
the linear structure.

The port de voix was the simplest and most common of the orna-
ments. It was an upwards appoggiatura, a slide up a major or minor
second, or sometimes a third, fourth, or even a fifth; it was widely
employed for 'les finales, mediantes, et autres principales cadences'.
An extremely complicated set of rules conditioned its employment:
its purpose was to enhance the plasticity and delicacy of the line,
and its correct application called not only for a sound technique but
also for good taste. As Bacilly said:

Que le port de voix soit le grand chemin qui les gens qui chantent doivent
suivre, comme estant fort utile, mesme pour la justesse de la voix . . . mais
. . . il y a des coups de maistre qui passent par dessus le regie, je veux dire
que les ssavans par une licence qui est en eux une lgance du chant, obmet-
tent quelquefois de jetter le note basse sur la haute par un doublement de
notte imperceptible.

A hardly less important grace was the tremblement, by which the
composers meant a rapid alternation of two notes, corresponding to
the Italian tremolo. (The Florentines' trillo consisted of rapid repeti-
tions of the same note.) More complicated was the cadence /un des
plus considerable ornamens, et sans lequel le chant est fort imparfait'.

135

FRANCOIS COUPEWN: THE WORK

This took the form of a variously elaborated preparation, followed
by a tretnblement, followed by a resolution:

que j'at-tends

Another ornament was the tremblement etouffe, in which 'le gosier se
presente a trembler et pourtant n'en fait que le semblant, comme s'il
ne vouloit que doubler la notte sur laquelle se devoit faire la cadence '.
This appears to correspond with the Germans' Pralhritter. La flexion
de voix was a quick mordent.

All these ornaments and many subsidiary divisions of them were
executed on the long syllables. Another group of ornaments, called
accents and plaintes, was used on the short syllables. Bacilly defines
them as follows:

fl y a dans le Chant un certain ton particulier qui ne se marque que fort
lg&rement dans le gosier que je nomme accent ou aspiration, a qui a autres
donnent assez mal a propos le nom de plain te, comme s'il ne se pratiquoit
que dans les endroits ou Ton se plaint.

Mersenne also speaks of the 'accent plaintif * performed 'sur la notte
accentuee, en haussant un peu la notte a la fin de sa pronunciation et
en lui donnant une petite pointe, qui passe si viste, qu'il est assez
difficile de 1'apercevoir'. All the ornaments were sung with con-
siderable rhythmic freedom; groups of decorative notes were con-
ventionally sung in a pointe dotted rhythm, not liltingly in the
manner of the gigue, but 'si finement que cela ne paroisse pas, si ce
n'est en des endroits particuliers qui demandent expressement cette
sorte d'execution*.

The performer was thus called upon for a considerable degree of
creative artistry, if he was to interpret sensitively the ornaments
which the composer had marked in the score, and at the same time
to know where to add ornaments which the composer had not
troubled to indicate because he regarded them as conventionally
understood. For both performers and audience, the ornaments are
introduced partly to enhance the music's expressive preciosite, partly
to show off the skill which made these people a musical, as well as
a social, elect. The ornaments make the music more subtle and tendre,
136

THE SECULAR VOCAL WORKS

and less approachable by the common rank and file. While some of
the ornaments are suggested by the words in the manner of the six-
teenth century:

J .1 IJJ.1 J

pleu - * - re ct ge - inis nuit et tour

it is significant that this realism is less in evidence than in the early
part of the century. Bacilly insists on the importance of styKzation
for its own sake and pokes fun at the exponents of descriptive real-
ism, which he considers childish and unsophisticated:

De dire que par exemple sur le mot onde ou celui de balancer il faille
express&nent marquer sur le papier une douzaine de nottes hautes et basses
pour signifier aux yeux ce qui ne doit s'adresser qu'a Toreille, c'est une chose
tout a fait badine et puerile.

Lully himself disapproved of the hyper-subde ornamentation of the
doubles as being of Italian extraction and inimical to the French tradi-
tion of naturalness and grace. He underestimated the degree to
which the ornamentation had become a local product; in any case
he is to Lambert and Le Camus a direct successor. They had written
much music, both vocal and instrumental, for the ballet, and it is
their sense of proportion and of harmonic progression that Lully, in
his theatre music, more impressively developed. In his work, the
esoteric air de cour meets the popular elements in French song which
complemented it.

Before we turn to examine this more popular tradition, however,
we should note that French religious song, during the grand siecle,
became virtually indistinguishable from secular song; a fact which is
sociologically as well as musically interesting. The chants religieux of
a man such as Denis Caigret, who started from the lute song conven-
tion of Le Jeune and Mauduit, are relatively simple and homophonic
in technique, since they were intended for amateur performance;
but in essentials they are the same as the secular pieces. Of the reli-
gious songs of the mid-century Bacilly roundly declares that 'II faut
que ces sortes d'airs soient si approches des airs du monde pour Stre
bien re^us, qu'a peine on en puisse connaitre la difference': and
Gobert's preface to his settings of versified psalms takes care to Warn

137

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

the performer not to 'obmettre 5. bien faire les ports de voix, qu*
sont les transitions agr&bles et les anticipations sur les notes suivantes.
On doit observer a propos les tremblements, les flexions de voix . . .
etc.* De Gucy, in his settings of psalm-paraphrases published in 1650,
wrote fully developed doubles to the psalms, and blandly admitted
that one had to 'faire des chants sur le module des airs de cour pour
estre introduits partout avec facilit^'.

Both in the music and in their words the airs de cour were a sophisti-
cated art form. Bacilly, in his Remarques, describes songs of the air de
cour type as airs passiones (he means that they are full of feeling, not
passionate in the modern sense). His other main division of airs de
mouvement includes all the more 'popular* types of seventeenth-cen-
tury French song. During the second half of the century, the sophisti-
cated and popular elements tended to become more sharply differen-
tiated; Perrin, after defining the air de cour as a song which 'marche
a mesure et & mouvement libres et graves*, adds that *la chanson
diff&re de 1'air en ce qu'elle suit un mouvement regl de danse ou
autre*. All the lighter songs chansons, vaudevilles, airs a boire,
brunetes, and airs champetreshzd some affiliation with the dance and
were, as Lecerf de k Vieville says, ' articles considerables et singulieres
pour nous*. Most of them fall into one of two groupings; songs in
which both words and music have a popular character, and those in
which sophisticated words are adapted to popular or quasi-popular
tunes.

The songs which are popular in both words and music are com-
paratively few, and are almost all chansons b danser, survivals from
the sixteenth-century technique of homophonic sung dances. Their
technique and purpose had not greatly altered since Mangeant's
description of them in 1616:

fl n'est point d'exercice plus agr&ble pour la jeunesse, ny qui soit plus
usite* en bonnes compagnies que la danse; voire en tel sorte que le plus
souvent au dfaut des instruments Ton danse aux chansons.

Another charming contemporary account suggests that they were
sometimes preferred to instrumental dance music:

H y avait des violons, mais ordinnairement on les faisait take pour danser
aux chansons. C'est si joli de danser aux chansons.

The chansons were symmetrical in construction, 'simples et
naturelles'.

138

THB SECULAR VOCAL WORKS

Much more frequent, in Ballard's collections of the airs, are the
songs in which sophisticated words are written to popular tunes.
Some of these are in dance rhythms. It became a fashionable pastime
to write verses in sarabande, gavotte, and bourree form, and so on*
Normally, however, the songs are not meant to be danced to, and
the more serious ones such as the sarabandes are often indistinguish-
able from the simpler airs He cow. More characteristic of the sophisti-
cated adaptations of popular tunes are the vaudevilles (or voix de
villes)-, it is interesting that in defending them against the charge of
vulgarity, Bacilly points out that popular tunes are in essence naturels,
*qui est une qualite fort considerable dans le chant'. 'Les Francois
sont a peu pres les seuls qui aient entendu cette brievete raisonnable
qui est la perfection des vaudevilles et cette naivete qui en est le sel/
De Rosiers, in the preface to his collection Un Livre de Libertes,
explains why he thinks vaudevilles are an important part of musique
de societe:

Un homme toujours s&ieux serait insupportable et sa conversation ne
serait bonne que quand Ton est endormi; le rire dissipe rhumeur m6lan-
colique, c'est pourquoi la pratique en est n&essaire;

and he goes on to say that though his music may appear somewhat
frivolous, none the less to compose it calls for considerable cunning:

Ceux qui font profession de mettre au jour quelque musique sgavent
bien que la naivete' des chansons a danser ne demande point 1* artifice et
T&ude des airs de cour; n&nmoins s'ils consid&ont bien mes chants ils
verront que ma plume les fait voler assez haut pour en acqu&ir le titre.

We may note that, just after the middle of the century, when the
air serieux was reaching its highest point of esoteric elaboration,
there was a complementary increase in the numbers of trivial and
facetious chansons and vaudevilles. At the same time, sophisticated
ornamentation was tentatively introduced into the more popular
songs, 'qui veulent estre executees avec plus de tendresse', as Bacilly
characteristicallyputit. Thisdesireto 'get it both ways' toenjoythe
advantages of a civilized society while avoiding social responsibility
through a consciously naive retreat to a simpler mode of existence
also connects up with the pastoralism ofL'Astree.

A more extreme instance of this is provided by the chansons a boire,
which also flourished most vigorously during the period of the air
de cow's greatest refinement. (We may compare the development of

139

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE WORK

the English tavern catch, during the reign of Charles I, beside the
highly sophisticated music of Jenkins and William Lawes.) The
phenomenon of the chanson a boire parallels the growth of burlesque
literature. At the beginning of the century, the chansons a boire are
not distinct from other chansons of a light character; they fall into a
period of triteness and vulgarity, and then, in the second half of the
century, gain a more self-conscious elaboration, ultimately becom-
ing songs which demand considerable virtuosity from the performer:

soir et ma .tin 1'onde . . char - ge du vin

The chansons a boire were more often for two voices, in canon,
accompanied by two violins as well as continuo; though examples
for a single voice and for various other combinations with continuo
are plentiful. Lully composed some sprightly examples in the classic
form with violins, and approved of them strongly because they
'sont des pieces propres a la France que les Italiens ne connoissoient
pas Tart de fake des jolis airs, des airs d'une gaite et facilite qui
cadre aux paroles est un point que 1'Italie ne nous contestera pas'.
(Lecerf de la Vieville.) Despite its bacchic and dionysiac associations,
the chanson a boire was not remote from the other popular manifesta-
tions of the air. The air tendre et a boire was a frequent compromise,
the implication being that the wine would titillate the amorous
palate, leading it not to intenser passion, but to greater subtlety
and preciosite.

The brunete did not materially differ from the vaudeville, except
that it tended to use less spicy texts, and a more elegantly Platonic
version of the love theme. The proportion of pseudo to real folk
songs was also rather larger. Some of the more melancholy brunetes
thus merge into the airs serieux, and Ballard reprints the simplest airs
de cour in his brunete collections. Brunetes were for one, two, or
three voices, accompanied by theorbo lute, or sometimes sung
unaccompanied. The singers took great pride in singing the songs
unaccompanied, a la cavaliere, with the appropriate ornamentation
and nuance; the habit also had practical advantages:

On s$ait que raceompagnement aide et adoucit la voix: cependant une
140

THE SECULAR VOCAL WORKS

belle voix, qui n'est point accompagnee, ne devient pas insupportable . . .
il y a des moments ou Taccompagnement est presque incommode. La
conversation languit; on prie quelqu'un de chanter un Air, on l'coute et on
recommence a causer. S'il avait propose d'envoyer chercher une basse dc
viole, on se seroit separe*. A k fin du repas, dans I'dmotion ou le vin et k joie
ont mis les conviez, on demande un air a boire a celui qui a de k voix;
Taccompagnement aurait la quelque chose de genant, qui serait hors de
saison . . . Nos Franc, ois les plus amoureux de Jeurs voix ne font pas non plus
difficulte de chanter sans theorbe et sans clavescin et . . c'est faire le pr&ieux
ou la pr&ieuse de se piquer de ne point chanter sans Th6orbe. (Lecerf de la
Vteville.)

These little pastoral songs called brunetes after the pseudo-
shepherdesses who sang them or about whom they were sung
enjoyed a phenomenal popularity throughout the seventeenth cen-
tury, and it was a song of Lully in this manner (Sommes-nouspas trop
heureux), which inverted the normal rektion between folk music
and art music, and entered French folk song as a carol

Lully also carried the brunete into the opera where, under the
tide of air tendre, it preserved its national identity, *ce caractere
tendre, aise et natural, qui fktte toujours sans lasser jamais, et qui va
beaucoup plus au cceur qu'a Fesprit'. Not too much to the heart,
however, for it is only * un peu d'amour* that is 'necessaire' and 'un
charmant amusement'. Here, as always, one must preserve a balance
between emotion and a sense of propriety, if only because it is more
comfortable to avoid emotional complications. By the early eigh-
teenth century the term brunete was being used rather indiscrimin-
ately to cover most varieties of the pastoral. But it was still a living
reality, and perhaps more than anything, preserved the French
tradition from the encroachments of Italianism. In Couperin's work
it was a counterpoise to the Corellian sonata; he must have felt about
it much as did Lecerf de k Vieville when he wrote:

Et toutes ces Brunettes, toutes ces jolies airs champtres, qu'on appelle les
Brunettes, combien ils sont naturek On doit compter pour de vraies beaute*s
la douceur et la nalvet de ces petits airs les Brunettes sont doublement a
estimer dans notre musique, parce que cela n*est ni de la connoisance, ni du
gdnie des Italiens, et que les tons aimables et gracieux, si finement propor-
tionn^s aux paroles, en sont d'un extreme prix.

It is rather surprising that Couperin's specific contributions to the
brunette collections are so few. If we discount the numerous arrange-

141

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

ment of his harpsichord pieces in vocal form, we have left only three
airs serieux, and half a dozen or so songs in the semi-popular, semi-
sophisticated vein. The earliest of the airs serieux, Quon ne me dise
plus, is dated 1697. It is a gravely melancholy piece in E minor, with
first section ending in die relative major. The groupings of the
melodic clauses are varied, and the line mounts to a quite impressive
climax:

J'ahnel -

ris

i'*

te sa pre-

-fe j- *
sen

If PIT

ce, ce r

=ttt

de cru-

etc.

^ 1

-J

1 J J 1 *' u

LL.

The second <rir serieux, Doux liens, was published in 1701, and the
words are a French translation of an Italian poem already set by
Alessandro Scarlatti. The music, however, is French in its rhythmic
fluidity, and is perhaps closer to the air de cow of the first half of the
grand siecle than is the more architecturally balanced Quon ne me dise
plus. The third air serieux, explicidy called Brunete, is dated 1711.
The most developed piece in Couperin's secular vocal music, it is an
air de cour with five doubles or couplets. The air itself is in the usual
two sections, with repeats, the first section modulating from G to the
dominant with some piquant intimations of D minor. Exquisitely
stylized, the melodic arabesques of the doubles have no obvious des-
criptive intent, although the pliancy and douceur which they give to
the line are a part of its expressiveness. As in the earlier airs de cour
the convolutions of the ornamentation counteract the rigidity of the
harmonic structure:
142

THE SECULAR VOCAL WORKS

Nymph

bo-

The harmonies remain constant while, through the succession of
couplets, the complexities of the ornamentation increase. However
much the influence of de Nyert may have encouraged the French to
experiment with this kind of melodic filigree, the soft fluidity of the
line is germane to the French tradition. One can observe reflections
of it all through Couperin's work. As a whole, this song is a most
beautiful example ofmusi&lpreciosite.

These three songs are sophisticated pieces in the esoteric manner of
the air de cour. Another sophisticated song, of a simpler, more har-
monic type is Les Solitaires, a piece of amicably self-indulgent
melancholy, written for two voices, moving note for note, and
continuo. Then there are a few songs in the semi-popular vein, La
Pastourelle, Musete, Vaudeville, and Les Pelkrines, all published in

143

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

1711 or 1712. The vaudeville is for three voices and bass, the other
songs for two voices, the parts in every case moving note for note.
Les Pellerines also exists in a clavecin version in Couperin's first book
of keyboard pieces. Despite their popular flavour, the tunes seem to
be original, not adaptations of folk-songs. They are all charming, but
indistinguishable from innumerable other songs in the brunete tradi-
tion; Couperin here makes no attempt to use the brunete conven-
tion, as he does later, for his own ends.

More interesting than these characterless pastorals is Couperin's
air a boire,* setting of La Fontaine's Epitaphe d'unParesseux. The two
vocal parts follow convention in being freely canonic; there are
some contrapuntal jokes on the words Deux parts en ft, and the
canonic parts are throughout neady dove-tailed. Finally, there are
three unaccompanied songs in three parts. Two of them are canons,
the second being an entertaining chanson a boire, A moi t tout est perdu,
which parodies operatic recitative. The declamatory theme gives
prominence to the notes of the major triad. Appoggiaturas in the
ornamentation create some effectively odd parallel seconds:

bou - teille

journ-

cru et

des

u - ne

The three-part unaccompanied parody, Trois Vestales et trots polifons,
is one of die most personal of the secular pieces, and suggests the
kind of modification of the pastoral convention which Couperin
introduces into his most significant work. There may not be much
in a passage such as this:
144

THB SECULAR VOCAL WORKS

etc.

Quei bruit sou - dain vient troub.Ier nos re - trai - tes?

to indicate that it is by an important composer but it is illuminating
to consider it in relation to, say, the quick sections of the Lefons des
Tenebres.

For clearly, our account of the brunete tradition, comparatively
detailed as it is, could not be justified simply as an introduction to
Couperin's few trifling exercises in this style. We need to under-
stand the pastoral tradition because it is one of the points from which
Couperin starts. His contributions to the idiom are insignificant;
what is important is the manner in which he uses elements of the
brunete in all his most important work. We shall find subtle trans-
mutations of the brunete repeatedly throughout his clavecin music
and concerts; while in the relatively Italianate period of the church
music, it is the brunete, even more than the opera of Lully, which
stands for Couperin as the central line in the French tradition.

Chapter Eight

The Church Music

La Musique <Tun Motet, qui en est, pour ainsi dire, le corps,
doit etre expressive, simple, agreable. . . La Musique de
1'Eglise doit etre expressive. Les regies que nous nous sornrnes
etablies la menent la bien certainement. N'est-il pas Evident que
plus ce qu'on souhaite est doux, plus ce qu'on craint est
terrible; et plus nos sentiments veulent etre exprimez d'une
maniere vive et marquee? Or ou est-ce qu'on craint et qu'on
souhaite de si grandes choses? Les passions d'un Ope*ra sont
froides, au prix de celles qu'on peint dans notre Musique de
1'Eglise.

BONNET, Histoire de la Mustyue, 1725

THE SECULARIZATION OF church music during the seventeenth
century was not an isolated phenomenon, but a part of the drift of
European culture from the church to the stage. Secular music
evolved from Orazio Vecchi's latently operatic treatment of the
madrigal, to Monteverdi's explicitly narrative and dramatic version
with soloists and instrumental ritornelli; and thence to the solo
cantata itself. (For instance, such works of Monteverdi as // Combat-
timento di Tancredi, and the baroquely emotional cantatas of Rossi.)
Similarly, in the field of ecclesiastical music, the monumental poly-
phony of the Venetian school of Giovanni Gabrieli gave to the reli-
gious technique a glamour which almost suggested the humanistic
passion of the chromatic madrigal. When once the chromatic idiom
entered the church, it was only one step further to introduce the
operatic aria and recitative.

The first years of the century show an extraordinarily rich fusion
of techniques. The Vespers and Magnificat and other church music
which Monteverdi composed for St Mark's, Venice, have a ground-
ing in the old counterpoint, combined with monumental colouristic
effects, brilliant instrumentation, baroque figuration, madrigalian

THE CHURCH Music

chromaticism, and passages of operatic aria and recitative* And there
is a mature fusion, not a confusion, of styles. Even when the homo-
phonic theatre style had been unequivocally accepted in the church,
there are still traces of continuity with the old methods. The opening
of this solo cantata of Schiitz, who was at one time among Monte-
verdi's pupils, recalls the placing together of unrelated triads typical
of the chromatic madrigal:

/lit iln i

1 =1

i U. Jj J i

fr J "

-H 1

br_f

and this passage suggests both the chromatic madrigal, and the
contrapuntal technique of the baroque organists:

riH i d irtr-

/i , , M^f m 1 7 m 1 '

i ^

USr r f

fly P ^j i r te=J

~M V jftd ^
J iiJ J

147

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

But the key-figure with reference to the future of church music
is not Monteverdi, nor Schiitz, but the Italian Carissimi. His life
stretches across the century from 1605 to 1674, and his work is
intimately linked with the religious life of Rome. No doubt the
enthusiasm of Pope Urbino VIII for the new monodic style en-
couraged Carissimi to develop Cavalieri's attempt (in his Rappresen-
tazione di anima e di corpo) to adapt the operatic technique to a reli-
gious use; but in so doing he was following the direction in which
his sensibility led him. In 1630 he was appointed musical director of
the Jesuit college of St Apollinaire, for German students, and it was
in this environment that he composed his long series of sacred his-
tories and oratorios. He accepted in his technique the operatic
recitative and aria, madrigalian chromaticism, and the 'monumen-
tal* homophonic style of choral writing: his music is by no means
devoid of the Bernini-like qualities, the declamatory passion and
emotional chromatic progressions which characterize the secular
cantatas of Rossi:

r r"

THE CHURCH Music

The essence of his achievement, however, lies in the more sober
stylization of baroque exuberance which he introduces. Like Gavalli
in the opera, he employs an almost consistently homophonic style
in his large-scale choruses; in his solo cantatas he is as much interested
in the balance of clauses, the alternation of mood, as in lyrical expres-
siveness. In these smaller works he substituted for the glittering
baroque orchestra the more intimate combination of solo voices,
with two obbligato violins, and a rich but subdued continuo of organ,
harpsichord and theorbo lute. There is thus some analogy between
the chamber cantata and the baroque violin sonata.

Some of Carissimi's arias have a lyrical suavity and balanced
elegance which reminds one of Lully, or even Handel:

and there is a very moving choral passage at the end ofjephtha which
anticipates the technique of tranquilly sensuous suspensions in dotted
rhythm which we have already observed in some of the slow move-
ments of Couperin's violin sonatas:

FRANCOIS COUPBMN: THE WORK

r? d })j J"l

M J

JK(j? fr: fS gj=|

fr "r r

etc.

^-* .

In any case, it is not difficult to understand why Carissimi's music,
with its aristocratic disciplining of baroque passion, made so imme-
diate an appeal to his contemporaries who were in search of an
autocratic stylization; the virtues of his work were such as were
bound to interest, in particular, the adherents of the Roi Soleil. By
the time of Lully, Carissimi's influence on French church music was
of an importance which was hardly to be exceeded even by Corelli's
influence on the instrumental school. Lecerf de k Vteville, who was
the last person to flatter an Italian, said:

Quoique Carissimi soit ant&ieur cet age de la bonne musique italienne,
j'ai toujours 6t6 persuade* qu'il est le plus grand musician que 1'Italie ait
produit et un musicien illustre & juste titre, plein de genie sans contredit,
mais, de plus, ayant du naturel et du gout; enfin, le moins indigne adversaire
que les Italiens ayent a opposer a Lufiy.

It seems probable that at the height of his popularity this 'homme
d'un mrite extraordinaire s'etait longtemps forme en faisant chanter
ses pieces aux Th&tins de Paris/

In 1649 a French youth of fifteen, Marc-Antoine Charpentier,
went to Rome to study painting. He seems to have had precocious
musical gifts also, for, hearing some of Carissimi's sacred histories,
he decided that his life's work must be to create music such as that.
The legend has it that he memorized several of Carissimi's works
and carried them back to France in his head. However this may be,
there is no doubt that his efforts and those of Michel Farinel did
much to encourage the vogue for Carissimi in France. Most of
Charpentier's own work is sacred music in Carissimi's convention;
though his Medee suggests that he might have been a successful opera
composer also, but for Lully's monopoly. His compositions include
masses, psalms, and lefons des tenelres for the Dauphin's private
chapel, sacred histories and motets for the Jesuits of the rue St
150

THE CHURCH Music

Antoine, and even a few small works for Port Royal. In Charpen-
tier's music, the lyrical suavity and architectural gravity of Carissimi
acquire a rather more pathetic and introspective tinge, as they merge
into the French line of Lullian recitative. The declamation itself is a
compromise between Lully and the Italian baroque flourish:

Per-cu-tf-am pas

o- rem, pcrcu - ti-am pas

to- rem et dis-per-

ess

- gen

r r

and the tone of his work has an elegiac quality comparable with that
of the lutenists. If he has less power and variety than Carissimi, he
has possibly greater subtlety and depth, and certainly he preserves a
closer contact with the polyphonists; Titon du Tillet called him *un
des plus sfavants et des plus laborieux Musiciens de son terns'. In the
wonderful closing section of his finest work, Le Reniement de St
Pierre, he attains to a sustained purity of line, mated with a dissolving
sensuousness of harmony, which rivals the finest work of Couperin
himself:

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

There is nothing that more recalls Couperin's flavour, unless it be a
few passages in die cantatas of Henri Dumont

Of all die church composers of the grand siecle Henri Dumont has
perhaps the closest link with the polyphonic art of the previous cen-
tury. Indeed he continued to compose contrapuntal music in the old
a capella tradition until the end of his life in 1684, and he was the
only composer of his time to write masses directly based on plain-
song themes, even though these themes were mensurated and tonally
modernized. He is however chiefly remembered for his fine motets
in the new style for solo voices and continuo, many of which date
from the middle of the century. These have a sinewy power which
is at once fervent and devotional. They suggest a development which
was finally consummated in the work of La Lande, unquestionably
one of the greatest religious composers of the seventeenth century,
though his work is, in this country at least, litde known. With his
152

THE CHURCH Music

habitual good taste Louis personally chose La Lande to be Du
Mont's successor 16 as Superintendent of the Royal Chapel. He had
picked a man who was able to create in church music a worthy
counterpart to the grandeur of Lully's achievement in secular music.
The general tenor of La Lande's work is noble and Handelian, but
the contrapuntal vitality of his lines gives great nervous force to
his rich and sonorous harmonies. We cannot deny that a work such
as his De Profututis conveys a spiritual illumination which makes it
perhaps the most impressive musical instance of the strain of mysti-
cism that we have seen to be ktent in this ostensibly hedonistic
society.

Now while Couperin in his church music does not attempt to
emulate La Lande's massive dignity he rivals, perhaps even excels
him in the ability to express an intimate spirituality, a purity of feel-
ing and a sense of wonder which are the prerequisites of a religious
view of experience. From this point of view both Couperin and La
Landc differ essentially from Lully. Sometimes, it is true, there is an
unexpected tenderness, as well as nobility, in the drooping suspen-
sions of Lully's motets:

f-r

16 *Le Roi qui se connoissait parfeitement en Musique gouta fort cdle de La Lande,
ii lui donna succcssivement les deux charges de Maitre de Musique de la Cbambre et
les deux de Compositeurs, celle de Surintendant de k Musique, et les quatre Charges
de Maitre de la Chapelle.' (Titon du Tillet)

153

FRANCOIS COUPE JUN: THE WORK

and the magnificent early Miserere (1664) that so moved Mme de
Sevigne achieves its lacerating intensity by a La Lande-like fusion
of harmonic and contrapuntal elements. His more typical, later
church works, however, such as the Te Deum or even the nobly
passionate Dies Irae, are massive, ceremonial, festive, deriving not
from the intimate sacred histories of Carissimi but from his homo-
phonic choral pieces. There is nothing specifically religious about
these bold lines and monumental harmonies, any more than there is
about Corneille's ostensibly Christian play Polyeucte. Some analogy
may be established between Lully's harmonic and architectural
majesty, and the noble resonance of Corneille's heroic couplet. They
both have few emotional overtones; they deal in the social values of
civilization.

Compared with Lully's ceremonial homophony, the church music
of Couperin, like that of La Lande, shows a greater fluidity of line
and freedom of harmony; we see in his finest religious music per-
haps the most remarkable demonstration of his compromise between
polyphonic and homophonic technique. If Lully's homophony may
be related to Corneille's alexandrine, perhaps we may see, in the
more flexible line and harmony of Couperin, some analogy with the
depths of meaning which imagery and rhythm reveal beneath
Racine's ostensibly conventional language. Ultimately, this plasti-
city corresponds to a deeper interest in the workings of the human
mind and to a more spiritual conception of values than is common
to the gallantry of Lully and Comeille. We can adequately under-
stand Couperin's Molire-like sanity and humour only if we realize
that it is modified by a tragic sense of the implications of Le Misan-
thrope; we can appreciate his classical poise only if we see it in rela-
tion to the ferocity ofPhedre; and we can most clearly understand
his spiritual radiance if we see it in relation to the extreme douceur of
Racine's Athalie

For central representative of ^ grand sihle though he is, Racine
has, especially in Athalie, a spiritual purity which seems to refer back
to the great days of French medieval civilization. Couperin's church
music has a similar quality. He accepts the Italianized, secularized

17 The music for the choruses in Racine's Athalie and Esther was in fact composed by
J-B. Moreau who also set three of Racine's Continues Spirituals. While not in the class
of Couperin's finest work, his music has an exquisite grace which is worthy of Esther,
if not of Athalie.

154

THE CHURCH Music

convention of the motet and cantata in the manner of Carissimi, but
he manages to reconcile this with a purity and simplicity of tech-
nique and feeling which reminds one of Josquin, or even Dufay. In
this he more maturely develops an element which we shall later note
in the work of Chambonni&res. Of course, apart from the linear
nature of his idiom closer to Bach than to Lully or Handelthere
is in Couperin's work no direct technical heritage from the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. But there is a certain temperamental affinity,
and it is this which gives him so central a position in the French tradi-
tion. While he belongs without ambiguity to the age in which he
lived, and cannot be said to live, like Bach, culturally in the past,
none the less he has something of Bach's transitional significance.
What was clearly true of the organ masses is more subtly true of all
his representative work. He looks backwards rather than forwards;
he stands between the medieval and the modern world.

The church music of both Couperin and La Lande was composed
between 1695 and 1715, during the last melancholy years of Louis's
reign, and for that reason it is perhaps understandable that a more
intimately spiritual tone should be discernible in it, if it be compared
with Lully's worldly splendour. This more spiritual quality is not,
however, present in the earliest example of Couperin's work for the
Chapelle Royale, the motet Laudatepuen Dominum, dated 1697. This
is an exercise in Carissimi's cantata technique, comparable with the
experiments in Corellian sonata technique which Couperin had
made a few years previously. Although an impressive piece, it is not
a work of mature personality.

The * Symphony' is designed in the Carissimi manner for two
violins and continue, though Couperin is not specific about the
instruments to be employed. The melodic parts are freely canonic,
with many overlapping suspensions, as in the two-violin sonatas.
The solo instruments anticipate the material of the vocal sections,
but are used only during the interludes or ritornelli, not in conjunc-
tion with the voices. The next movement, Sit nomen Domini bene-
dictus, uses voices and violins together in imitation, in a solemn 3 : 2
pulse. The piece corresponds to the^fwe sarabande of the da chiesa
sonata. The harmony is rich and massive, though not especially
personal.

A solis ortu is a brilliant virtuoso section in the Italian fashion, a

155

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

fugal movement on a 'harmonically' centred subject incorporating
a rising arpeggio and falling scale passage:

A so- Us or - tu us-quead oc -ca . - sum

Here the two instrumental parts have a continuously animated share
in the counterpoint, and include much glittering passage-work in
thirds. The Excelsus super omnesgentes section is in a simple symmetri-
cal rhythm resembling the French air tendre. Echo effects are obtained
in dialogue between voices and violins, and the gentle rhythm and
limpid diatonicism provide the first intimation of an effect which
Couperin is to develop in later church works:

Violins

et su-per

coe -los

glo. - ri-a

e - jus

efc.

Then follows a passage of arioso, making use of sequential figura-
tions:

f[ f r-*-

e/c.

in 'coe-fo et in ter - ra, in coe-lo et in ter - ra, in

A charming Lullian dance in a dotted .triple rhythm accompanies the
words Suscitans a terra inopem, and leads into an Italianate arioso duo
on the words Ut collocet cum. The work concludes with a long can-
zona on a brisk dance tune:
156

THE CHURCH Music

involving the two violins and three voices in continuous contra-
puntal dialogue. The voices are called upon for considerable virtuo-
sity; Handelian baroque passages in the bass are frequent:

lae.-tan-

tern, Qui ha-bi-ta -re fe-cit

etc.

The movement is brilliant and effective, if not very typical of
Couperin.

The Quatre Versets fun Motet chante a Versailles, 1703, to words
from the psalm Mirabilia testimonia tua, marks the emergence of the
authentic Couperin manner in Latin church music. It opens with a
remarkable arioso passage (Tabescere me fecit) for two unaccompanied
sopranos, treated in free imitation. The tenuous purity of the two
voices, pitched high in their register, evokes the atmosphere of the
whole work, which is of a 'celestial* radiance such as we have met
before in parts of the violin sonatas and organ masses. The unaccom-
panied opening Couperin's direction that it *se chante sans Basse
Continue ny aucun Instrument* is unequivocal has flexible lines
and subtle effects of ellipsis. The instruments enter with a delicate
theme embracing a rising fifth and a litde repeated falling scale figure
in quavers. The texture resembles that of the gayer, more ballet-like
fugal sections of the organ masses, though when the voice appears
it exploits a more Italian technique, with long roulades suggested by
the words:

157

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

Violins

Voice

Bass

The quaver scale passage is used here sequentially to the doux accom-
paniment of drooping octaves on the violins. It appears fairly con-
sistently throughout the movement: towards die end, a more
emotional chromaticism is introduced into the bass.

The next verse, Adokscentulus sum, is in the major, scored for
soprano, two flutes, and continue played on violins. This limpid
sonority accords with the innocent diatonicism of the lines, with the
caressing passing notes, and with the simply symmetrical rhythm.
This conscious naivete could not have been created but for Couperin's
relation to the brunete tradition. It is, however, much more than
that, for it is in such effects as this intertwining of soprano and flute
that we may find a purity, a spiritual innocence, more reminiscent
of Josquin and Dufay than of the sensual emotion of Carissimi and
the grand siecle. In this instance we may even see some slight technical
similarity between the dissolving effect of the passing notes in the
Couperin:

158

THE CHURCH Music

Flutes

Continue
(Violins)

i r T '>

6 6

~6 6

etc.

6 6

and those in some of the simpler, more homophonic work of
Josquin.

This movement leads into a lightly dancing setting ofjustitia tua
for two sopranos, with a continue of violins. The leap of a tenth
gives the theme a lilting airiness:

fes

Ju - sti - ti - a tu - a Ju - sti - ti - a tu - a
There are piquant canonic entries producing dissonant suspensions:

The last section, Qui dat nivem, is scored for the same combination as
the Adolescentulus sum, and likewise proceeds in a gentle crochet

159

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

pulse. Passing notes and appoggiaturas again create a glowing,
radiant quality:

At the end the voice and flute dissolve away in triplets and then
semiquavers in silvery thirds. Throughout, the texture of the work
has a filigree-like delicacy, and no one but Couperin could have
written it.

After this ethereal work, the Sept Versets du Psaume Benedixisti
Dontine of 1704 strike a different note. This piece has grandeur and
intensity. The first section is a bass aria with flute obbligato. Although
meditative and withdrawn, with a quiet regular rhythm like some of
Bach's Passion arias, it is remarkable for its spacious proportions,
linear complexity, and powerful sense of climax. The vocal phrases
are of great length, with Italian descriptive flourishes:

h*^r

F=PF

f =^=P

rif r frirT |

\' r ^ '

b |c ; .
>a r lu -

1 Hi
ta

I 1

^-f

r ^ / f

rf f a r

=5**=!

Chromatically rising figures create a sense of urgency and pleading,
but the emotion is always controlled by the even pulse, and by the
grave proportions of the whole. Note for instance how in this
passage the upwards aspiring line is counterbalanced by the falling
sequences of die last two bars:
160

THE CHOTCH Music

nqr-*

^rh

ffi

rF"

f'W'HT'-fi

vcr

Vintinii

-57

r i

-i

-f

J 1

=1=

. te

I, 1 . 1 . 1 .'

a -

vcr

. i

Tj -

J 4

-i

d i-

-*~

=^=

The texture has here a Bachian richness. The flute is subtly used both
in imitation of the voice and, in a highly effective passage, in un-
accompanied duplication at the tenth.

The next section, in the relative major (B flat), is a duo for tenor
and bass with independent obbligato parts. The words Numquid in
aeternum irasceris nobis suggest a contrapuntal treatment, highly
baroque and Italianate, though with a French graciousness. The
vocal parts indulge in rapid scale passages and virtuoso roulades. A
passage of arioso for the Ostende nobis Domine leads into one of
Couperin's hushed, contemplative movements in a swaying triple
rhythm, for tenor with instrumental obbligato, probably flute. An
atmosphere of naive wonder is obtained through some odd proces-
sions of unresolved 6 : 4 chords:

Violins I

"Mf

y^E

f=q

u -

;^^f=

. r .p

-fc-

-i

6 i

6
4

Gjf

6
4 4

6 6

4 4

666

4 4 j|4

ty i

F=f=i

. . -TIL

)

J4-

i I
<

[4-

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

The tonality changes to a clear G major and a passage of recitative
flows into a gende aria on a crochet pulse. Sometimes the part-
writing creates tender dissonances similar to those in the sommeil
movements of the Apotheose sonatas:

Violins

Voice

Continue

lo-que - tur,

V t J

cem ta-que - tur

J=A

in pie- bem

^ .3

more commonly the texture is as transparently diatonic as that of
the organ Messe des Convents:

Violins

*JJ t yf

r r * '

^=
r

Voice

*>fl J I

que - tur, lo-
| 1 I i

t=N

que - tur,

j J J

lo -

j \ \

que-tur pa *

^ r -

cem

-X-2 J -

J J J

j * ,

6 6 l>5

THE CHURCH Music

The next verset is a duet for two tenors, again in the minor, and
elegiac in tone, with Italian arabesques, mainly in thirds. Veritas de
terra is a brief da capo aria in D, with ritomello. The theme starts with
the notes of the major triad ascending, and again the solo line has an
Italian floridity. The harmonies, however, attain a certain acerbity,
during a prolonged modulation to the minor of the dominant. This
motet ends quietly with a duet between two pairs of oboe and flute
in unison without continue; after the instrumental prelude, the
voices double the first oboe and flute parts. As in the Versets of the
previous year, this tenuous finale seems to suggest that the worldly
glory of die Roi Soleil is dissolving away into eternity. In this sense,
it is not altogether extravagant to say that Couperin's delicate
sensuousness has merged into an attitude that can be called trans-
cendental. To this music, as to the hushed, dissolving passages in the
violin sonatas, the massive Handelian full dose would be utterly
inappropriate.

The Qui regis Israel versets of the next year, 1705, show a further
development of the graver Bachian manner of the 1704 work. A
triple-rhythmed prelude exploits echo effects between the solo
instruments and the continue instruments. The two voices, counter-
tenor and bass, move mainly note for note in a nobly cantabile
manner. The Excita potentiam tuam is one of Couperin's jaunty 3 : 8
movements, with the voices this time treated imitatively. The main
theme has a sprightly rising scale figure:

Ex-ci-ta po-tem-ti-am tu-amct ve-mct vc

The Vineam de Aegypto section is a bass aria in B flat, with a Lullian
dance lilt underlying its Italianism. It leads into a lively 3 : 8 air for
bass and double chorus, accompanied by groups of oboes and flutes,
and violins. All these quick movements are of a somewhat secular
frivolity. An altogether deeper note is sounded with the two magnifi-
cent arias for counter-tenor with obbligato flutes. These are in F
minor according to Rameau the conventional key for chants
fagubres. The Operuit mentes umbra ejus section employs wild, whirl-
Ing scale passages in the instrumental parts, similar to those adapted

FRANgois COUPERIN: THE WORK

from Lully's overture by the violists and lutenists in their Tombeaux
movements. The piece as a whole has a most impressive union of the

violist's ceremonial grandeur with Monteverdian dramatic fire

note for instance the big leaps, the diminished sevenths and tritones
in the proudly declamatory line:

The second air, Extendit palmites $uos y is in a steady triple rhythm,
warm in its harmonic texture. It includes extended passages for voice
with flipfes and violins unaccompanied by the continuo. Here again
we find the characteristically disembodied, unearthly effect.

The last section returns to C minor for a grave aria for counter-
tenor with flute and viol obbligato. The regular rhythm and inde-
pendent part-writing once more suggest a more ethereal Bach,
especially in certain sequential effects in the obbligato parts:

etc.

I6A.

THE CHURCH Music

The harmony, however, often inclines to an un-Bachian, if delicate,
voluptuousness.

With the Motet de Ste Suzanne we reach one of the peak points of
Couperin's church music. Here the paradox of a sensuousness of
harmony that is united with a virginal spirituality of line finds its
loveliest expression. The opening is Italianate and Handelian, yet the
impression it produces is remote from Handel's solidity. The mate-
rial is founded almost entirely on this little phrase:

IT N' IF

Ve-ni, ve - ni, spon-sa . Chris-ti, Ve-ni, ve-ru co- ro

be - ris

The expressive wriggle on coronaberis later attains alilting exuberance:

be - ris

and is bandied about between the counter-tenor and obbligato
violins. Couperin's sensuous sevenths and ninths introduce a more
introspective tinge into the minor episodes, but the movement never
loses its innocently smiling, almost playful, quality.

This playfulness is a part of the music's innocence and there is
nothing superficial or irreverent about it. The seriousness of the work
is revealed in the following duo for counter-tenor and soprano, Date
serta, dateflore$, one of the most fragrant of all Couperin's move-
ments in this manner. We may compare its ninth chords and melting
suspensions with those in the sommeil movements of the Apotheose
sonatas, or with the less mature examples in the organ Messe des
Convents. The counter-tenor is the upper part and sounds an octave
lower:

165

Voices

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

me - re . tur ho - nor-es,haec mar - tyr sane - tis sima haec

.J SJJ'_

vir -go cas - tis - sima me - re - tur, ho nor

Nowhere does Couperin more cunningly exploit the effect of
voices in thirds and sixths, high in their register. This air leads into
a chorus, Jubilemus> exultetnus, transparent in sonority, though gay.
There are some exquisite overlapping scale passages, and naive
arpeggio figurations and chordal effects at the words resonet coelum
plausibus.

The 3 : 2 aria, O Susanna, quanta est gloria tua, is rekted to ike grave
sarabande of the Italian violin sonata. It is superbly moulded in the
Carissimi or Handelian manner, but voluptuously tender. We may
regard it as the consummation of the little Qui tollis peccata mundi
couplet of the Messe des Convents referred to in the chapter on the
organ works. It has the same spiritual fragrance, but has too a classi-
cal amplitude in its proportions, particularly in passages in which the
two obbligato violins sing in company with the soprano. This
quotation gives an idea of its calm lyrical beauty, its richly tranquil
harmony:
166

THE CHURCH Music

glo

- n -

r*-

UP r

(u a

san - na

efc.

It^ 5

J ,.

flL .-.

u \>

T--

r "

A change to four rhythm introduces the Voluit Dominus sacnficium
for bass, obbligato instruments and continuoThis is a harmonically
treated fugal movement in which voices and instruments use an
imitative technique more or less consistently. The theme makes play
with an octave leap, and the soloist has some eloquent descriptive
flourishes:

ig tits atque flarn - nia .

After a repetition of the Jubilemus chorus comes a duet for soprano,
bass, and continue, the two voices being treated canonically. The
gently rising theme, with its elliptical entries, and the suspended
sevenths and ninths -of the continue again suggest an emotional
warmth, mingled with naive wonder:

167

COUPERIN: THE WORK

Soprano
Bass
Continue

iMi - i

rtr

~ti

-ftp- 11

f 1 ff j

san na, Su-

san-na

* ft 1

san -

na, Su-

.L .!..- .-.

san-na Quant

r- J 1

ta est glo n -

J B

^=d

Here too the feeling resembles that of the organ Messe des Convents.
A brief ritornello and a passage of not particularly distinguished
recitative is then rounded off by a second repetition ofthcjubilemus
chorus.

Probably Couperin would have claimed no more for the Ste
Suzanne motet than that it was a simple, sensuous act of veneration,
dedicated to a saint who was also a pretty girl. Yet in the very
simplicity of the sensuousness die candour of the feeling a spiri-
tual experience is involved. The douceur and quietude of this music
touch on a realm of emotion which we find in all Couperin's most
significant work, and which has perhaps been most adequately des-
cribed in verbal terms by Fenelon:

L'&at passif est celui ou une me, n'aimant plus Dieu d'un amour mdangc,
fait tous ses actes delib&res d'une volontl pleine et efficacc, mais tranquille
et dsint&ess&. Tantot elle fait les actes simples et indistmctes qu'on nomine
qui&ude ou contempktion; tant6t elle fait les actes distinctes des vertus
convenables a son tat. Mais die fait les uns et les autres e^alement d'une
mani&re passive, c'est a dire, paisiblc et d^sint^ress^e. . . . Get ^tat passif ne
suppose aucune inspiration extraordinaire; il ne renferme qu'une paix et une
souplesse infinie de Tdme pour se laisser mouvoir a toutcs les impressions de

k grice L'eau qui est agit& ne peut ctre claire, ni recevoir rimage des

objets voisins; mais une eau tranquille devient comme la glace pure d'un
miroir, . . . L'ame pure et paisible est de mcme. Dieu y imprime son image
et celle de tous les objets qu il veut y imprimcr; tout s'imprime, tout s'cffacc.
Cette Sme n'a aucune forme propre, et elle a ^galement toutes cdles quc k
grace donne. . . . fl n'y a que le pur amour qui donne cette paix et cette
docilite parfaite.

The phrase 'tranquille et desinteress^' is the key. to all Couperin's
most characteristic music, and, indeed, to the most significant art of
168

THE CHURCH Music

his rime. It is not a matter of any 'inspiration extraordinaire'; it is a
matter of simplicity and honesty of response, and if one can achieve
that, says Fenelon, the grace and the peace of God will be added
unto one. It is purity of heart that leads to a docilite parfaite, which is
greater than le moi or la volonte. We may recall also a passage from
one of Fcnelon's letters to the Comtesse de Montbaron:

L'amour-propre malade, et attendri sur lui-meme, ne petit ctrc touchc
sans crier Ics hauts cris. L'unique remcde est done de sortir de soi pour
trouver la paix.

There is no more beautiful testimony to this than Couperin's music;
and even in the nineteenth century we can, from this point of view,
see Gabriel Faure as Couperin's successor. His music, too, has purity
of line, combined with a subtle sensuousness of harmony; and his
Requiem, like Couperin's Ste Suzanne motet, is *so near to God that
it is without revolt, cry, or gesture*.

The motets which we have so far considered are all constructed
on a plan similar to that of Bach's cantatas, with arias, recitatives of
a lyrical arioso character, instrumental ritornelli, and obbligato parts.
Unlike Bach and unlike Lully, Couperin makes little use of the
chorus. When he does employ it, as in the Ste Suzanne motet, it is
with discretion. The series of Elevations that follow the 1706 versets
are all essentially music for soloists, with organ continuo. With one
exception, they have no solo obbligato parts. Their form, like that
of Carissimi's cantatas, is closely related to the sonata da chiesa. They
are, as it were, 'chamber' cantatas, and in writing them Couperin
was following the lead given by the beautiful Elevations of Lully.

The first elevation, O Misterium ineffable, is the only example of
Couperin's church music which was published in a modern edition
before the appearance of the Lyrebird edition. It sets the temper of
most of the elevations; a flexible vocal line flows over smooth har-
monic progressions, in an even crochet pulse. Some rather surprising
modulations give the piece a restrained fervour for instance this
typical modulation to die minor of the dominant:

j J/flji r-yp 1

1 3F1

..Mi

rri ;i '

J-T-

O cha- n -

rfrp

ta - tis sa-cra -

T i "

rnentuin, sa-cra -

**!)*' j'l

mentura a do
1 - 1

y ^

- ra

L_J] 1 1

J_|J LJ

i ^ t,
** * V >

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

This quality is particularly noticeable in the 3 : 2 aria, in which long
sustained suspensions on the exclamation 'O' combine with chro-
matic progressions and false relations to convey a quietly ecstatic
yearning:

Q ft

>f_ ftfl JJ

X-*

..i .

->x

<M HO

con-vi- va .

^JLM

)

3^-

*x.

con-vi-va -

- ruir

i f

J -

tas

- rum

tas

^- ft ^ i

_j*

l^-

The second elevation, O Amor, O Gaudium, is for three male voices,
and is in a similar mood. The opening 3 : 2 grave is not remarkable;
an affetuoso 3 : 4 is a delightful air with cross-rhythmed exultations
in the solo part:

f r

i* r^i

f m g + f \

|^2 f

P J

rrrrr.j

*>ftt f ^

> 11^

Ux^ 1 1 1

Jj 6 J 6
4

170

THE CHURCH Music

The return to 3 : 2 takes us richly through the relative minor, and
includes some imitative treatment of a tendre phrase built from
descending fourths.

The third Elevation, O Jesu Amantissime, for counter-tenor, is
perhaps the finest in this elegantly fervid manner. Its 3 : 2 aria has a
spacious gravity, with effective melisma on the word aeternitas. It is
chiefly notable, however, for its intense arioso note this treatment
of the word crudelis:

7 7

fPi

^N.

el cru

-de
4o

Us ct cru
_P * IT

err i p

-de - -

=fc=
iis

^Z_4

'Ml

-4- :

8 - 1,7

The triumphant aria in the major provides a florid Italianate conclu-
sion, but is hardly an adequate resolution of the more melancholy
parts.

The Venite exultemus Domino elevation is more strenuous, and
tauter in harmony. Its rising scale opening phrase expresses a more
active yearning, compared with the relaxed emotion of the preced-
ing works:

Yen - i te ex - ul te mus Do - mi - no

A more vigorous homophonic treatment is also given to the ecstatic
exclamations in the phrase O immensus amor:

imrucnsus

171

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

The final 3 : 4 aria has some chains of suspended sevenths. This more
powerful manner is developed further in the next elevation, Quid
retribuam tibi Domine, which is also in E minor. Here even the bass
line has considerable rhythmic animation. The counter-tenor's arioso
line is ardently lyrical, and the words* reference to the perils of
material existence suggest some exciting roulades:

21-0

Later the words crudelis and salvasti produce a plaintive chromaticism
and melisma:

With the Audite omnes, also for counter-tenor, we come to the
only elevation which has a * symphonic' of obbligato parts. The
instrumental lines are in the main restricted to echo effects in
dialogue with the voices. The final 3 : 2 aria uses sequential sevenths
in a way that recalls the Ste Suzanne motet; but as a whole the work
is not very interesting. This is the last of the pieces specifically caMed
Elevation. The other motets in the collection are not substantially
different in form, though they possibly cover a wider range of feel-
ing. The first of them, Motet pour lejour de Paques, at once strikes
a new note, being one of the most brilliant works Couperin ever
wrote. Its florid theme is developed with Handelian exuberance,
with many resonant thirds between the two voices. The Christo
tesurgente section is ripely harmonized, and has ekborate descriptive
arabesques:
172

THE CHURCH Music

in qua sur - re _

xit

The change to a four pulse brings some powerful Handelian deco-
rated suspensions to Atteluya. Throughout, die alterations in rhythm
for the different sections build up a cumulative sense of climax. The
concluding alleluyas in 6 : 4 are a paean of triumph, again with effec-
tive syncopated suspensions:

t ... -^ i j J |

1 -.^l i
J J 1 d

Al - ie - lu - ya

F^=^ ^N^

Al - ie - hi - ya Al-le-

.,.,,.,_ nl fr

3 6^6

hi - ya

.j>HpJ J^py J J

fj 1 1 r
- lu - ya al - le - lu

ya, etc. 1

I '^ - tt 1

7 6

The lengthy Magnificat also has some rousing exultations in 6 : 4,
and some typically sensuous seventh chords:

-t_t

De - o sa lu - ta

r r

in De - o sa - lu ta ri sa- lu - ta - ri eic

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

A brief passage marked Lentement, to the words Suspeeit Israel puerum
suum introduces one of Couperin's sudden shifts from major to
minor, followed by dissolving sevenths; and an aria of glorification
exploits a sprightly rising scale figure. As a whole, however, the
work lacks direction. Most unexpectedly, for a work of Couperin,
it is rambling rather than economical.

The next two motets are also pedestrian. The triumphant
flourishes of the' St Barthelemy motet have little of Couperin's imprint;
though a reference to the Cross leads to some lovely drooping
dissonances:

~JF = bJ-; d^

1 I , . h J -p-

1 -f

^)* .<s>'^"

et do

io - rcm in

-tfj *

u - fit

1 I

p s^. -_ i _
1,6 3 7 ' " 4 6

and the victorious conclusion interestingly reiterates its conventional
penultimate suspended fourth. In the* Motet de SteAnne the regularity
of the rhythm is not used to any expressive purpose. The Memento O
Christe section has, however, an agile arioso line, and there is some
neat contrapuntal writing for the three soloists in the final setting
of concedat nobisjilius gratiatn et gloriam.

After these two relatively dull works,, we come to two which are,
in different ways, among the finest. The O Domine quia refugiwn, for
three basses and continuo, is a dark-coloured, majestic piece, though
without, perhaps, the sinewy vigour of the E minor Quid Retribuam.
The opening 3 : 2 grave is in C minor, A noble homophonic move-
ment with modulation to the relative major and simple return to the
tonic by way of G minor, it contains no surprises, but impresses as
being the opening of a work of some grandeur and solemnity. The
change to a four pulse brings a more contrapuntal treatment, and the
words Dum turbabitur terra et transferentur monies in cor marts suggest a
semiquaver melisma, and then a surging arpeggio figure which is
echoed between the three voices, to the accompaniment of a sus-
tained major triad:
174

THE CHURCH Music

/rqt.l. . , ff ff ff ff P " " P

-J-k -k ft p p V 1 , i:

et trans - fer - en - tur mon - tes in <

.. . . ^ ^ J> J>

iM~b y p p p * ' v p p P" J k -
/I m ? ,

ris ^//*

11 x |> .

The Propterea in Deo taudabo shifts to the major and has an animated
bass in quavers, reinforcing the soloists' laudatory flourishes. At first,
the treatment is homophonic, interspersing a solo line with passages
of three-part note for note writing. Later there is some close canonic
imitation, and the parts demand an increasing virtuosity. The growth
of contrapuntal elements and of lyrical decoration builds up an im-
posing climax, until the motet ends in a blaze of diatonic counter-
point to the words psalmos cantabitnus.

The Motet de St Augustin is in A, and returns to the radiant manner
of die tribute to Ste Suzanne. The opening phrase, with its tenderly
resolving 6 : 4 chord, has a soft glow which, if most un-Augustinian,
is quintessential^ Couperin. The resolving 6 : 4 is later developed
into this delicious lilting phrase, with the persistent A as pedal in the
bass:

GIo - ri-ara ad

mag * nam De - i

glo ri- am etc.

6 3 6
4 4

A fine passage of arioso in the minor has a highly decorated solo line,

175

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE WORK

with a flexibly melodic bass which occasionally introduces chromati-
cisms. The return to the major again brings one of Couperin's smil-
ing diatonic phrases, imitatively treated:

Jpftl

J'J

V"hf

up fl * *
* if
To- to

i fpw : "~

re - sortient in

ff rr

or - be To - to

re - so

The words coronatus immortali gloria are set to quietly rising scale
passages in imitation, combined with a sustained pedal E. The con-
clusion has some of Couperin's warm suspensions in dotted rhythm.
The Dialogus inter Deum et hominem is one of the most successful
of the longer motets, and like the Versets of 1705 and 1706 offers
some comparison with the technique of Bach. The opening aria is
unpretentious, but the Accede fill mi adfontem section, which changes
the tonality to the major, is conceived on a grand scale. Much use is
made of sequential figures, and the counter-tenor's line has a baroque
luxuriance. A passage of arioso is interesting both mclodically and
harmonically, and the next 3 : 4. aria, in the minor, combines the
grace of the air de cour with a Bach-like closeness of texture. A rising
scale figure in the continue gives the air a sense of urgency which is
counterbalanced by the fact that the scale passage is grouped in fall-
ing sequences:

r-y-j-

[>- " M J 1

r rr i

K - a- ft
if, f :

4 F

il - lud

t i 4 H -

r r J

in ho - to -

J W |f '

cau -

^=
=*=

M4>

rr-

J ^

i'J, ,*

i i

in ho - lo -

3^3*

THE CHURCH Music

The last section, Totum ardeat et consummaturjlamma, is a magnificent
piece of baroque contrapuntal writing over a steady crochet beat
The melismata suggested by the word flamma gather momentum,
and linear arabesques combine with sustained minims to create pro-
cessions of suspended sevenths:

None of Couperin's motets has a more organic sense of growth to
an inevitable end.

With the three Lemons de$ Tenebres for one or two voices with
organ and viol continue we reach the highest point of Couperin's
church music, and one of the peaks of his music as a whole. They
were written between 1713 and 1715, possibly at the request of a
convent. These are the works which justify the tentative comparison,
made early in this chapter, between Couperin's achievement in
church music and Racine's Aihalie. While always preserving a civil-
ized decorum, they attain to an intensity of passion which Couperin
attempts but seldom. The Latin words of the prophet Jeremiah are
interspersed with ritualistic Hebrew phrases which are used by
M 177

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

Couperin as an excuse for vocalises of remarkable elaboration. Here
the Italian aria technique is reinterpreted in terms of the French
tradition; the port de voix, trembkment, portamento and other orna-
mental devices of the air de cow lose their fragility and enervating
nostalgia, and are transformed into a line which reconciles subtlety
with strength.

The opening of the first Lepn indicates admirably this breadth of
line, and also shows how the ornamentation is both an expressive
part of the line's contour, and a concomitant of the harmony:

>> ,frr

r IT

In a

-f~ * -a

*-' \ P

-pit la - men

jjjj

ta - - ti

6 6

6 7

EEisfe

- o Je-re

mi - ae Pro

-phe

3 7

In the first arioso passage, the freedom of the lines creates supple key
changes, for instance this transition to minor:

se- del

so - la ci vi

Us pie - na

7 | 5 66 ,3 6

6 |3

THE CHURCH Music

The ornamentation of the air de cow is again in evidence, with great
lyrical intensity. At the end of this section there is a beautiful instance
of Couperin's progression to the flat seventh, followed by the rise to
the sharp seventh to form the cadence. We are here in the re-created
world of the organ masses.

The second section of vocalise is even more elaborate than the
first. Long held suspensions are resolved ornamentally, and there is a
subtle use of false relation in the cadence. The minor passage of
arioso, Plorans ploravit in nocte, is one of the most extraordinary and
poignant pieces in the whole of Couperin's work. The vocal line is
an impassioned lament, in which dissonant ports de voix convey a
heart-rending sorrow. Both the contour of the lines, and the har-
monies, are of extreme boldness:

F=y

JUS

179

FRANCOIS COUPBWN: THE WORK

A little chromatically altered phrase for the word lachrymae, accom-
panied by suspended sevenths, is simpler, but hardly less moving.

The second passage of recitative-arioso, Migravit Ju<ta t is also
powerful. Here the chromatically rising phrase, followed by a fall-
ing fifth, is particularly expressive; so is the characteristic cadence to
the major.

Double appoggiaturas and diminished intervals are conspicuous in
the F minor arioso, and the last passage of recitative introduces some
painfully dissonant ports de voix and some chromatically ornamented
resolutions in which the emotionalism is balanced by the grave arch
of the line:

IJb-i fr F 1

-ttm ff ff f * (f

-^ tti* H,^ h

>* *q

li'vb ' c .*-.. K- T ...

An-jtc
^-- '

r. f-j-.^ E

fa - ci - cm tri - bu -

"^^

fan

_-,

e=J

^P ? ' '

* 1

--, 1

1 .

This 'weeping* chromatic resolution is then taken over by the
continue, becoming the main motive in the concluding aria. The
swaying chromaticism imbues the line with a yearning quality,
comparable with that of the earlier Elevations. Here, however, the
lilting line is never limp, but has great nervous vitality. And this
vitality is enhanced by the supple interplay between the voice and
the viol of the continuo:
180

THE CHUBCH Music

""if 7 !

O1 5 i 1

> " [T f

con-ver -

_ HA p_

re ad Dom - i

tw f r j

num De - urn

- ft * ji"t||p -

-* 1

; J ]

y ] V-

TK 1

ffi J j =
tu

urn con

J S.I -^

1>J- J-"^

vcr - te - re

dc.

-H

-t ' E)^' ^

-W

As a whole, the work seems to me one of the most impressive
examples of linear organization and harmonic resource in kte
baroque music.

The second Leg on is also for one high voice, with organ and viol
continuo. Again it opens with a rhapsodic vocalise in D major.
The first recitative has drooping suspended sevenths; the second
vocalise, in triple time, flows mainly in conjunct motion with air
k cow ornamentation. Acute double suspensions and chromatic
progressions in the bass occur in the second arioso, in the relative
minor* Again the ornamentation of the vocal line increases the dis-
sonance, while the balance of the phrases guards against any emotional
instability note the mingling of conjunct motion with figures built
from the minor triad:

A ffjl - f f^-

1- l J i

~ H ft* ft

" If

"Re .;'"cor -

*): da ~

f H

da \ ta est

Re . cor -

V H

da - . ta

-TT p j

'^* 0'

I '

J. 6

r j i
1 |3

181

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

^ fy If, j[ P p- ^

[ e p -j

est Je.ru- sa

*J ttft . """""" " " "~~"

1 InJ .

- lem Re - cor

da . ta dc.

7 6
* 4
3

The subsiding chromaticisms of the conclusion have a Purceflian
pathos, though the air as a whole is more classically * objective*.

The next two passages of vocalise are nobly diatonic, with suspen-
sions in the continue. Some effective portamento falling sevenths are
grouped in sequence, in the Peccatum peccavit arioso. A change to the
minor occurs for the Sordes ejus in pedibus ejus, a section having con-
siderable dramatic power, with tritones prominent in the vocal line,
and harsh dissonances in the continue:

i^f 1

1* ..p- pgl

fU P i y ff

HH^-

de-

po - si - ta est ve - he

f fg ^

T , r ? y Y

-men-ter non

_a &

Li p I
ha - bens

6 6 t,
4 5
2 3

4 6

7 6
^ 4

non ha -

bens

con -so - la -

$ b3 b6

The work concludes with an extremely beautiful aria, also in the
minor, Jerusalem convertere ad Dominum. It is built on a simple phrase
182

THE CHURCH Music

rising up a fifth, and then serenely falling. Ports de voix are again
used to give harmonic intensity and at the same time to smooth off
the contour of the line. The final statement of the theme is in an
ornamented version, accompanied by canonic entries in the con-
tinuo. The subtlety and sensitivity of the ornamentation never des-
troys the music's architectural quality, while the noble architecture
gives power to the sensitivity:

If the third Le$on impresses one as being the greatest, it is largely
because, being conceived for two soloists instead of one, it offers
opportunities for a combination of the vocalise technique with poly-
phony. The opening vocalise uses the familiar soaring line in effec-
tive dissonant suspension, after the manner of the two-violin sonata.
Here the winged, disembodied lines, moving mainly by conjunct
motion, are vocal in conception, while the terseness of the disson-
ances is instrumental; this is the representative compromise between
religious and secular technique:

183

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

nac

Jod-

-o^s:

.M.

efc.

The vocalise is repeated in artfully varied forms between each arioso
section.

The first arioso incorporates Ceuperin's favourite modulation to
the minor of the dominant; the second begins with a strange
chromatic deliquescence:

Om-nis

po - pu-lus e -jus

etquae-rens

pa-nem

The chromaticism is, however, defeated by the trumpet-like call of
the voices in dialogue on the words Vide Domine; and the duo flows
without break into a supple ornamented version of the vocalise in
canon.

The O vos omnes section of recitative also balances a speech-like
freedom of line and acute dissonances in the continue, against
trumpet-like phrases in rising fourths and sixths on the word
184

THE CHURCH Music

Attendite. The tonal transitions still have a seventeenth-century
plasticity:

Hf- : ,

FT J m \

|9 j

i*^ ffn 5

us
-^5 h f

Li J-..n,,.,.\. I
At - ten

di - te

-^_J J 1

The pace quickens on the words Quoniam vindemiavit me, and the
voices proceed note for note until, with the words iraefuroris sui, a
climax is reached on a diminished seventh chord 18 The section con-
cludes with a beautiful version of the vocalise, even freer in rhythm
and longer in melodic span:

18 Such a use of the dramatic diminished seventh is not common in Coupcrin's
work. The French were inclined to regard the chord with suspicion as being essen-

THE CHURCH Music

Jerusalem convertere. Over a level crochet movement, the aria evolves
with conventional architectural modulations to the dominant and
sub-dominant. The contrapuntal writing is of great purity, and uses
a phrase a rising fourth followed by a descending scale which had
been common property among the sixteenth-century polyphonists.
This clear counterpoint, mated with this equally lucid tonal archi-
tecture, shows us that in his last and greatest church work Couperin
is still, like Bach, poised between two worlds, and making the best
of them both.

Chapter Nine

The Clavecin Works

IN TUDOR ENGLAND, the relation between the secular and ecclesi-
astical keyboard schools was always intimate, and Bull and Gibbons
are equally remarkable as composers of polyphonic organ fantasias
and as composers of virginal pieces which, however complex they
may become, at least start from secular song and dance. This close
connection between the religious and the secular was one of the
secrets of the extraordinary richness of English music at the turn of
the century; and we have already seen that something rather similar
was true of contemporary French musical culture. But whereas the
French were aware of the imph* cations of the 'modern' elements in
musical style, and were prepared to sacrifice the old to the new, the
English accepted the old and the new on equal terms. They were
hardly aware, perhaps, that they had to make a choice; and their
relative kck of self-consciousness is their strength. But it also means
that their keyboard music which is of a variety and subtlety not
exceeded by any period of European history, and certainly not by
the contemporary French schools is an end as much as a beginning.
Byrd, Gibbons, Farnaby, and Bull were not followed by a 'classical'
keyboard composer, as Titelouzc was followed by Chambonniferes,
and Chambonni&res by Couperin. Between sixteenth-century poly-
phony and the classical age, there was a break in England's cultural
continuity; and this break has, of course, social and economic causes
which are summed up in the phenomenon of the Civil War. In
French culture there is no such break in continuity. For the claveci-
nists the connecting 1irk between sixteenth-century polyphony and
the classical age is die work of the lutenist composers.

All through the sixteenth century, in France as in England, the lute
had been a musical maid-of-all-work analogous to the modern
piano. It had been used as a makeshift, for playing polyphonic vocal
music in transcriptions that were literal apart from slight modifica-
188

THE CLAVECIN "Woass

tions and decorations suggested by the nature of the instrument; it
had been used for playing homophonic dance music pavanes,
galliards, branles and so on usually as an accompaniment to the
dancing. In this way, it was in close touch with both the social and
religious aspects of sixteenth-century music, and beyond them with
many of the traditions of folk art; so that when the lute composers
began to grow into an independent school, they had behind them a
consciousness of many centuries of French musical history religious
polyphony, secular harmonized chansons, court dances, and the
dances of the people.

It was in the early years of the seventeenth century that a personal,
expressive element became noticeable within music that had previ-
ously been of an 'occasional* order. In the dances of a man such as
Antoine Francisque, a vein of sophisticated sensuousness appeared
parallel to the growth ofprecieux elements in the verse of a St Amant
or Thophile. The influence of the passionate Spanish vihuela music
of Luis Milan may have encouraged this development of an expres-
sive, rather than a purely functional, dance music. Certainly the
connections between French and English culture were a contributory
factor, for Dowland himself had a brilliant continental reputation,
and at one time stayed at the court of Henri IV; while it was com-
mon for French musicians to visit England, some of them, such as
Jacques Gaultier the elder, for considerable periods. Possibly the
dolorous nature of Dowland's temperament encouraged a compar-
able gloom on the part of the French composers; possibly an elegiac
quality native to the Frenchmen was reinforced by the development
of the lute with eleven strings instead of the traditional nine, for the
additional strings gave increased opportunity for a grave solemnity
of harmony and for richness of part-writing. In any case, outside
influences and material circumstances did no more than intensify a
development which was native to French culture.

The English lutenists were highly developed art composers who
were still related to a folk culture; there was with them no sharp
division between esoteric and popular elements. The French luten-
ists, on the other hand, soon began to lose contact with their popular
origins, becoming an autonomous school associated with theprecieux
movement in society. In the first generation of lute composers the
adventurous Bocquet, the virtuoso Vincent, the fragrant M6zangeau>

189

FRANCOIS COUPEJUN: THE WORE

Jacques and Ennemond Gaultier, Etienne Richard and Germain
Pincl there was something of the freshness and spontaneity of the
English composers, if not their comprehensive power. But the
second generation of lutenists the great Denis Gaultier, Jacques
Gaflot, and Charles Mouton were artists of high sophistication, the
leading musical representatives of the ruelles and salons. Like the air
de cour writers and the other mid-century exponents of preciosite,
they strove, in their ornamentation, their stylized refinement, even
their methods of fingering their instrument, to become a musical
Elect, preserving their music from popular contagion. They even
invented a semi-private language for the fanciful and crypto-
grammatic tides of their pieces; the tradition survives in Couperin's
work. At the same time, the stylization did not imply any emotional
frigidity. The pictures in the beautiful contemporary edition of
Denis Gaultier's La Rhetorique des Dieux, that describe the relation
of the various modes (the sixteenth-century terminology is some-
what incongruously adhered to) to different passions, are a further
indication of the interest in subde states of feeling which this society
cultivated. Charme even added quasi-psychological descriptive com-
ments to some of Gaultier's pieces.

There is nothing in the lute music of this hyper-civilized society as
passionately lugubrious as the wonderful chromatic fancies of Dow-
land; but the tone of the pieces, though always restrained, is elegiac,
tenderly melancholy or dreamily noble, comparable with that of the
airs de COM, only less enervating. Passages of ripe chromatic harmony
such as this:

f T r.!r

r .r

de.

^ r "r

THE CLAVECIN WORKS

are fairly frequent in the work of Mouton, while the dissonant sus-
pensions, sequential sevenths, and false relations of this passage are
typical of the work of Jacques Gallot:

ttJ Hj g

f "f ?

J) J

dL-4

,-W S rh
t) f q |[ i

- J r f '

efc.

This composer is also enterprising in the matter of tonality, having
some powerfully gloomy pieces in F sharp minor, a key known to
the lutenists as *le ton de la chvre'. The pieces of the greatest of the
lutenists, Denis Gaultier, show a similar union of a polyphonic in-
heritance with an interest in the sensuous implications of harmony;
but it is significant that it is he who most puts the stress on the
moulding of his line and the balance of his clauses. The lovely Tom-
beau or funeral oration for the uncle of the famous Ninon de 1'Endos
illustrates this clearly; note how the soprano line leads up intensi-
fied by the chromatic progression of the bass to the climax of a
modulation into E minor, only to resolve into a cadence in C:

11 ' pun

191

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE WORK

etc.

from which point the lines and harmonies subside to their source.
All Gaultier's pieces have this instinct for dignity and proportion.
Not only the grand totnbeaux and sarabandes, but also the subde-
rhythmed courantes, are pervasively melancholy. Even the canaris,
gigues, and galliards are more wistfully fanciful than joyous.

But Gaultier's expression of the aristocratic values of his com-
munity is revealed most remarkably in the cantabile character of his
line. His rhythms have not the rather insensitive symmetry of some
eighteenth-century music; but he does sometimes achieve a measured
gravity of line, involving clearly defined modulation, which almost
suggests Italian bel canto, or a fresher, more delicate Handel:

-^ '.

| ] K-

J f .-

^ W : d^~

*"^ . ^anL

t~~

" ti f rj

UJ 1

j LJ

e/c.

' r

That is one aspect of Gaultier, which we shall see echoed in Cham-
bonniires, and later in Couperin himself. A more adequate notion of
192

THE CIAVECIN WORKS

his genius will be given if we quote, before leaving him, the end of
the Tombe&u which he wrote for himself:

UT r

*=r

i"r

r r

Here we may call attention to the noble span of the line; the caress-
ing suspensions; the occasional tense <Uminished interval; the
resonant spacing of the parts, derived from lute technique; and the
sombre repetition of the Bs, and of the grave minor triad, in the
last bar.

The most distinctive feature of lute technique clearly revealed in
most of the foregoing examples is what one might call simulated
polyphony. The broken arpeggio technique is used to create an
illusion of part-writing which both preserves the sense of movement
in the composition (despite the short sustaining power of the instru-
ment), and at the same time establishes a solid harmony. The skill
called for in interpreting the polyphony latent in the lute tabkture
was what principally gave its highly virtuoso character to lute tech-
nique. Only very sensitive and resourceful players were capable of
an adequate 'realization'.

Further evidence of this virtuosity both of technique and feeling is
found in the ornamentation which was often not indicated in the

193

FRANOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

text. This ornamentation was adapted to the lute from the embellish-
ments of the air de cour, andjehann Basset's L'art de toucher k luth of
1636 indicates that in employing ornaments the lutenists were in-
spired by similar motives as were the composers of airs de cour; *de
la* vient que le jeu de nos devanciers n'avoit point les mignardises et
les gentillesses qui embellissent le nostre par tant de diversitez'. The
ornaments, which were an integral part of both line and harmony,
included all kinds of slide or portamento effects, the sudden damping
of strings, the ver casse or vibrato, and various kinds oftremblement
for instance a rapid tremolo on a single string or an alternation of
two notes coupled with a sighing diminuendo. The intimacy and
subtlety of these ornaments came from the direct contact between
the string and the human agency of the finger; Segovia gives an idea
of this, on the more emotional guitar, in his recording of a most
beautiful dance suite of the German lutenist and contemporary of
Bach, S. L. Weiss. Couperin's attempt to obtain expression in key-
board music was largely a search for a substitute for this intimate
relationship between the finger and the sounding medium. The
esoteric culture of the court of Charles I perhaps suggests that the
English lutenists might have developed in a similar, more stylized
and formal manner had not the tradition been interrupted by the
Civil War.

Of the forms which the French lutenists adopted, the prelude was
closest to the improvisatory style of the lute air. Written in un-
measured notation, to be interpreted by the performer, it was a
more organized development of the preliminary flourishes in
arpeggios and other obvious instrumental techniques which the
player might improvise to a song. In a more measured form, the
technique survives in both Louis and Francois Couperin, particu-
larly in the pieces explicitly called Prelude, and in the most famous
of all examples, the first prelude of Bach's Forty-Eight. The dances
themselves, pavane (and kter allemande), courante, sarabande, and
gigue, preserve the features of the ballet dances, but, as with the
Digger galliards and pavanes of the Tudor virginalists, the original
character of the dance may sometimes be submerged in the melodic
and figurative developments/ This is not often the case, however,
with the slighter dances, such as bourrees, canaris, and branles.

All these forms, and many of the techniques implicit in the nature
194

THE CLAVECIN WORKS

of the lute, were taken over by the first composers for clavecin, who
often wrote in a more or less identical manner for the lute or key-
board instrument. To them the clavecin was a kind of mechanized
lute, and spread chord formations, plucked string effects, and over-
lapping canonic entries were all elements of lute technique which
survived, or were modified, in the technique of the keyboard instru-
ment; indeed simulated polyphony survived even though a naturally
polyphonic instrument made deceit unnecessary. Almost from the
start, however, the davecinists strove to develop the formal aspects
of the convention as hinted at by Denis Gaultier- at the expense of
the imjprovisatory elements. They belonged more to the new age of
the mid-baroque. Possibly the best way to demonstrate this is by
way of a comparison between the work of Chambonncres and that
of his pupil, Louis Couperin,

Like Gaultier, Chambonnieres was a product ofpredeux society, a
leading musical representative of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and later
court clavecinist to Louis XIV. In most ways it is legitimate to regard
his work as an extension of that of the lutenists, who were emulated
as much for social as for musical reasons, the lute being the tradi-
tional instrument of nobility. His finest pieces derive from the poly-
phonic elements of the lute idiom. The three big G minor pavanes,
with their contrapuntal entries, false relations, and rhythmic flexi-
bility, can even be connected with the more massive polyphony of
the religious choral and organ schools:

,L0 L J

/ fc, u &

JJJJ. hi J. 1 1. M . . I 1

^ J> J ^

U-

^ r

'r rrf

bJlW?~^~bi

[/ f ji *

r rrr-

C/C.

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

We can here see Chambonnifcres exploiting the traditions of the
sixteenth century, together with luxuriant ornamentation, and with
a richness of harmony encouraged by the spacing of the lute parts.
The warm sound of die tenth and of the dominant seventh is espe-
cially attractive to him: he will dwell on the chords, revelling in
their sensuous appeal:

These pieces, like the lute tombeaux, often attain a surprising grandeur
and power.

Then there is a range of pieces analogous to the delicately propor-
tioned sarabande of Gaultier which we have already quoted. Within
their sophisticated symmetry, these pieces have a conscious naivete
which seems to entail a civilized reincarnation of the fragrance of
French folk song; or we may relate it perhaps to French art song in
the Middle Ages, to the troubadours' mating of innocence with
sophistication. At the same time, the suave progression of the har-
monies, with the sonorous spacing and fragile ornamentation, are the
product of a courtly society:
196

THE CLAVECIN WORKS

/IJM J. JJ

n i

-w

r-iU

~tf

ys> J

ir^^

-3

j. j

U-

J ^

M.^"

=*=!

-r-

J. JJJ

(

1 r M

ete.

H==

"We have akeady observed a development of this manner in some of
Couperin's work, other than his keyboard music. In the following
passage, the effect of the rising sharp seventh, succeeded by the flat
seventh in the descent, is particularly reminiscent of the Couperin of
the organ Messe des Convents:

r r

* r

r r

An even subtler case is this little sarabande in F, which combines
its diatonically innocent air with inner parts in which ornamentally

19?

FRANgois COUPBRIN: THE WORK

resolved suspensions create tender augmented and diminished inter-
vals and other dissonances at the points marked; note also, in the
first section, the slightly disturbing effect of the modulation to D
minor, before the conventional resolution in the dominant:

teb

r r

J J)J

''*'

A further anticipation of Couperin's early work is found in the
warm, quietly flowing gigue in G (No. 55 in the Senart edition).

Some of Chambonni&es's quick pieces, such as the delightful
Gigue bmscambille built on an irregular rising scale passage in imita-
tion arc also successful; and a few pieces, such as the B flat galliard
with its double in clattering semiquavers, have an unexpectedly
manly vigour. In general, however, his best movements are those
which are in direct contact with the polyphonists, or with the luten-
ists, or with both. They tend, like Gaultier's work, to the elegiac and
contemplative, without reaching, perhaps, the sombre refinement of
198

THE CLAVECIN WORKS

Gaultier's best music. When Chambonnires attempts to build his
pieces not on latently polyphonic principles, nor on the simple
dominant-tonic basis of the G major sarabande, but on a more
developed scheme of tonal relationships, the result is not very
convincing. The larger allemandes, though interesting for their
flexible part-writing, have not the balance between polyphonic
^itality and harmonic architecture which marks the mature alle-
mandes of Couperin and Bach. From this point of view, this nor-
mally impeccable artist suggests a development which he did not
live to fulfil. The rather gauche allemande, La Loureuse, may be
referred to as an illustration.

Comparatively, Chambonniercs's pupil, Louis Couperin, is a much
more vigorous personality: the Abbe Le Gaulois said that his playing
was 'estime par les personnes s^avantes a cause qu'elle est pleine
d'accords et enrichie de belles dissonances, de dessins et d'imitations*.
His pieces show a sturdy contrapuntal technique and an aggressive
use of dissonance alien to the refined discretion of his master
witness this opening of a D minor sarabande:

jh j j j?

ff f ?' '

etc.

More interesting, however, is the increasingly mature command of
tonal organization which he manifests. He writes grandly expressive
sarabandes which, even more than the * exquisite* sarabandes of
Chambonnieres, provide some anticipation of Handel; and his con-
trol of incidental modulation, within the tonic-dominant-tonic or
minor-relative major-minor framework, gives no impression of the
tentative or experimental. The E minor sarabande, No. 6s in the
Lyrebird edition, is an imposing example, and we may mention the
very Handelian D major (No. 60), and the canonic sarabande in D
minor (No. 47). The polyphonic-homophonic compromise sug-
gested by this last-mentioned sarabande is especially impressive, since

199

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE WORK

the canonic entry starts on the last beat of the sarabande rhythm, so
that the counterpoint consistently negates the bar measure. The most
significant of the allemandes also preserve the linear independence of
Chambonniferes and the lutenists while achieving a satisfying tonal
order; in this respect they anticipate the finest allemandes of Bach
and Couperin le Grand. We may instance the slow rhapsodic alle-
mande in D No. 58, the E minor No. 61, and the gentle G major
No. 82, which recalls the silvery sound of the baroque organ.

Even the pieces of Louis Couperin which incline to the old poly-
phonic methods show this more vigorously organized quality. The
famous Tombeav de M. de Blancrocher is in the tradition of the res-
plendently decorated tombeaux of the lutenists, but it intensifies the
conventional improvisatory effects and dissonances to a pitch of
dramatic passion that is almost operatic; consider the odd grinding
noise of the unresolved sevenths at the end of this passage:

tic.

A comparable piece is the big pavane in F sharp minor a key which
crops up intermittently in the clavecin music, being a survival from
the lutenists' ton de la cl&vre. This pavane is again founded on lute
technique; its chromatic alterations give it a remarkable pathos. The
classical stability of its proportions, together with the sensuous,
melodically derived augmented intervals of the incidental har-

200

THE CIAVECIN WORKS

monies, might even be compared with the elegiac kte nocturnes of
Faure:

^=4:

Another piece looking back to the false relations andjfpolyphony of
the lutenists is the G minor allemande, No. 92:

CJT r-r

etc.

301

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

Less successful is the curious G minor fantasia which begins contra-
puntally in the manner of the organ fancy, and then develops by
widely skipping arpeggio figurations, without any attempt to return
to the fugal principles of the opening. The new age of the dance and
the theatre has here routed the old world of the church. In this case
one feels that there is no organic growth from the one to the other.
This is probably an organ piece, related to the work of a man such
as Nicolas le Begue. The lively sense of the keyboard which it dis-
plays is more convincingly demonstrated in the Duo, perhaps the
finest of Louis Couperin's more animated movements, notable for
the variety of its linear patterns, and for the surprising richness and
piquancy of the harmony produced by the movement of the two
parts:

But the most impressive of Louis Couperin's pieces, as well as the
most 'modern' in effect, are those using the transitional technique of
chaconne or passacaglia, which we have already discussed with
reference to Lully. Louis Couperin's chaconnes proceed with relent-
less power, and are usually dark in colour and dissonant in texture;
consider the spiky dash in the first bar of No. 55:

1 J.

I JU

THB CLAVECIN WORKS

Here again Couperin introduces a bold modification in the chaconne-
rondeau technique, since he occasionally allows the modulations of
the couplets to be continued into the repetitions of the theme, there-
by making a compromise between the traditional static technique
and the new sense of tonal relationship. The G minor chaconne,
No. 122, is also remarkable for its dramatic use of diminished seventh
chords.

Among the Passacailles, the G minor No. 95 is characterized by a
rhythmic freedom in line and ornamentation which reminds one of
operatic recitative. This is a fine piece, but still finer are Louis
Couperin's two masterpieces, the C major passacaille No. 27, and
the passacaille in G minor and major, No. 99. The C major is a
gravely massive piece which uses ornamentation, dotted rhythms,
and scale passages to build up a cumulative power almost compar-
able with the chaconne of Couperin le Grand's C minor violin suite,
or with the grand choral chaconnes in Lully's last operas. It ends in
evocative solemnity with a repetition of the grand couplet in the
minor instead of the major, a reversal of the normal procedure such
as one occasionally finds in Purcdl. The great G minor passacaille
No. 99 is Louis Couperin's biggest piece in every sense. It is built
over a falling scale bass, and employs every device afterwards used
by Couperin le Grand to build up an overwhelming climax dis-
sonant suspensions, more animated movement, flowing scale pas-
sages in parallel and contrary motion. There is a wonderful modula-
tion into the major, incorporating richly spaced suspensions, and a
chromatically modified version of the bass which is balanced by
soaring diatonic scale figures:

COUPBRIN: THE WORK

The final couplet keeps the chromatic bass but returns sombrely to
the minor.

Two other pupils of Chambonnieres should be mentioned among
Couperin's predecessors Jean Henri d'Anglebert and Gaspard le
Roux. D'Anglebert represents perhaps the culmination of the mid-
baroque period that preceded Couperin le Grand. He transfers to the
clavecin idiom much of the contrapuntal power and harmonic
luxuriance which we observed in his organ fugues, a quotation from
which was given in chapter five. His clavecin work has a remark-
able grandeur, whether it be in a brilliantly expansive piece such as
the long variations on La Folia, a grave, austerely wrought move-
ment such as the G minor allemande, or a spaciously serene piece
such as the D major chaconne, which has a Claude-like quietude
fully worthy of comparison with the rondeau from the Impenale
suite of Francis Couperin himself.

Le Roux's Pieces pour Clavecin, although not published till 1705,
were written considerably earlier. With d'Anglebert he is the last
representative of the grand gofit of the mid-century, and his music has
much of the valedictory nobility of Denis Gaultier. But if he is less
of a modernist than Louis Couperin, he is a more mature and
developed artist than Chambonniferes; his work is remarkable for
the lyrical contour of its melody, and for the richness of its balanced
sequential writing, as we may see from this passage from a courante:

ft'

204

THE CLAVECIN Wosxs

We may mention also, from the Amsterdam edition of 1706, the
beautiful suite in F sharp minor, which may be compared with
Louis Coupcrin's movements in the same ton de la chevre; the D
minor chaconne which deserves to keep company with the grandest
pieces in this contemporary form; and the long sarabande with
variations in G minor. This last sarabande is really an elaborate
chaconne, and although less remarkable musically than the other
pieces mentioned is interesting for its unexpectedly progressive
treatment of keyboard technique. Its use of arpeggio and scale
figurations almost suggests the Handel of the harpsichord passacag-
lias. An appendix to tie Amsterdam volume includes a second clave-
cin part for five of the pieces. Both this fact and the quality of the
music argue strongly in favour of a modern edition; the pieces
would make a fascinating contribution to two-piano literature.

When Couperin le Grand started to write clavecin music he had
the music of Chambonniferes, Louis Couperin, d'Anglebert, and le
Roux to work from. Behind them was the school of lutenist com-
posers; and behind them in turn were, as we have seen, generations
of French musical tradition, from folk song and troubadours, to the
polyphony and harmonized dance music of the sixteenth century.
Interacting with these traditional French elements were Italian influ-
ences: the implicit presence of the operatic aria and occasionally of
the dramatic harmonic formulae with which the continuo accom-
panies recitative; the influence of Italian dance music and the popular
culture of the commedia JeffArte, linking up with the French
popular culture; and the influence of Corelli and his conception of
the tonal formalization of dance movements. In the work of all
Chambonni&res's successors, one can observe these French and
Italian elements slowly merging into one another, whether it be at
the level of the finest work of Louis Couperin or of d'Anglebert or

205

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

at the level of the unpretentious dances of Nicolas le B&gue. The
fusion is consummated in the clavecin music, as in the concerted
music, of Couperin le Grand. In the first book of his clavecin pieces
we are most conscious of the constituent materials, French and
Italian, as such; in the fourth they are so completely assimilated into
an idiom of classical maturity that we are conscious of the perfect
proportions of the whole building, rather than of the richness of
detail that goes to make it up.

Some dance movements of the lute suite Couperin takes over as
they stand, though he presents them in a more lucidly diatonic form.
The gigue and sarabande survive in their Italianized version; the
pavane is replaced by the allemande, as it was tending to be in the
work of Chambonni&res and Louis Couperin. These dance rhythms
are all absorbed into the binary principles of the baroque sonata,
with first section ending in the dominant or relative major, the com-
plementary second section returning to the tonic (the dances and
their structure will be discussed in detail in the next chapter). All the
pieces which are not basically dance movements of this type are
rondeaux or chaconne-rondeaux an extension of the old technique
of dance tune with couplets, whereby the symmetrical theme is
stated, followed by a short episode of allied but distinct material
possibly involving a simple modulation, followed by a restatement
of the tune in its original form always without modulation, followed
by another episode, and so on, ad libitum. Both techniques were, as
we have seen, in the first place functional, arising out of the practical
exigencies of the dance; and both, especially the rondeau, may seem
to be extremely limited. But Couperin le Grand like Bach and
Scarlatti, and tike Louis Couperin before him shows how the
limitation may be used to convey an intensity of experience such as
can be achieved only in the full maturity of a civilization/ We may
compare Corneifle's, Racine's and Pope's use of the alexandrine and
heroic couplet.

Although the plan of Couperin's movements is harmonically
dictated he still, like Bach and Scarlatti, occupies a transitional posi-
tion between polyphony and homophony, in so far as his music
normally entails a dialogue between melody and bass; the latter
nearly always has melodic significance. Implied polyphony exists
alongside the ripest development of tonal harmony; the lucid har-
206

THE CLAVECIN

monic scheme both moulds, and is moulded by, the dialogue of the
parts. Like Bach, Couperin borrows vitality and subtlety from the
polyphonic tradition, and from the homophonic a classical objec-
tivitrai^ot only the violin sonata which we have akeady discussed,
but also the gigue of the keyboard suite had long manifested this
harmonic-contrapuntal fusion, since its dear harmonic basis was
combined with fiigal treatment 'inverted* in the second half of the
structure, the inversion of the themes corresponding with the inver-
sion of the sequence of keys. But the melodic-harmonic fusion is
much subtler than this in Bach's and Couperin's conception of key-
board technique, reaching its most profound expression in their
more baroque movements (such as the allemandes of Bach's E
minor and D major partitas, or a piece of Couperin such as Les
Longueurs Tendrei). Here the symmetrical harmonic periods are no
more than implicit beneath the continuous, unmetrical flow of
ornamental lyricism. This is the consummation of a technique which
we have already observed in a tentative form in some movements of
the organ masses.

Couperin's first book of clavecin pieces was published in 1713,
though many of the pieces had been written much earlier. If the
'Bachian fusion' is least evident in this volume, one can perhaps find
here the various types of piece which Couperin is subsequently to
develop, in their most accessible form. Firstly there are, particularly
in the second ordre, a number of simple undeveloped dances, more
or less the same as those which were actually danced to in the ballets.
These are often charming and are interesting as one of the roots from
which Couperin's art grew, but are not otherwise remarkable.
Secondly there are, closely related to these dances, slightly more
sophisticated dance pieces in which the influence of Corelli's tonal
plan is more perceptible; La Milordine, La Pateline, and La Florentine
are obvious examples. These are straightforward movements in
Italian binary style, though with a gallic delicacy in the texture.
Then, thirdly, there is a class of pastoral pieces which are ostensibly
French in manner, related to the brunette tradition and the ballet.
Some of these are charmingly personal in flavour; the idiom of a
piece such as La Fleurie ou la Tendre Nanette, though more harmonic,
resembles the chansons of a Guillaume de Costeley in its combina-
tion of sophisticated ornament with a melodic and harmonic

207

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE WORK

naivete which lias the spiritual innocence of folk song. Others (La
Tendre Fanchon, La Bandoline, La Flore) link this innocence of
melody with a technique of figurative sequences built on seventh
chords, thereby creating a delicate voluptuousness which we have
seen to be one of the most typical features of Couperin's sensibility:

This is the kind of technique, reconciling a mannered 'social' artifi-
ciality with a latently personal emotion, in which it is possible to
trace some analogy with the painting of Watteau. Beneath the
apparently passive acceptance of the courtly convention there is an
intense apprehension of the loneliness of the individual consciousness.
A somewhat different aspect of the Watteau-like manner is shown
in the fourth group of pieces those exploiting the arpeggio figura-
tions of lute technique. Les Idees Heureuses has a tranquil flow of
arpeggio figuration which, by means of tied notes and suspensions,
creates a quasi-polyphonic effect. Both the melodic interest and the
harmonic subtlety of the piece profit from this treatment. The
movement also includes a touching passage built over a descending
chromatic bass in a manner much favoured later by Couperin him-
self, and by Bach. La Gamier is another beautiful piece in the lute
tradition, exploiting the resonance of the clavecin's overtones in a
208

THE CLAVECIN WOBKS

way that might almost be called impressionistic. This too is a style
that Couperin develops in later work.

The fifth group of pieces comprises those influenced by the more
powerful aspects of lute technique bigger movements in the tradi-
tion of the tombeau. The finest examples are the allemande and sara-
bande, L'Auguste and La Majestueuse in the G minor ordre, and the
comparable movements, La Tenebreuse and La Lugubre, from the
or Art in C minor. These are magnificent pieces, using massed broken
chords, passionate ornamentation, lute-like percussive effects and
harmonic acridities, and revealing a closeness of texture which
rivals the graver suite movements of Bach. Such a passage as this
from La Tenebreuse, almost as much as the larger contrapuntal move-
ments in the late violin sonatas, at once reveals the absurdity of the
account of Couperin at one time current as a hot-house composer:

etc.

Jtf .hf

Jif ji

r r_f

209

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE WORK

The courantes, too, have a rhythmic and contrapuntal virility that
makes them more comparable with Bach than with any other expo-
nent of the late baroque.

The last group of pieces includes the most mature movements in
the first volume those which already illustrate what we have called
the Bachian compromise. The allemande La Logiviere is a splendid
example, reconciling its architectural structure and ktent dance
rhythm with a continuous stream of baroque melody, powerful dis-
sonances in the inner parts, and some characteristically 'impression-
istic* drone effects. La Laborieuse is a similar piece, with strange,
melodically derived modulations; and another remarkable move-
ment is Les Regrets, in which the pathos is attained by means of sus-
pensions continuously hovering over a bass which proceeds with
measured gravity. But the finest piece in the book is the C minor
chaconne La Favorite, which defies precedent by being in duple time
instead of triple. 19 This is a work which, even by Bach's standard,
one may call great. There is nothing outside Bach which has such
massive dignity of workmanship, and yet it is quite unlike Bach, and
could have been written by no one but Couperin. This piece demon-
strates superbly how Couperin's technique depends on a dialogue
between soprano melody and bass, for the bass line is throughout of
a wonderfully cantabile character, always balancing the sombre
articulation of the main melody:

m.i-J J

r r f

etc.

19 ' Autrefois, il y avait des chaconnes & deux terns et trois; mais on n'en fait plus
qu'itrois.' (Rousseau's Dictionnaire.)
210

THE CLAVECIN WORKS

With the B minor Passacaille, the piece is also perhaps the most im-
pressive instance of Couperin's ability to extort a monumental power
from the very rigidity of the chaconne-rondeau convention. Its
disciplining of intense passion is again both a personal achievement
and an achievement of civilization.

From the second volume onwards, each ordre begins to acquire a
definite character of its own. Since we have now dealt in general
terms with the main classes into which Couperin's pieces fall, it will
be simplest if henceforward we deal with each ordre as we come to it
in sequence. The second volume appeared in 1716-1717, and the
first ordre in it (the sixth of the whole series) is tender and delicate in
mood. It contains one of Couperin's most beautiful works from the
linear point of view Les Langueurs Tendres, a piece we have already
mentioned as an example of the reconciling of a highly ornamented,
rhythmically fluid line with a latently regular pulse and harmonic
development. The ornamentation, inherited from the air de tour,
smooths all angles off the line, gives it a caressing flexibility which
suggests some kinship with the ordered plasticity of Racine's rhythm.
Here the ornamentation is not, like much of Handel's ornamenta-
tion, something applied to a symmetrical harmonically conceived
melody, but a part of the melodic contour, a means of achieving
nuance and gradation:

While the method is the same as that of Bach in, say, the theme and
some of the slow movements of the Goldberg variations, Couperin's
flavour, his radiance, is unique. It may be partly attributable to the
covert relation of his line to the French language, which certainly
influenced the line of the air de cour. Such a relationship need not
manifest itself as patently as in the case of Lully's recitative.

A simpler, more homophonic piece in the same mood is Les
Bergeries. This is melodically of great distinction, wistfully sophisti-
cated like Watteau and yet not altogether remote from French folk-
song. The second couplet of the rondeau makes an impressionistic

211

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

use of die bagpipe drone effect, an evocative, summer-like noise on
the harpsichord, which cannot be translated into pianistic terms:

Nothing could more effectively illustrate how Couperin's melodic
grace and economy of texture can invest the stock ingredients of the
brunette tradition with a personal and subtle poetry. This ordre also
includes another evocation of the countryside, the gay rondeau Les
Moissonneurs; a very famous piece in lute figuration, with chains of
resonant suspensions, Les Baricades Misterieuses; and a number of
witty pieces written with characteristic precision in two parts, of
which both the subtlest and the funniest is Le Mouckeron, an 'Italian*
gigue in which the line exasperatingly dances round itself.

The next ordre, the seventh, is in G, and is also mainly pastoral in
mood. It is on the whole less distinguished than the previous (B flat)
ordre, but contains some interesting harpsichord writing in syncopa-
tion in the first part of Les Petits Ages. La Menetou is a lovely piece
combining baroque line with * impressionistic* suspensions; Les
Delices is especially rich in sonorous sequential writing:

In contrast, die eighth ordre, in B minor, is almost uniformly
serious, even tragic, in style; and while as a whole the second book
cannot compare with the fourth in maturity, a good case can.be

212

THE CLAVBCIN WORKS

made out for the eighth as the greatest individual or dre. It opens with
a magnificent allemande, La Raphael*, which in complexity of
rhythm and harmony and in architectural power, can be justly com-
pared to the analogous movements in Bach. A quotation will indi-
cate its intensity, the dissonances over a pedal point, the lute-like
suspensions, the disciplined chromaticisms:

Equally majestic is the sarabande, L* Unique, with its dramatically
percussive harmonies and violent changes of rhythm. The two
courantes are among the most tightly wrought of all Couperin's
dance movements, while the allemande, L'Ausoniene, though simpler
in texture, has dignified Bachian sequences and suspensions over a
regular metrical pulse.

But the climax of the or^re unquestionably the greatest single
piece in Couperin's clavecin music and one of the greatest keyboard
pieces ever written -is the terrific Passacaille. The tragic effect of
this movement is attributable to the tension between the audacious
fluidity of the harmonies, and the rigid repetition not merely of the
bass, but of the whole opening period at the remorselessly regular
intervals demanded by the chaconne-rondeau convention:

213

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE WORK

e/c.

Each couplet adds to the intensity even the quiet episodes such as
the third, with its sparse texture and drooping, weeping suspensions
contrasting with the chromatic sonority of the harmonization of the
theme until a shattering climax is reached in the seventh couplet,
with its great spread discords, and anguished suspensions percussively
exploiting the whole range of the instrument:

Although the passion increases cumulatively, the unaltered repeti-
tion of the opening clause gives the music a timeless, implacably
fateful quality. It is astonishing that the composer of this terrifying
music could ever have been regarded as exclusively amiable and
elegant; we may compare the nineteenth-century legend of the
'tender' Racine. Certainly there is no music which has a more pro-
214

THE CLAVECIN WORKS

foundly Racinian quality than this Passacaille, in which the rigidity
of a social and technical convention (having reference to accepted
standards in social intercourse), only just succeeds in holding in check
a passion so violent that it threatens to engulf both the personality
and the civilization of which that personality is a part. Just as we are
conscious of Racine's alexandrine holding in control the wayward
passion ofPhedre's rhythms and metaphors, so we are aware of the
severe chaconne-rondeau form damming the flood of Couperin's
chromaticism and dissonance. Rather oddly, after the Passacaille this
B minor ordre is rounded off with an amiable Corellian gigue, La
Morinetei as though Couperin wished to reassert the validity of
social elegance after his incursion into the merciless psychological
and spiritual terrors that surround our waking lives.

The ninth ordre in A is again gentle, Watteau-like in tone. It con-
tains one supremely lovely, and quite well-known piece, the rondeau
Le Bavolet Flotant. This is a melody of the simple brunete type; and
the two-part texture is airy and luminous. There is also a subtle
movement, Les Charmes, using suave, overlapping lute figurations,
and introducing a radiant change from minor to major in the second
section. La Seduisante and La Rajraichissante make effective use of
sequences and of the sonorous registers of the keyboard, and the
ordre opens with a fine polyphonic allemande for two clavecins,
which provides evidence of what one might call the interior density
of Couperin's style. As with Bach, the expressive quality of the
harmonies is here largely the result of the flexibility of the lines
within a clearly ordered harmonic framework. The Passacaille repre-
sents an extreme manifestation of this.

The next ordre, the tenth, in D, is musically less interesting,
though it is interesting historically because it contains some fairly
developed examples of descriptive music an aspect of Couperin's
work to which the conventional account devotes a disproportionate
attention. The first three pieces are battle pictures, cleverly exploit-
ing the metallic and percussive features of the harpsichord; on the
piano they are apt to sound perfunctory. The second of them,
Allegresse des Vainqueurs, is also a fine piece of music, expressing an
extreme degree of joyful buoyancy by the simplest of means an
engaging 6 : 8 lilt, with melodic sequences phrased across the bar,
and making brilliant play with extended trills:

215

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE

# Mezangere, in the minor, is a more concentrated movement, using
lute technique with the dotted rhythm of the Lullian overture. Les
Bagatelles is an effective piece for two keyboards, depending more
on the metallically glinting sonority of the crossed parts, than on
melodic appeal. The other pieces are of slighter interest.

The eleventh ordre, in C, is notable mainly for another biggish
descriptive work, this time of considerable musical value. Les Pastes
de la Grande et Andenne Mxnxstrxndxsx demonstrates to a remarkable
degree the influence on Couperin of popular music; we find here
not merely a general relationship to folk-song such as we have often
referred to before, but the direct presence of the 'low' music of the
towns. Couperin's love for and understanding of popular music
bagpipes, fiddlers, street-songs, rarefied in the economy of his tech-
nique suggests that although he was, like Racine, an artist who
worked for an aristocracy, he none the less embraced an unexpectedly
comprehensive range of experience. There is about some of these
pieces a quality almost comparable with the painting of Chardin
a tender sympathy for the things of everyday life, together with a
technical delight in problems of balance and form, whereby these
things are objectified, released from the temporal and local. The
subtle precision of Couperin's and Chardin's technique gives to
things that are mundane a quality that seems eternal, and by infer-
ence divine.

Thus the popular element in Couperin's work is reconcilable with
its more serious aspects, just as Lully's aristocratic tunes were
whistled by errand boys, and found their way into folk-song.
Couperin's wit belongs without incongruity to the salon, the fair, the
street, the village green, and the cathedral. If less obviously than an
Englishman of Jonson's time, Couperin still worked before head
and heart, laughter and tears, were divorced, and one can listen
216

TEE CLAVECIN WOHKS

to a frivolously impudent piece such as Les Jongleurs et les Sauteurs
from this ordre immediately after, say, the noble chaconne La
Favorite, without experiencing any emotional jolt; there is clearly
the same sensibility behind the clarity of the texture. We are not
therefore surprised that this work in five actes should include, side by
side with comic drum-and-fife pieces like those about drunkards,
bears, and monkeys, a grave, stately movement such as Leslnvalides;
and should also in one movement use a popular technique & wail-
ing, monotonous air of Les Vieleux et les Gueux, over a plodding
bourdon to produce an effect not merely lugubrious, but unexpec-
tedly pathetic:

This piece, as well as the brisk musette-like movements in the
popular vein, needs the nasal tone of the harpsichord if its poetry is
to be realized adequately.

The last ordre in the second book (No. 12 in E), is comparatively
slight. It includes a charmingly suave courante, a most polite La
Coribante, and a delightful piece, L'Atalante, in running semiquavers,
over a quaver pulse.

Five years were to elapse before the appearance of Couperin's
third book. But in the same year as the second volume he published
his theoretical work, L'art de toucher k Clavecin, and incorporated in
it, for illustrative purposes, a series of eight preludes and one afle-
mande. The allemande is a solidly made two-part invention with a
good deal of canonic imitation, but is not especially interesting. The
preludes, however, contain pieces which must rank among the
finest examples in Couperin's work of the 'Bachian compromise'
between harmonic proportion and melodic independence.

Couperin explains that though he has 'measured* them for the
convenience of performers, these pieces are preludes and therefore, in

217

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

accordance with the lutenist tradition, should be played with the
utmost freedom:

Quoy que ccs Preludes soint ecrits mesure's, il y a cependant un gout
d'usage qu'il faut suivre. Je m'explique: Prelude est une composition libre,
ou I'lmagination se livre a tout ce qui se pr&ente a elle. Mais comme il est
asscz rare dc trouver des genies capables de produire dans 1'instant, il faut que
ceux qui auront recours \ ces Preludes regie's les jouent d'une mani&re aise'e,
sans crop s'attacher a la precision des mouvements, a moins que jc ne 1'aye
marque* expres par le mot Mesure. Ainsi, on peut hasarder de dire que dans
beaucoup de choses la Musique (par comparison a la Poele) a sa prose, et

ses vers.

The connection with the lutenists is explicit in the first prelude in C,
since this depends almost entirely on spread chord formations in
suspension (df. Bach's C major prelude). The second prelude, in D
minor, uses a similar technique, only with a more independent and
rhapsodic line. The conventional dotted rhythm appears more or
less consistently, and some of the sweeping scale passages suggest the
influence of Italian recitative effects similar to those found in the
tombeaux of the lutenists and violists; dissonant appoggiaturas are
frequent:

The third prelude, in G minor, is a courante, lucid in its part-
writing. No. 4, in F, returns to the suspensions and decorative
218

THE CIAVBCIN WORKS

arabesques of lute technique, and may be compared with Louis
Couperin's Tombeau de M. Blancrocher. No. 5, in A, is one of the
finest pieces in which a metrical beat is dissolved in a^supple, deli-
cately/ornamented line. The B minor, No. 6, is a two-part invention
again notable for the way in which the bar-metre disappears in the
ellipses of the counterpoint:

Like the fifth, the seventh prelude, in B flat, has a highly orna-
mented baroque melody in which the convolutions of the line
create some peculiar harmonic effects:

219

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

and the last prelude, in E minor, is an elegant piece with a typical
undertone of wistfulness, using beautifully wrought figurations in
sequence. 20

Couperin intended his preludes to be used as 'loosening-up' exer-
cises before any group of his pieces in the appropriate key; they were
not conceived with reference to any particular book, or ordre. It
was in 1722 that the third volume of clavecin pieces appeared, and
this time it opens with an ordre which is among the peak points of
Couperin's keyboard music. It is in B minor again, a key which
seems to have had a significance for Couperin analogous to Mozart's
G minor; and it starts with a tender movement, Les Lls Naissans, in
melodically grouped arpeggios. This is followed by a rondeau, Les
Roseaux, which ranks with Les Bergeries and Le Bavolet Flotant as
one of the loveliest of his works in a simple melodic, homophoni-
cally accompanied style. The balanced rise and fall of the opening
clause is subtly underlined by the harmonies; here once more we can
see how a poise which in one sense is a virtue of Society, may in
another sense become a moral and spiritual quality:

20 Here we may mention also the Sicilienne published as an appendix to the Oiseau
Lyre edition of the first volume of clavecin pieces. This was first published anony-
mously by Balkrd in his collection of Pikes Choisies . , . de difffrents Auteurs (1707.) It
seems to have been popular, for it appears in several MSS. all anonymous with the
exception of one inscribed Sidlienne de M. Couprin. The question of me authorship is
not of much importance. It is an amiable, undistinguished little product of the brunete
tradition with Italian influence, such as might have been written by Couperin in his
youth or by any minor clavecin composer of the period.
220

THE CLAVECIN WORKS

But most of the ordre is taken up by the big chaconne Les Folies
Francoises ou les Dominos. This is a series of variations on a ground
bass, on a principle analogous to that of Bach's Goldberg Variations,
without the strict contrapuntal movements. Though the Folies are,
of course, on a much smaller scale than Bach's work, their emotional
range is wide, extending from the melting harmonies of the varia-
tion called La Langueur, to the powerful internal chromaticisms of
La Jalousie tadturne; from the simplicity of La Fidelite to the
vigorous dotted rhythm ofL'Arcteur and the ponderous tread of Les
Vieux Galans'y from the rhythmic whimsicalities of La Coqueterie to
the whirling figuration ofL'Esperance and La Frenesie. The work is
a microcosm of Couperin's art, its tragic passion, its witty urbanity,
its sensous charm. Whereas the earlier B minor suite had been
rounded off with a piece of inconsequential gaiety, Couperin adds
as an epilogue to this ordre a short movement, L'Atne en peine,
which, apart from La Passacaille, is perhaps his most impassioned
utterance. It is composed of almost continuously dissonant, drooping
suspensions, including a high proportion of strained augmented
intervals:

Although short, it produces an impression of grandeur and tragedy;
iust as Les Folies Franfoises, though its duration in time is not long,

221

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

seems through the variety of its mood and the architectural preci-
sion of its structure to be a work of imposing dimensions.

The next ordre, No. 14. in D, is mostly of the pastoral type. It
opens with one of Couperin's most exquisite pieces of decorated
melodic writing, Le Rossignol en amour, in which the line can be
related to his baroque method of treating the human voice in parts
of the Lemons des Tenebres, and still more in the Brunete of 1711. Les
Fauvetes Plaintives is plaintive indeed, with its tremulous treble
registration, its chromaticism, and its tender appoggiaturas in dotted
rhythm. Le Carillon de Cithere, again 'scored' in the high registers of
the instrument, is among the most beautiful of all bell pieces; and
Le Petit Rien is a nimble two-part invention.

From the fifteenth ordre onwards, the level of the movements
remains almost uniformly high. This A minor ordre begins with a
noble allemande, La Regente, combining irregular baroque lines
with great richness of texture and harmony; this use of the chord of
the ninth is representative:

The lullaby that follows, Le Dodo, is a tender and civilized re-creation
of a popular nursery song a simple melody phrased across the bar,
accompanied by a rocking figure. Again a most touching effect is
achieved by the simple contrast between major and minor in the
complementary sections. The two Musetes are in the popular drum-
and-fife style, with short, excitingly irregular periods over the drone,
and some clattering trills. La Douce is a sophisticated-naive piece in
the folk-song manner, and Les Vergers Fleuris perhaps the most
remarkable of all Couperin's impressionistic pieces, creating an effect
of heat and summer haze through a line which seems to be gradually
dissolving into its suave ornamentation, and through the use of pro-

222

THE CLAVECIN WORKS

tracted suspensions which seem only to resolve on to other suspen-
sions, over a sustained drone:

Here again the sensuousness of the harmony and ornamentation is
disciplined by the symmetrical form in a way which recalls Watteau's
structural disciplining of his idealized version of the hues of nature.
In the sixteenth ordre, the finest piece is La Distraite, which pre-
serves a civilized symmetry beneath its * distraught' scale passages.
L'Himen-Amour uses widely skipping leaps and arpeggio formations;
Les Vestales is a charming rondeau with a folk-song-like melody*
Both the seventeenth and the eighteenth ordre contain magnificent
pieces of a Bach-like polyphonic texture (La Superbe and La Verne-
ville), brilliant movements in harpsichord figuration of a quasi-
descriptive order (Les Petits Moutins a Vent, Les Timbres, Le Tic-Toc-
Choc), and a fine piece (Le Gaillard-Botteux) ' dans le gout burlesque'.
But more outstanding still is the nineteenth ordre in D minor,
which begins with one of the very finest pieces in the popular
manner, Les Calotins et les Calotines, includes a piece, Les Culbutes
Ixcxbxnxs, in which irregularly grouped clauses and abrupt leaps are
combined in sequences to produce at times a quasi-polytonal effect:

223

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

y i i i

and has penuldmately a lilting movement over a gently chromatic
bass (La Muse Plantine) which simultaneously demonstrates Cou-
perin's sensuousness and his classical detachment:

Another eight years elapsed before, in 1730, Couperin published
his fourth book of clavecin pieces. Though it contains no piece on
the scale of La Passacaitte, it must on the whole be regarded as the
culmination of his achievement in keyboard music. It is also one of
his last works, for he died in 1733, and owing to ill-health composed
nothing during the last few years of his life. In his preface, Couperin
explains that the pieces in the fourth book had mostly been finished
some three years previously; this would place them more or less con-
temporary with die great suites for viols.

The volume opens unpretentiously with an ordre which is per-
vasively witty in tone. La Princesse Marie, Les Cherubins, and Les
Tairibourins all use very short phrases, in unexpectedly irregular
224

THE CLAVECIN WORKS

groupings, often based on a syncopation of the phrase rhythm
against die bar rhythm. The suaver movements, La Crouilli and La
Douce Jannetoti, are also habitually phrased across the bar, the falling
sevenths of the last named being typical of Couperin's late work.
The next ordre, the twenty-first, in E minor, is mainly grave and
serious. La Reine des Cceurs has a proud nobility, conveyed through
balanced sequential sevenths, in sarabande rhythm:

PTT r

La Couperin, a large-scale allemande, is one of the most magnificent
of all Couperin's Bach-like pieces, with superbly devised keyboard
polyphony in three parts:

Lute figurations and internal chromaticisms give to La Harpee and
La Petite Pince-sans-rire a surprising harmonic piquancy.
The twenty-second ordre in D is the climax of Couperin's urbane
p 225

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

wit. Almost all the pieces have some elegantly comic feature;
L'Anguille in particular is a brilliant two-part invention, in which
the abrupt harmonies and reiterative figuration convey as appropri-
ately as musically the eel's writhings.

A galant et magnifique opening to the twenty-third ordre is pro-
vided by L'Audacieuse, a piece consistently in the dotted rhythm of
the Lullian overture. Les Tricoteuses is a descriptive piece suggested
by the metallic rustle of the harpsichord in quick semiquaver move-
ment; it makes an impressionistic, homophonic use of the chord of
the diminished seventh. Still more extraordinary harmonically is the
next piece, L'Arlequine, which, in the tradition of the commedia, has
some exciting percussive effects, and some stardingly modern pro-
gressions of seventh and ninth chords:

The passage is a fine example of Couperin's ability to attain to great
sonorous richness with the minimum of means; it is this kind of
effect which made so deep an appeal to Debussy, and still more to
Ravel, since they found in its emotional quality something that was
not irrelevant to their position in the modern world. This quality
is extremely subtle. A little swaying figure, oscillating between the
fifth and sixth, opens the piece with an air of wide-eyed diatonic
innocence which is belied by the artificial symmetry of the clauses,
226

'Dans le Gout burlesque 5 :
Watteau. Portrait of Gilles

THE CLAVECIN WORKS

by the witty major and minor seconds, and by the melancholy of
the sequential harmonies. As a whole, the piece is balanced between
a bumpkin simplicity and a sophisticated hyper-sensitivity, in a
manner that almost justifies a comparison with Watteau's wonderful
painting of Gilles. Both Watteau and Couperin seem, in works
such as these, to be attempting to transmute a personal loneliness
or distress into the world of the commedia^ precisely because the
theatre can idealize the crudities and indignities of everyday life into
'something rich and strange*. It is the tenderness of the feeling the
sympathy with the outcast that is so remarkable in Watteau's
pictorial, and Couperin's musical, representation of the Fool. We
may relevantly recall that at the time they created these works both
Watteau and Couperin were sick men.

In Les Satires^ another movement dans le gout burlesque in this
ordre, we may find similar qualities. The tenderness is here less
evident; but the weird dissonances, the percussively treated dimi-
nished seventh chords, are never crudely obtrusive. They give a sud-
den ironic twist to an apparently innocuous phrase:

efc.

here again the Harlequin resolves his spiritual gaucherie into a world
of exquisite artifice.

The twenty-fourth ordre, in A, is distinguished by one of the
longest and noblest of Couperin's clavecin pieces, the passacaille,
L'Amphibie. This is not in the chaconne-rondeau convention of the
more intense B minor Passacaille, but is a series of variations on a
ground bass which is itself treated very freely. It is the only move-
ment in Couperin's keyboard works that can be compared with the
big chaconnes from the two-violin suites, and it uses similar techni-
cal methods to build up an increasing momentum. Lute-like suspen-
sions, virile dotted rhythms, flowing triplet figures are all employed

227

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

in a technique which covers the whole range of the keyboard.
As in the violin suites, the bass itself shares in the growing excite-
ment by acquiring more animation and by introducing chromati-
cisms. The piece concludes with a massive statement of die theme in
its original form. Les Vieux Seigneurs is a sarabande, also in the old
grand goAt. It is complemented by a piece called Lesjeunes Seigneurs,
cy-devant les Petits Maitres, in a perky 2 : 4 with semi-quaver
figuration phrased across the beat; again, a witty use is made of
diminished seventh effects. Couperin possibly intends some satirical
reference to the new, exquisite style of the divertissement in the
manner of Mouret compared with the old-style Lullian majesty of
Les Vieux Seigneurs. In Les Guirlandes we come to one of the finest
pieces using lute arpeggios in a sonorously impressionistic manner.
Pkyed on a big, resonant harpsichord, this piece rivals Les Vergers
Fkuris in its richly atmospheric effect.

The twenty-fifth ordre is possibly the most technically experi-
mental of all. The first piece, La Visionnaire, is a Lullian overture in
miniature, with a slow, powerful introduction which mingles the
intense recitative-like line and surging portamentos of the violists
with very dramatic harmonies, in a manner that recalls the sarabande
of Bach's E minor partita:

The quick section, though in two parts throughout, produces an
energetic effect through the vigour and complexity of its rhythms.
228

THE CLAVECIN WOKKS

The next piece, La Misterieuse, is centred in C major, in contrast to
the overture's E flat; its mysteriousness seems to consist mainly in its
abstruse transitions of key. A passage such as this dissolves the sense
of tonality almost as remarkably as does Bach's B minor fugue from
Book I of the Forty-Eight;

But Couperin never relinquishes his tonal sense as completely as does
Bach in die twenty-fifth of the Goldberg Variations; he remains too
much a part of a civilized aristocracy. Les Ombres Errantes depends
mainly on the insistent syncopation of its phrasing, and on 'weeping*
internal suspensions which create a fluid chromaticism in the inner
parts. Despite the emotional harmony, the impression is throughout
one of dignified refinement. As in so much of Bach, the figuration is
consistent from start to finish; the expressive quality arises out of the
subtleties of phrasing.

The twenty-sixth ordre, in F sharp minor, is possibly with the
B minor ordre from Book II the finest. If it has no movement of
such overwhelming intensity as the B minor Passacaille, it has per-
haps greater variety than the earlier suite, and has such consummate
lucidity and economy in its technique that it is a joy to look at, as
well as to play and listen to. This is immediately apparent in the

229

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

opening allemande-like movement, La Convakscente, with its beauti-
ful supensions over a chromatic bass:

,-0-HJ

its rich harmonic]sequences:

f\ A tt

and its almost Chopin-like sensuous coda which, in its context,
attains to a spiritual poise beyond Chopin*s febrile imagination.
230

THE CLAVECIN WORKS

Equally lovely is the rondeau, L'Epineuse, in which tied notes and
suspensions combine with melodic figuration to produce an effect
as of part-writing. The third couplet uses a simple lulling rhythm
across the bar-line, recalling the earlier Do do; and the fourth couplet
introduces one of those radiant transitions to the major which give
intimation of how Couperin's civilized deportment is not merely a
social virtue, but is, as it were, a spiritual illumination. In this passage,
the texture luminously 'glows'; and the gentle yearning of the rising
melodic figure is counterpoised by the symmetrical grouping of the
clauses:

The last piece in this ordre, La Pantomime, is a superb example of
Couperin's commedia dell'Arte style, using percussive guitar-like
effects and brusque dissonances of minor and major ninth with an
irresistibly witty vivacity:

e/c.

231

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

The twenty-seventh and last ordre, in B minor again, is in the
same mood as the F sharp minor, and is hardly less beautiful. The
allemande, L'Bopuse, has the same serenity and plasticity of part-
writing as La Convctlescentez keyboard technique comparable with
that of Bach's most mature works, though more delicate in texture.
Les Pavots evokes an impression of heat and languor through
broken chords and appoggiaturas in an even crochet rhythm in the
high register of the instrument. A very French Les Chinois is remark-
able for its rhythmic surprises; and the last piece, Saillie* 1 has a Bach-
like technique of neat imitative writing which on the last page dis-
solves into quintessential Couperin a simple repeated figure involv-
ing a falling fourth. The peculiarly disembodied feeling which this
figure, in conjunction with the level flowing movement, gives to
the music is enhanced by the fact that the figure does not occur in
the first half of the binary architecture (which ends in the dominant
and starts offagain in the relative major). In its softly floating repeti-
tiveness the figure has an eternal quality that is at once elegant and
wistful; we may note too the touching Neapolitan sixth effect of the
flattened C in the last few bars:

9 Ftm & t

21 The Saillie or Pas Echappe* was a step used in a dance called La Babette, according
to P.Rameau'sLeMs&readanjffrof 1725. The literal meaning of the word is to 'start*
or to burst out

232

THE CLAVECIN WORKS

Despite its ostensible limitations compared with, say, the Art 0,
Fugue, the Mass in B minor, the Jupiter Symphony, the Hammer-
klavicr sonata, or ByrcTs five-part Mass, Couperin's fourth book of
clavecin pieces seems to me to be among the most remarkable feats
of creative craftsmanship in the history of music. If we have under-
stood the significance of its lucidity aright, we shall have no diffi-
culty in appreciating how the exquisite Couperin could on the whole
have more than any other composer has in common with Bach. Nor
shall we have any difficulty in understanding how the composer of
a funny piece about monkeys, or a charming piece like Le Bavolet
Flotant> could also create, in La Passacaille and the finest of the
church works, music in which a tremendous tragic passion, revealed
in a tautness of linear and harmonic structure, should hide beneath
the surface elegance; in which Couperin's habitual preoccupation
with social values and 'states of mind* receives what it is hardly
excessive to call a spiritual re-creation.

Like Bach, Couperin preserves a delicate balance, perhaps peculiar
to his epoch, between the claims of the individual personality,
of society, and of God. Though the Phedre-like vehemence of
La Passacaille may endanger his formal lucidity, though the melan-
choly that lurks in the eyes of Watteau's harlequins is perceptible
beneath even his most witty moods, Couperin never forgets that he
is the honnete homme, living by a code of values which, if they are
more than p~ersonal, are, in the conventionally accepted sense of the
term, more than social too. And in his greatest work he seems to
indicate as does^Racine in Athalie, and as does Bach, who lived
much more directly in contact with a religious community, through
the whole of his career-4^hat in the long run such values are meaning-
less unless one accepts the notion of an absolute, or God. %

233

Chapter Ten

The Concerts Royaux and Suites for Viols

Le gout Italian et le gout Francois ont partage depuis long-
temps (en France) le R^publique de la Musique; a mon gard,
j'ay toujours estime* les choses qui le m^ritoient sans acception
d'Auteurs, ni de Nation; et les premieres Sonades Italiennes
qui parurent a Paris il y a plus de trente annees ne firent aucun
tort dans mon esprit, ny aux ouvrages de monsieur de Lulli,
ny a ceux de mes Ancetres.

COUPERIN, Les GoAts R&iniS) 1724

COUPERIN'S 'CONCERTS* WERE published in two volumes in 1722
and 1725. The first volume of four suites was entitled Concerts
Royaux; the second collection of ten concerts, with the addition of
the two Apotheose sonatas, was given the generic tide of Les Gotits
Reiinis. The suites were written for the court, after the last of the
church works, the Lemons des Tenebres; their composition therefore
dates from 1714 onwards. Composed to soften and sweeten the
King's melancholy, they are conceived in a style more French than
Italian. They are not concertos in the Italian sense of the word but
simply concerted music in dance form scored for an ensemble group.
None the less the music throughout, as well as the tides in the later
volume, indicates how deeply Couperin's French idiom is impreg-
nated with Italianism.

No particular medium is specified for the pieces. They were
usually printed on two staves, as though for clavecin, and in this
medium are mosdy effective. But Couperin remarks in his preface
that *ils conviennent non seulement au clavecin, mais aussi au
Violon, au hautbois, a la viole, et au basson'; and it seems clear that
it was on some such combination of instruments that the works were
performed at court. Couperin says that they were originally played
234

THE CONCERTS R.OYAUX AND SUITES FOR VIOLS

by Duval, Philidor, Alarms, and Dubois, with himself at the clave-
cin. Duval was a celebrated violinist, Alarius a violist, and Philidor
and Dubois were virtuosos on the oboe and bassoon. The ideal
arrangement would thus seem to be for two stringed instruments,
two wind instruments, and continuo, the strings and wind playing
either together or alternately. The choice of instruments should
depend on the expressive qualities of the movement in question.
Contemporary opinion associated particular instruments with speci-
fic passions, as we may see from this passage in Avison's Essay of
Musical Expression (1752):

"We should also minutely observe the different qualities of the instruments
themselves: for, as vocal Music requires one kind of Expression, and instru-
mental another, so different instruments have also different expression
peculiar to them.

Thus the Hautboy will best express the Cantabile or singing style, and
may be used in all movements whatever under this denomination, especially
those movements which tend to the Gay and Chearful.

In compositions for the German flute is required the same method of
proceeding by conjunct degrees or such other natural intervals, as, with the
nature of its tone, will best express the Languishing, or Melancholy style,

In general oboes and bassoons are suitable for merry movements
such as rigaudons and bourrees, perhaps because of the instruments'
rustic associations; flutes are appropriate to tender and melancholy
movements such as the sarabandes. Violins, in Couperin's concerts,
are essentially lyrical and noble, though less pathetic than the flutes.
A more specifically instrumental character is discernible in the later
volume, in which Couperin expressly states that some of the pieces
are to be played on unaccompanied viols.

Almost all the concerts are in the form of dance suites; and like the
suites of the lutenists and ckvecinists, they adapt their movements
from the dances of the ballet and theatre. The only movement which
is an exception to this is the Prelude, which is usually related to the
grave opening of the Italian sonata de chiesa. It is always a more
formal piece than the improvisatory prelude of the lutenists.

Many of the dance forms have already been briefly described in
other contexts in this book; since, however, Couperin's concerts are
his apotheosis of the contemporary dance, this seems an appropriate
place to attempt some more systematic catalogue. We must re-
member that, deriving as they do from the theatre, the opera, and

235

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

the ballet, these dances have all an expressive intention. All the
theorists insisted that 'la premiere et la plus essentielle beaute d'un
air de ballet est k convenance, c'est a dire le juste rapport que Tair
doit avoir avec la chose represente* (Noverre); that 'chaque carac-
tere et chaque passion ont leur mouvement particulier; mais cek
depend plus du gout que des regies'. (Rameau.) Moreover, although
taste may have been more important than rules, this does not mean
that rules were non-existent. The relationships between different
passions and different physical movements were as rigidly classified
as were the possible relationships between passions and pictorial
formulae in the painting of Lebrun. 'La danse est aujourd'hui divisee
en plusieurs caract&res . . . les gens de metier en comptent jusqu'a
seize, et chacun de ces caractcres a sur le theatre, des pas, des attitudes
et des figures qui lui sont propres'. Of course, there was not any
'psychological* intention in the dances; they did not deal in indivi-
dual passions. But they had a general rektion to types of experience
and types of people. They were musical and terpsichorean Humours,
and as such were carefully graded and differentiated.

The first dance in the suites, the allemande, had gradually displaced
the pavane which, some authorities suggest, had been metamor-
phosed into the slow section of the French overture. Couperin uses
two types of allemande. One, which he called allemande legere, is in
four time, light and flowing, but unhurried; this is probably a sur-
vival of the popular allemande which was a sung dance. The other
type of allemande, of a more grave character, is an instrumental
sophistication of the original dance, and is of all the dance forms
except the chaconne, the most musically developed. Rousseau says
that it 'se bat gravement a 4 terns', and Mace describes it as 'heavie
. . . fitly representing the nature of the People whose Name it
carryeth, so that no Extraordinary Motions are used in dancing it*.
The tides of Couperin's most typical pieces in allemande form make
clear that he associated the dance with a certain seriousness and
dignity, though the pace should never be sluggish. Even his alle-
mandes Ugeres incline, as we have seen, to contrapuntal treatment.
Both kinds are regarded as highly wrought instrumental composi-
tions, bearing out Mattheson's comment that between allemandes
danced and allemandes played there is as much difference as there is
between Earth and Heaven.
236

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITES FOR VIOLS

The differences between the two types of courante, French and
Italian, have been discussed previously. Originally a very quick
dance, as its name suggests, it must, by Couperin's day, have become
considerably slower. A crochet pulse is essential if the cross rhythms
and other metrical complications are to be intelligible. Rousseau
describes the dance as being 'en trois terns graves', while D'Alcm-
bert, in 1766, even goes as far as to call it *une sarabande fort lente'.
Both writers, however, remark that the courante Vest plus en
usage'. Most contemporary indications of tempo give the courante
and the sarabandc the same speed (see Appendix D). On the whole,
however, the evidence indicates that played, as opposed to danced,
sarabandes were slower and more noble than courantes; despite
their rhythmic complexity courantes preserved something of the
quality referred to by Mace when he described them as being
'commonly of two strains, and full of Sprightfulness, and Vigour,
Lively, Brisk, and ChearfuT. Quantz says that courantes should be
played with vigour and majesty, at a speed of approximately a
crochet for one beat of the pulse. Some such combination of stateli-
ness with energy seems an appropriate speed for courantes, and
Quantz's suggested pace seems reasonable for Couperin's courantes
in the French manner, in which the animation depends so much on
cross accents between 6 : 4 and 3 : 2. The smoother 3 : 4 Italian
courantes may be taken slighdy faster, though even in these move-
ments Couperin is apt to spring disconcerting rhythmic surprises on
the performer. According to P. Rameau's Mdtre a danser of 1725
even the danced courante was, by that date, a very solemn dance with
a nobler style and a grander manner than the others. The subtlety of
its danced rhythm depended on the fact that only two steps were
danced for each three beats of the music, the first of the steps taking
up two parts in three of the measure. (Feuillet's L'Art de decrire la
danse, 1700.)

The sarabande was one of the oldest of the ballet dances, having
been introduced into France from Spain in 1588. Transplanted into
England in the seventeenth century, it became a rapid and skittish
dance, as we may see from the sarabandes of the Elizabethan virginal-
ists. During the seventeenth century it progressively slowed down,
culminating in the powerfully pathetic sarabandes of Couperin,
Bach, and Handel. The mature form of it is characterized by a slight

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE WORK

stress on the second beat of a slow triple rhythm, and Brossard
defines it as ' n'etant i la bien prendre qu'un menuet, dont le mouve-
mcnt est grave, lent, serieux etc. ' Grassineau adds that it differs from
the courante in ending on the up beat instead of the down. Lacombe
also described the sarabande as * une espece de menuet lente '. Remond
de St Mard remarked in 1741 that die sarabande, 'toujours melan-
colique, respire une tendresse serieuse ct delicate', and this elegiac
languishing mode must for long have been typical of the sarabandes
of the ballet. Couperin frequently composed sarabandes of this type,
sometimes specifying them as sarabande tendre. But, as we have ob-
served, he also writes sarabandes in a grave style, which although
melancholy, are anything but relaxed in effect. Even more than the
lutenists, Couperin reserves ^ grave sarabande for many of his most
passionate utterances.

Rivalling the sarabande in grandeur is the chaconne, which also
came from Spain and was widespread throughout the seventeenth
century. This dance too was in triple rime, with a slight stress on the
second beat, though it was less ponderous in movement than the
sarabande. Its formal structure over a repeated bass makes it perhaps
the most important of all the dances from a musical point of view;
for it offers opportunities for musical development on a more exten-
sive scale than the other dances. Originally chaconne basses had taken
the form of the descending tetrachord major, minor or chromatic.
By Couperin's time the range of possible basses was more extensive;
nor was it necessary for the bass to be preserved unaltered through
the whole composition. For Couperin, the bass may be a linear
ground; or it may be merely an ostinato harmonic progression, as it
is in the gigantic chaconne of Bach's Goldberg Variations. D'Alem-
bert adequately defines the chaconne as ' une longue pi&ce de musique
a trois terns, dont le mouvement est modere et k mesure bien mar-
quee. Autrefois k basse de k chaconne &ait une basse contrainte de
4 en 4 mesures, c'est i dire qui revenoit toujours la meme de 4 en 4
mesures; aujourd'hui on ne s'astreint plus i cet usage. La chaconne
commence pour ordinaire non en frappant, mais au second terns*.

The growth of the music over the regular bass called for consider-
able skill on the composer's part if a satisfactory sense of climax was
to be obtained; we have repeatedly noticed that this was a challenge
to which Francois Couperin, like Lufly and Louis Couperin before
238

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITES FOR VIOLS

him, responded with enthusiasm. Couperin writes two types of
chaconne, corresponding with his two types of allemande and
sarabande. The chaconne grave is in 3 : 2 or 3 : 4 and is derived
from the ceremonial chaconnes of the operatic finales. The chaconne
legere is normally in 3 : 8, more moderate in movement and slighter
in texture, though still rather serious in temper. Chaconnes are most
commonly in the minor mode, but often have a series of variations
or couplets in the major in the middle of the composition. In the
biggest pieces this may paradoxically suggest the effect of a ternary
structure, despite the essentially monistic nature of chaconne
technique.

The passacaille may be taken as identical with the chaconne.
Quantz maintains that its tempo is slightly faster than that of the
chaconne, Rousseau and D'Alembert say that it is 'plus lente et plus
tendre'. Some authorities suggest that die chaconne has the synco-
pated sarabande rhythm whereas the passacaille has a smooth three
beats in a bar. Modern musicologists have attempted to establish a
distinction between the passacaglia as a composition on a linear
ground and the chaconne as a movement built on a harmonic osti-
nato. The exceptions are so numerous and the evidence so conflicting
that it would probably be equally easy to make out a case for the
opposite view. The above remarks apply to real chaconnes and passa-
caglias not to the hybrid chaconne-rondeau, which will be referred
to later.

The gavotte is a dance in 2 : 2 time, beginning on the second beat.
Its movement was moderate, and its mood usually that of *une
gaiet6 vive et douce'. It was, however, susceptible of somewhat
varied interpretations. Rousseau says that it is *ordinairement
gratieux, souvent gai, quelquefois aussi tendre et lent', and Lacombe
defines it as 'quelquefois gai, quelquefois grave*. In general like
Couperin, and his civilization- it avoids extremes. If gay, it is never
rumbustious; if sad, it is never oppressively so: or in the words of
D'Alembert it is 'tantot lent, tantot gay; mais jamais extremement
vi ni excessivement lent'. Perhaps its dominant characteristic is an
amiable wistfulness.

Also in 2 : 2 or 2 : 4, but beginning on the last quarter of the bar,
is the rigaudon, 'compose de deux reprises, chacune de 4, de 8, de
12 etc. mesures' (D'Alembert). This dance was especially popular

239

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

during Couperin's time, and was very merry, with a popular flavour.
It is robust and simple in rhythm, having an open-air jauntiness. The
tambourin (used by Couperin only once under this tide), and the
bourrec are similar to the rigaudon, except that the tambourin, with
a drone bass, is still more rustic in flavour, while the bourree often
has a syncopation on the first half of the bar. Another dance in 2 : 2
of a popular and rustic type is the contredanse, the name of which is
a corruption of the English country-dance; we may see in this
further evidence of the self-conscious interest of a sophisticated
society in the naive and 'primitive': 'les choses les plus simples sont
celles dont on se lasse le moins', as Rousseau said. Contredanses are
symmetrical in melody and rhythm and were employed in the
joyous finales of operas. Despite their popular virility, they are not
in any way wild, as are the tambourins. They begin on the second
beat of the 2 : 2 rhythm, and may thus be regarded as a racier, less
civilized version of the gavotte.

Three related types of quick, triple-rhythmed dance are the loure,
gigue, and canaris. The loure is usually in 6 : 4, sometimes in 6 : 8,
and is always lilted, in a dotted rhythm, with a slight 'push* on the
short note. Its movement is flowing, but dignified and graceful. The
gigue, which came from England, is 'vive et un peu folle', in the
words of Remond de St Mard. Some gigues, in 12 : 8 or 9 : 8, are
in equally flowing quavers, after the Italian manner; others, in the
French style, arc in a skittish dotted rhythm; this type of gigue Vest
proprement qu'une loure tres vive' (D'Alembert). The gigue was
extremely fashionable in Couperin's day. The French form of it is
indistinguishable from the canaris, a farouche dance performed in
the baflets by pseudo-Canary Islanders, and other exotics. The same
rhythms are found at a more moderate tempo in the sicilienne and
forlane. Not all Couperin's siciliennes are in the conventional dotted
rhythm; some are in level quavers, like a slower Italian gigue.
Couperin's one lovely example of the forlane is in the dotted rhythm.
Rousseau, in his Dicthnnaire, says that the forlane *se bat gaiement,
et la danse est aussi fort gaie. On Tappelle forlane parce qu'elle a pris
naissance dans le Frioul, dont les habitants s'appellent Forlans'.
D'Alembert says that it has 'un mouvement mode*re, moyen entre
la loure et la gigue'. The dance flourished especially during the
Regency.
240

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITES FOR VIOLS

Like the sarabande, the minuet seems progressively to have slowed
down in tempo. In Couperin's time it was written in 3 : 4 or 3 : 8,
and had 'une elegante et noble simplicite; le mouvement en est plus
moder6 quc vite, et Ton peut dire que le moins gai de tous les genres
de danse usit& dans nos bals est le minuet. C'est autrc chose sur le
theatre*, (Rousseau.) Couperin's minuets would seem to be closer
to those of the theatre than to those of the ballroom. They are grace-
ful, but should flow along quite speedily. The passepied is similar,
and still faster. * Une espace de minuet fort vif ', it is usually in 3 : 8,
beating one a bar. Unlike the minuet, it begins on the third quaver,
not the first, and introduces frequent syncopations. Both are sophisti-
cated dances, with regional origins.

The musette is much favoured by Couperin, and has been admir-
ably described by Rousseau: "Sorte d'air convenable a rinstrument
de ce nom, dont la mesure est a deux ou trois temps, le caractere naif
et doux, le mouvement un peu lent, portant une basse pour 1'ordi-
naire en tenue ou point d'orgue, telle que la peut faire une musette,
et qu'on appelle a cause de cek basse de musette. Sur ccs airs onfonne
des danses d'un caractfare convenable, et qui portent aussi le nom de
musettes'. Here the dance is derived from the music, instead ofas
is more usual the music from the dance.

In addition to these specific dance forms, Couperin also uses, as do
the opera and ballet composers, the term air to describe dance pieces
of a variously characteristic nature. The term no doubt comes from
the 'air de symphonic par lequel debute un ballet'; Couperin always
qualifies it adjectivally air tendre, airgradeux, air grave, and so on.

All these dances are treated either in some type of binary form, or
in rondeau. If in binary form, the second section, after the modula-
tion to the dominant or relative, may start off with the original
theme in the new key, reflecting the material of the first section in
the same order; or it may start off with subsidiary material, returning
to the original ideas towards the end; or it may include no thematic
repetition at all, achieving unity rather by the balance of keys and
the grouping of figuration. The second sections, incorporating the
modulations, tend to be longer than the first. Most of the more
serious binary pieces depend on the growth of linear figuration and
harmonic pattern, rather than, on the easily recognizable tune. When
Couperin writes simple dance tunes, he tends to treat them en ron-
Q 241

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

dean; they arc then self-enclosed periods in one section, interspersed
with contrasting episodes. Gavotte, minuet, forlane, rigaudon, passe-
piedall the lighter, more tuneful dances are thus treated en rondeau;
and the connection of the rondeau with the round suggests a popular
origin for this sophisticated technique. Significantly, the more com-
plicated dances, allemandes, sarabandes, and courantes, are never
'rondeau-ed'. The one exception to this is the chaconne; but although
the chaconne-rondeau has ceased to be a chaconne, it remains dis-
tinct, in its majestic power, from all the more customary, frivolous
types of rondeau. Something of the remorselessness of the chaconne's
repetitions is transferred into the more lyrical repetitions of the
rondeau.

Two or more of the smaller dances are sometimes linked together
gavottes and bourrees in major and minor, for instance, or any of
the rustic dances in the minor with a musette in the major. In these
interlinked pieces the musette with drone is a prototype of the trio
section of what kter became the sonata scherzo. As in the classical
scherzo, the first dance of the pair is often repeated after the second,
making a primitive ternary or 'sandwich' form; this, however, did
not become obligatory till some time after Couperin's day.

The first four concerts, Couperin says, are arranged par tons, begin-
ning in G, and proceeding up the cycle of fifths to the key of the
dominant to D, A, and E. Like most of the Preludes, that to the G
major concert is influenced by Italian models. Though an elegant
piece, light in texture, it has a modulation to A minor, incorporating
some abstruse dissonances and a cadential false relation, in a style
which is familiar to us from the grander preludes to the violin
sonatas:

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITES FOR VIOLS

The aUemande is of the leger type, in the usual binary structure, with
neat imitative writing but without much polyphonic complexity.
Towards the end of the second section a gently rocking figure sug-
gests an undercurrent of wistfulness:

The sarabande, in the minor, is a simple, noble piece with drooping
sevenths in sequence. The remaining movements, gavotte, gigue,
and minuet, are slight. The gigue has some amusing repeated scale
figures, and the minuet uses floating scale passages in contrary
motion.

The second concert is in D. The prelude is gracefully pathetic, with
soft appoggiaturas and ornamented suspended sevenths over a
chromatic bass. The alkmande fugiiee is again of the leger variety but,
as its tide implies, gives a quite ekborate contrapuntal development
to this perky theme:

In the second half the theme is very freely inverted. The air tendre is
in the minor, in the style of the air de cour, with portamentos and
intermittent canonic entries:

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE WORK

The air contrefuguee is a counterpart of the allemande, with a similar
jaunty subject. Its second section has some wittily unexpected har-
monies, similar to those in the Harlequin clavecin pieces:

For the last movement of the concert we have an extremely beautiful
rondeau in the Echo convention, comparable in mood with the
rondeau of the Imperiale sonata in the same key. Symmetrical clauses,
a tranquil rhythm, and a 'luminous* diatonicism produce a Claude-
like effect of pastoral serenity:

PPi

I **

244

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITIS FOR VIOLS
A couplet in the minor develops a richer harmony. The later state-
ments of the theme are ornamented in the brunete fashion.

A more serious style and more extended developments are observ-
able in the third concert, in A. The prelude, with its contre-partie for
viol, violin, flute, or oboe, has a Bachian polyphonic texture; the
sense of metre disappears in the interlappings of the lines:

Though lighter in character, the allemande uses a similar technique,
and has a typical passage of 'aspiring* chromatic sequences. The
courante, in die minor, is more complicated, both rhythmically and
harmonically. Although ostensibly a quick piece, it uses diminished
intervals with a Purcellian pathos.

With the sarabande grave, we come to a movement which looks far
beyond the normal confines of entertainment music; which stands
with the greatest sarabandes in die clavecin ordres and violin sonatas.
Again it has an additional contre-partie, and the intensity of its poly-
phony is reinforced by ekborate ornamentation, often producing
incidental dissonances, and by considerable rhythmic variety. These
points are illustrated in the following quotation; note the stress on

245

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORE

the chord of the augmented fifth, on the accented second beat of the
sarabande rhythm:

In the second half, the dissonances are even more abstruse, and the
piece has a monumental power worthy of comparison with the
greatest dance movements of Bach:

Founded on a litde figure in rising thirds, the gavotte is unpreten-
tious, but still somewhat melancholy in tone *quelquefois gai,
quelquefois grave'. The musette, in two sections, one in the major
and one in the minor, is a 6 : 8 pastoral over a bourdon, elegant,
246

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITES FOR VIOLS

but still with a flavour of folk-song. Its coda is especially beautiful,
floating in a summer haze between the major and minor third:

'W^

^7],,

r 7 r 7

r 7 r

We may compare such an effect as this with the tremulous haze into
which, in the background of many of Watteau's j?te$ champetres, two
lovers are strolling.

This large-scale suite ends with a chaconne of the llger type.
While this is not a piece of the monumental order of Couperin's
chaconnes graves, it is of considerable dimensions, and fine poly-
phonic workmanship. In the chaconne-rondeau convention, it
makes repeated use of dynamic contrasts of/ort and doux. The mood
again is of pastoral wistfulness. A couplet in the major, with a drone
accompaniment, has a 'glow* comparable with the preceding
musette; the main theme, in the minor, is given a tersely linear
treatment.

The fourth Concert Royal in E minor, maintains the high level of
the third; indeed it is possibly the finest of the group. The prelude is
a noble piece of polyphonic writing which invites comparison with
the prelude of the Corelli Apotheose. The ornamented lines are
superbly moulded, over a bass which is as much melodic as har-
monic in significance. Though a slighter movement, the allemande
contains some fascinating imitative treatment of the little rising scale
figure with which it opens. The courantefran$aise changes the tonality
to the major, and rhydimically and harmonically is even more com-
plicated than the A minor courante. Much of the part-writing de-
pends on opposition between 3 : 2 and 6 : 4 rhythms, occurring
simultaneously in different lines; passages of elliptical harmony,
created by the movement of the parts, are frequent:

247

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

The courante a fitalienne returns to the minor and is rhythmically
more straightforward. On the other hand, it is possibly the biggest
of Couperin's courantes, the second section being developed at more
than usual length, with relatively complex modulations. Here the
part-writing is fluid, and the harmonies rich. At times there are acute
dissonances, and ripe sequential writing:

" F r r

f-i ^T Jr.
r f

248

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITES FOR Viois

' . ^

ij jj^* 1 ^

J Hlf

' '

f. u/

[-1

r ri

"Jj ' J i ^~

LZ ^

LiL

I* ti- 1 ' ' - i

e=^

The trills at the seventeenth, at the end of this passage, are further
developed in a longish coda. As a whole, the piece is remarkable for
its cantabile lyricism and sonorous harmony.

The sarabande, in the major, has an independent contre-partie, and
is in Couperin's tres tendrement, serenely diatonic vein. The second
section involves a pathetic modulation to the minor of the dominant,
proceeding by way of a flattened seventh in the bass:

The melodies have a Chambonni&res-like fragrance, but are de-
veloped with greater architectural control. Also in the major, the
rigaudon is a perky dance in binary form with a pseudo-contra-
puntal treatment of a little rising fourth motive, which is inverted
in the second half. After the entry, there is litde pretence of counter-
point The last movement, Forlane, is in rondeau, and is one of

249

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

Couperin's most personal conceptions. The tranquilly gay tune
again suggests an exquisitely civilized re-creation of a folk-dance:

T&.

In the couplets the warm harmonies suffuse the music with a mellow
Watteau-like sunshine. The last couplet, in the minor, achieves a
touching unexpectedness by the simplest of means a melody lilting
between the interval of a second and a fourth, with a drone accom-
paniment rocking on the interval of a sixth:

The E minor is the last of the Concerts Royaux collection. No. 5,
the first suite in the volume which Couperin called Les Gouts Retinis,
is in F major, and is slight in texture and character. Its prelude is
marked gracieusement, instead of the customary grave; it is a charm-
ing piece in 3 : 8, with falling scale figures neady imitated in two
parts. The allemande legere is also freely contrapuntal in technique,
with a theme leaping up a fifth, and then a sixth, to a tied note. The
motive is often imitated in stretto, thereby creating some elliptical
phrases across the bar-line:

250

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITES FOX VIOLS

Majestically in the minor, the sarabande grave has not the passionate
and personal tone of the A minor sarabande; but its phrases have a
Handelian grandeur, especially in the final clause, when the line
mounts by way of a trill to A flat, and then subsides. Also in the
minor, the gavotte is a wistful piece in quaver movement, coulam-
ment. The Musete dans le Gofit de Carillon is a lovely bell piece with
the flavour of a vaudeville. It would sound well on a small baroque
organ.

The prelude of the sixth concert in B flat is constructed almost
entirely out of a tied crochet, followed by a semiquaver figure,
usually treated as a resolution of the suspension. The allemande, a 4
terns Ugers, is quite a big movement, contrapuntally developed. Deli-
cately dancing, it tosses a little scale figure to and fro between the
parts:

Marked noblement, the sarabande mesuree lives up to its pretensions,
though it is among the more simply euphonious, and less passionate,
of Couperin's sarabandes. Subtle effects of cross-rhythm are obtained
by the concurrence of an appoggiatura-omamented main melody,
with a triplet figure in the bass:

^ rfrrrrffe

K n^ ^=|

krrrrrrrr

In the next piece the Devil makes an amiable appearance. This
mephisto, though fiery, is as well-mannered as the devils in Lully's

251

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

operas. Electrically shooting scale passages, and the discreet introduc-
tion of that diabolus in musica, the tritone, do not substantially
modify this Air du Diable's urbanity:

Its mood and technique may be related to the harlequin and panto-
mime pieces for clavecin; there is a devil-may-care jauntiness, rather
than a daemonic quality, about the persistent leaping sixths. The last
movement of this B flat suite is a sicilienne, a smooth 12 : 8 pastoral
with a few dissonant canonic entries.

With the seventh concert, we return to a more serious tone. The
prelude is both grave and gracieuse. Its lines are beautifully rounded,
and repeated entries in stretto give to the level movement a subdued
melancholy:

The allemande is gay, its perky theme being treated in unusually
sustained canon. Bachian harmonic sequences occur in the piece's
extensive development:

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITES FOB VIOLS

The sarabande returns to the mood of the prelude; the theme, again
imitatively treated, incorporates a rising minor sixth which droops
back expressively to the fifth. A relaxed melancholy, derived from
the lutenists, is suggested by the chromatic harmony, and by the
drooping phrases, sometimes ornamented with appoggiaturas, some-
times built on arpeggio figures:

rfr^

i j',f ; i if , <r1>' fe

<fr* ''

1 r

~*? S T 6

Hf-f^
j,

f -

fl^

1 ,. 1

^' r i

The Fuguete has this interesting, rather spiky subject:

Despite its tide, it is an extensively developed movement, in a com-
promise between fugal technique and harmonic binary form; and
despite its feathery texture, it shows a Bach-like contrapuntal soli-
dity. After the first section has ended in D, the second half starts off
in B flat the relative major of the original G minor with a modi-
fied version of the theme inverted. The development of the scale
passage and the leaping figure create an exciting animation; on
the last page a telling climax is reached by stretching the scale pas-
sage through an eleventh. The gavotte also uses a rising scale figure,

253

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

and contains much canonic writing, while the graceful sicilienne has
some tritonal progressions in the bass.

This last piece is Italianate in style. The next concert, with the
sub-tide Dans le Gout Theatral, is ostensibly French, a miniature
Lullian opera in instrumental form, without the recitative. The over-
ture has die familiar ceremonial opening in dotted rhythm, followed
by a quick fugal section in triple rhythm. Here the nature of the
theme and the texture recalls the French Couperin of the organ
masses. The piece rises to a sonorous climax with the appearance of
the theme in thirds:

In the coda, there is a characteristic false relation. The Grande Ritour-
nette is a stately curtain tune; the opening illustrates the measured
dignity, and the powerfully dissonant texture obtained by the use of
passing notes and appoggiaturas:

A section in four time leads into a Lullian aria in 3 : 2, of a type
which had originally been modelled on Carissimi. This piece is im-
posing, but not among the most interesting of Couperin's move-
ments in this style.

The heroic manner is continued in a French air in 2 : 2, with
chromatic progressions and much gallic ornamentation. The air
tendre is a sweedy melancholy brunete; the air leger, in the major,
254

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITES FOR VIOLS

another brunete in Couperin's vein of limpid diatonicism. A naive-
sophisticated spirit pervades, too, the Loure and the next air tendre,
in which an appealing use is made of repeated detached minims. The
sarabande grave et tendre is more tendre than grave, halfway between
the manner of Chambonnieres and of Handel. The groupings of the
phrases, in their level rhythm, are of some subtlety ; note how in this
passage the rising scale of the third and fourth bars counteracts the
falling sequences of the scale figure of the first two bars:

The poised serenity of the clauses pkces this among the loveliest of
Couperin's spacious, Claude-like movements. Then follow two airs
de cour, the second of which has some charming echo effects in false
relation. An air de Bacchantes, in the conventional 6 : 4 of the
operatic bacchanal, brings the work to a rousing conclusion.

In contrast to the Concert dans le Gout Theatral, the next concert,
No. 9 in E, has an Italian tide, PJtratto del? Amore. None the less,
though a more CoreUian technique is noticeable in the fugal move-
ments, the work is still French in feeling; indeed, the pieces have
French sub-tides, like the clavecin ordres. The French and Italian
styles are now equally, and unselfconsciously, a part of Couperin*
sensibility. As a whole, this suite is both one of the most representa-
tive, and the most beautiful, of the concerts.

The first movement, Le Charme, is more gracieuse than grave,
though it is'marked both. Its pellucid polyphony often creates an
impressionistic sonority:

255

COUPBRIN: THE WORK

polyphony, in which the lines create the intense harmony note, for
instance, the Neapolitan sixth effect in the penultimate bar:

The 4 : 8 air tendre is also meditative in tone; and here too the econo-
mical part-writing leads to some acute dissonances. Plaintes, the next
movement, is for two viols and string bass without continue. The
viols play mainly in dotted rhythm, in thirds and sixths, while the
bass reiterates a pedal note; the effect is sensuously rich:

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITES FOR VIOLS

A change to the minor is made for the second part, which is more
linear and austere. The last movement, La Tromba> is a jaunty binary
piece built on a 6 : 8 trumpet arpeggio; at the end, some imitations
in stretto are irresistibly comic:

A somewhat sombre temper characterizes most of the eleventh
concert, in C minor. A longish 3 : 2 prelude in consistent dotted
rhythm has power and dignity. The aflemande, marked fierement, is
in fugal binary form, with an angular, instrumental subject such as
one frequently meets with in Bach's work:

The second allemande, plus leger, is smoother, containing a higher
proportion of conjunct motion; the theme is freely inverted after
the double bar. Both the courantes, one in the major and one in the
minor, are of the French type. The first is particularly free in its
rhythmic ellipses between soprano and bass, combined with much
ornamentation. In the second courante trills are used in animated
ascending sequences.

The Sarabande, tres grave et tres marque, is one of the most notable
of Couperin's pieces in the tombeau convention. The lines use ener-
getic dotted rhythms and a plethora of tremblements, mordents, and
portamentos; these elements, however, serve to reinforce phrases
usually built on spread chord formations which are at once violent

259

FRANCOIS COTTPERIN: THE
and monumental. The tonal sequences and harmonies are excep-
tionally bold, even including a cadential chord of the thirteenth:

The gigue louree is a fascinating piece of contrapuntal writing,
phrased, like so much of Bach, across the bar lines, with frequent
dissonant appoggiaturas. Such appoggiaturas play an important part,
too, in the line of the concluding rondeau. This is a dialogue between
melody and bass, a quiet 3 : 8 built mainly from semiquavers
grouped in pairs. While having no outstanding feature, it is one of
those movements, Uger etgalant, to which one must be able to res-
pond if one is folly to appreciate Couperin's savour.

The next two concerts are for two viols, mostly unaccompanied.
They belong to the great French tradition of viol music, which we
shall refer to in greater detail later. Although not musically among
the most interesting of the concerts, the economy of their part-
writing is a delight throughout. The prelude to the A major suite is
in a pointe 3 : 2, and, as so often occurs in the prelude of the da
chiesa sonata, it repeatedly employs trills, with turns, on the second
beat of the sarabande rhythm, sometimes in ascending sequences.
Badinage is a quick contrapuntal movement, with a brilliant conclu-
sion in thirds. It is separated from the final air by a short slow
recitative section^ again on the analogy of the sonata da chiesa. This
260

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITES FOE VIOLS

is marked patetiquement, and is a very emotional piece with whirling
portamentos and grinding appoggiaturas:

The air is suave, in regular semiquavers, moving mainly by step.

If the twelfth concert had affinities with the Italian sonata, the
thirteenth is again unambiguously in French suite form. The prelude,
on a little arpeggio figure, is consistently canonic. The air, agreable-
ment in the minor, uses an imitative technique in 6 : 8, with interest-
ingly irregular phrase grouping the first section contains eleven
bars, and is answered by a section of fifteen. Calm and warm in its
diatonicism, the sarabande returns to the major, finally the chaconne
legere is based on a brief rising scale figure and leaping fourth, with a
rather odd ambiguity between major and minor third. The figure is
kter presented in a modified form inverted, and developed in free
fugue.

The fourteenth and last concert in D is a fine one. Thegrav e prelude
is powerful in its harmonies, both those contained in the continue,
and those produced by the lines* complex ornamentation:

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE WORK

Here the French dotted rhythm is used within an Italianate move-
ment; while the climax has a Bach-like combination of discipline
with emotion. The same architectural logic is found in the alle-
mande's development of an arpeggio-founded figure; Bachian
sequences and syncopated phrase-groupings show a fine mastery of
instrumental technique. A nobly drooping figure characterizes the
theme of the sarabande; note how the falling interval contracts in the
first four repetitions, and expands in the following three:

li n .1

* \

^ L

y j

ft/* > j

TO i *

\ ^* -?!

T ^ ..
/ PI-

^T"

^ ^^ *^*^

ff r

In the second half, the interval is stretched to a sweeping seventh,
conveying a sense of emotional liberation.

The last movement, modestly called Fuguete, is a fully developed
contrapuntal piece. The 6 : 8 theme, again phrased across the bar, is
closely wrought, with syncopations and sequential chromaticisms:

^
i,

2<52

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITES FOR VIOLS

A second subject in semiquavers, founded on arpeggio figuration, is
later introduced and cunningly combined with the first theme. As a
whole, the piece is a splendid example of classical counterpoint and
a fitting conclusion to the whole series.

We have now finished our survey of Couperin's concerted music;
but there is one more work or rather a group of two works
which may conveniently be dealt with at this point, since it is con-
ceived in the same form of the French suite, and since its date is con-
temporary with the last concerts. The suites for two viols were
Couperin's last published work, apart from the fourth book of
clavecin pieces. The title-page of this publication, which was redis-
covered by Bouvet early in the twentieth century, runs * Pieces de
viole, avec la Basse Chiffree, par M. F. C. Paris, Boyvin, 1728'.
The identification of this M. F. C. with Couperin is open to no
doubt. It is supported not only by stylistic considerations and by the
fact that the suites contain many signs and phrase markings which
were used by no other composer, but also by the privilege du roi
which accompanies the publication, and by Couperin's own cata-
logue of 1730, which mentions some suites for viols appearing, in his
ceuvre, between Les Nations and the fourth book of clavecin pieces.
The date 1725, given in the catalogue of the Mercure de France in
1729, is supported by no other contemporary document, and is pre-
sumably false.

These two suites, coming at the end of Couperin's life, are also the
end of a great tradition. The midsummer of the French solo viol
music lasted from about 1660 to Couperin's death. If it seems odd
that the full flowering of this music should occur at a time when the
viol was being superseded by the violin, we must remember that
there was still a tendency for the most sophisticated members of this
hyper-cultivated society to regard the violin as a rather low and un-
dignified instrument. Hubert le Blanc's Defense de la Basse Vioh
repeatedly points out that the veiled tone and the nature of the bow-
ing of the viol gave it a superior subtlety in the conveyance of
emotional nuance; while Rousseau, speaking of the 'Pieces d'Har-
monie reglees sur la viole* says:

La tendresse de son Jeu venoit de ces beaux coups d'archet qu'il
animoit, & qu'il adoucissoit avec tant d'adresse et si a propos, qu'il

263

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

charmoit tous ceux qui Fentendoient, & c'est ce qui a commence a donner
la perfection a la Viole & a la faire estimer preferablement a tous les autres
instruments.

(Traite de la Viole,

By Coupcrin's time, as we have seen, the violin had occasioned a
fashionable furore, and Couperin made his own impressive contribu-
tion to its literature. But it is possible that, even in his day, in the
innermost circle of the Elect, the old instrument was still more
fashionable than Fashion.

During the grand siecle, as the violin had replaced the viol as the
stock instrument for dance and other occasional musics, the older
instrument had begun to develop a virtuoso tradition. Like the lute,
it had become an instrument of the ruelles and salons. Maugars and
the other early violists had been in the main occasional composers,
as were the early lutenists; Marin Marais and Forqueray and the
other composers of the solo viol's heyday were, like the later luten-
ists, the product of an intellectual and emotional esotericism. We
may compare them with the English violists of the court of Charles I
and the Interregnum, such as William Lawes, Jenkins, and Simpson.
Though the English composers remained more conscious of their
polyphonic ancestry, it may have been merely the Civil War that
prevented them from developing the virtuoso solo aspects of their
tradition as represented by Simpson's Divisions into a classical
Augustan homophony.

The nature of this virtuoso music was in part conditioned by the
physical nature of the viol, a six-stringed instrument with a flat back
and a flat bridge, which made chord playing relatively easy. The
tuning, like that of the lute, was in fourths, with a third between the
third and fourth strings D, G, C, E, A, D; Marin Marais used a viol
which had a seventh string, the low A in the bass. In the preface to
his Pieces de Viole of 1685, de Machy explains that the viol may be
used simply as a melody instrument, accompanied by continue, or

2 * C also, Mersenne: 'car le Violon a trop de rudesse, d'autant que Ton est cons-
traint a le monter de trop grosses cordes pour esclater dans les suiets, auxquels il est
naturellement propre.* (Harmonie Universette, 1636.)

, _ ._ rM . /-M ^ > praises the instrument for its 'mignards

tremblements' and the 'coups mourants de rarchet'.

264

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITES FOB VIOLS
it may be used as a bass for one's own singing; but its most charac-
teristic activity is as a solo instrument playing both melody and
harmony. It is possible, he points out, to make a pleasing sound by
playing a tune with one hand on the clavecin, but nobody would call
that real clavecin playing. Similarly, the viol can play a single
melody very agreeably if need be, but the instrument fully reveals
itself only when it is played solo, its melodies being harmonized with
rich chords and arpeggio devices, often involving big leaps. It is this
manner of treating the solo viol which was adapted to the violin by
German composers such as Biber, Baltzar, and J. S. Bach. If one
objects that in this style it is impossible to play cantabile, and with an
expressive use of ornaments, die answer is that everything depends
on the skill of the player. It is true, too, that the range of tonalities in
which one can pky fluently in the harmonized style is limited
D, G, A, and E minor are the keys most convenient to the tuning,
in which sextuple stopping is easily practicable on the D major triad.
Composers trained in the old linear traditions would not, however,
find this lack of tonal variety cramping.

The French violists have left fewer works for unaccompanied viols
than their English predecessors. But it is clear in most of their works
for one or two viols and continue that they habitually thought of
the viol as a solo harmonizing instrument. The richness of the chords
and the mellowness of the tone enhance the elegiac quality of their
lyricism. Thus the feeling, as well as the technique and tuning, is
close to the tradition of the lutenists; most strikingly of all, the viol
composers resemble the lutenists in the way they reconcile their ripe
harmonic technique with an extreme delicacy and sophistication of
ornament. The basis of this ornamentation and of certain rhythmic
conventions is identical with that of the lute music of the court.
Ports de voix, tremUetnents, pinces, and batteries abound, while the
technique of the stringed instrument encourages the use of exag-
gerated portamento effects. In some of the kter viol composers, even
so fine a one as de Caix d'Hervelois, the ornamentation is apt to get
out of hand; the hyper-sophistication of the music seems somewhat
precious, just as the degenerated vocal tradition relapses into an ex-
cessive finickiness. In the work of the masters of the medium, how-
ever, notably Marais and Forqueray, the subtleties of ornamentation

265

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

intensify the grand pathos of the lyrical line; and Marin Marais,
Lolly's pupil and Couperin's almost exact contemporary, must
be accounted an artist of Racinian power in his music's fusion of
dignity, subtlety, and lyrical ardour. His variations on La Folia are,
for instance, more nobly distinguished than Corelli's famous set.
Forqueray's work is scarcely inferior in grandeur, while being har-
monically even more audacious.

Not even Marais or Forqueray, however, achieved a work of such
ripe beauty as Couperin's two suites which, like so many aspects of
the work of Bach, are the last word, and the most significant, in a
particular language. They may not have the nervous virility of the
B minor Passacaille, or the subtle energy of the Corelli Apotheose
or L'Imperiale sonata, Couperin's finest contributions to the more
modern violin medium; but on the whole they are possibly
Couperin's greatest instrumental work.

The suites are written for two viols, one of them figured. In the
original editions there is some confusion between singular and plural
on the tide-page, for the works are variously described as 'Pieces de
violes' and as * Suites de viole'. This confusion has led to some
speculation about the manner in which Couperin intended them to
be performed. The most probable explanation is that Couperin had
in mind two alternatives. The pieces could either be played by two
viols unaccompanied; or the first viol part, which is of a highly
virtuoso character, could be pkyed by a soloist, while the second
part was played as a bass in conjunction with a harpsichord continuo.
The prevalence of multiple stopping and the extraordinary richness
of the texture suggests that Couperin regarded the unaccompanied
version as aesthetically the more satisfying. As unaccompanied
pieces they would be completely in accordance with the viol
tradition.

The E minor suite has a Handelian grandeur together with a per-
sonal harmonic complexity. In the grave prelude, the solo or virtuoso
viol part is characterized by its sweeping phrases, swirling porta-
mentos, and passionate ornamentation. The harmony, enriched
by the double and triple stopping of the solo-part, has tremendous
resonance for instance this use of the chord of the ninth:

266

^ f

The allemande is as complicated, linearly and rhythmically, as the
most abstruse examples of Bach; the leaps and phrase groupings of
the solo part produce a quasi-polyphonic effect almost comparable
with that of Bach's suites and sonatas for a solo stringed instrument:

The sonorous chord of the ninth is again in evidence. Similar effects
are obtained through big leaps in the energetic courante, which also
has powerful chromatic progressions in double stopping:

267

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE

VIOLES

The sarabande is one of Couperin's noblest movements, again very
rich in harmony, making a majestically strenuous use of the French
dotted rhythm. The gavotte and gigue are somewhat less remark-
able, but have a tautness of line and harmony which is unexpected in
these dances. The gavotte flows in a quiet quaver movement, with
melancholy, drooping appoggiaturas.

The final Passacaille is in die major, and for the first time lets the
sun into this majestically gloomy work. The diatonic radiance of the
lines and harmonies is familiar to us from some movements in the
violin sonatas and clavecin pieces; in the viol Passacaille it acquires a
dynamic drive which we do not normally associate with Couperin.
As the couplets evolve trills and turns, bouncy dotted rhythms and
flowing scale passages, the music becomes a joyous carillon. The
minor couplets enhance the passion with sonorous double stoppings
and sequential sevenths:

THE CONCERTS R.OYAUX AND SUITES FOR VIOLS
and the return to the major, Gay, brings the work to a virtuoso con-
clusion in a blaze of baroque ornamentation, repeated notes and
arpeggios.

This glowing resonance is the dominant feature of the whole of
the A major suite. The prelude has not the E minor's ordered dolour,
but a ceremonial splendour. Long curving lines polyphonically
treated, luxuriant ornamentation, ripe sequences, double stoppings,
and flexible, strong rhythms combine with a dignified exuberance.
The Fuguete is in fact a fully developed polyphonic movement of
over six pages, going through a wide range of keys, with exciting
syncopations and a lucidly flowing texture.

The Pompe Funebre is the most magnificent of all pieces in the
tombeau tradition. It has a Racinian gravity and power; one can
appreciate its background more adequately if one relates it to the
rhetoric of the funeral orations of Bossuet or to the wonderful
Pompe Funebre scene in Lully's Alceste:

Troupe de femmcs affligees, troupes d'hommes desoles, qoi portent des
fleurs et tons les ornamcns qui ont servi a parer Alceste. Un transport de
douleur saisit les troupes affige'es; une partie dechire ses habits, Pautre
attache les cheveux, et chacun brise au pied de 1'image d' Alceste les orna-
mens qu'il porte a la main.

Within the majestic lines of the simple binary structure, the details
of ornamentation and harmony are exceptionally rich; there is a still
greater profusion of double stoppings and chromatic harmonies
notice in this passage the chord of the ninth once more, the abrupt
transition to the G major triad, and the repeated trills and turns (see
next page).

After this tragic funeral fresco, the work ends with a typical
Couperinjew <fe5prif, with the enigmatic title of La Chemise blanche.
This has a virtuoso first viol part in a chattering moto perpetuo.
The second section, in the major, though still impudent, recovers
enough of the gallantry of the earlier movements to make the piece
a convincing epilogue to the whole work.

The suites for viols, and a few movements in the concerts, stand
among the very greatest of Couperin's achievements. Normally,
however, it is not for profundity or tragic passion that we go to
these pieces; we find in them rather the most beautiful and civilized
occasional music in European history. To them the definition of

269

FRANCOIS COUPBRIN: THE WORK

Descartes 'la fin de la musique est de nous charmer et d'evoquer
en nous de diverses sentiments' is peculiarly appropriate, and we
remember that Couperin himself said, ']'aime mieux ce qui me
touche que ce qui me surprend'. This is music of 'les charmes de la
vie', as witty and exquisite as the conversation of the young ladies

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270

THE CONCERTS ROYAUX AND SUITES BOR Viois
and gentlemen in the paintings of Wattcau. 23 But, like the paintings
of Watteau, it repeatedly gives one a glimpse of unsuspected hori-
zons, and it is in no way inconsistent with the most profound aspects
of Couperin's work. There is no music that demonstrates more
clearly how narrow, in a civilized society, is the line between art and
entertainment; we may learn from it how the music of the casual
glance, the fortuitous conversation, may imperceptibly merge into
one of the noblest manifestations of European culture. It is apposite
that we should end our survey of Couperin's work with music that
has such direct social validity, that so intimately reminds us of those
values and standards from an examination of which this book began.
No aspect of Couperin's work reveals more lucidly that those values
and standards depended, not on the denial of the life of the individual
member of society, but on a profound appreciation of the issues in-
volved in his relation to the community. These works are not, with
the exceptions already mentioned, the greatest of Couperin's crea-
tions; but they are perhaps the most essential for an understanding of
his work's nature and significance.

23 C M. de Grenailles, L'honneste Gorgon ou Yart de bien fever fa noblesse, 1642:
'Quant a 1'adresse aux honnestes exercices, il faut qu'un jeune homme sache chanter
et danser autant qu'il en faut, cek veut dire qu'il prenne ces divertissements pour les
ornamens de la vie commune plustdt que pour des occupations continues.*

271

Chapter Eleven

Chronology, Influence, and Conclusions

IN THIS BOOK we have devoted separate chapters to each genre 01
Couperin's work and have made little attempt to discuss the evolu-
tion of his music chronologically. This method seemed, on the
whole, the least unsatisfactory, particularly since Coupcrin is not
the kind of composer whose work undergoes any startling trans-
formations or changes of front. But of course his music does develop.
Innately lucid of mind, he writes with a progressively increasing pre-
cision; and the greatest precision entails the greatest subtlety.

The organ masses (1690) present us with most of the essential
materials the symmetrical diatonic melodies, related both to folk-
song and to the sophisticated air de cour; the baroque ornamentation
of this melody, tending to dissolve the rigidity of the metre; the
transparent texture of a polyphonic technique inherited from the
seventeenth-century organists; the Purcell-like harmonic flexibility;
the formal proportions derived from the theatre music of Lully. The
early violin sonatas (1692-95) bring a more lyrical and operatic type
of melody; a compromise between the soloists' polyphony and the
homophony of the continue; and a growing sense of harmonic
order learned from Corelli in particular. Certain recognizable
Couperin traits begin to appear & fondness for rich spacing and
harmonies, especially ninth chords, disciplined by the economy of
texture; a peculiar melting effect produced by hushed suspensions in
dotted rhythm; a partiality for the 'touching* effect of the sharp
seventh in the ascent, followed by die flat seventh descending; many
abstruse dissonances created by appoggiaturas and other ornaments
derived from the air de cour; and a favourite modulation to the minor
of the dominant.

The period of the church music and the early clavecin pieces (1697
to 1715) blends these French and Italian elements in forms adapted
272

CHRONOLOGY, INFLUENCE, AND CONCLUSIONS

from the church music of Carissimi, Charpentier, and Lully. During
the period of Les Go&ts Reunis (1715 to 1730), the Concerts Royaux,
the later clavecin pieces, and the last violin sonatas make use of all
these elements, but tend to encourage the French elements at the
expense of the Italian. Certain dissonances, spread chord effects, dot-
ted rhythms and portamentos suggested by the lutenists and violists,
help Couperin to achieve some of his grandest creations, particu-
larly in sarabande form. And although he is beginning to relinquish
his seventeenth-century-like compromise between polyphony and
homophony in favour of a balanced harmonic architecture, it is
during this period that we become most clearly aware that his tech-
nique is founded on a dialogue between soprano and bass. Here, too,
we find his most contrapuntally taut and powerful work, that which
most invites comparison with the lucid complexity of Bach. We
may refer especially to some of the allemandes, and to L'Apotheose
de Corelli and L'Imperiale, music in which, as in Bach's work, vertical
harmonies are given subtlety and virility through the independence
of the parts that make them up, while at the same time the contour
of the lines is conditioned by a clearly defined scheme of tonal order.
Finally, in the precision of workmanship in his last compositions,
such as the fourth book of clavecin pieces and the suites for viols, all
suspicion of influences, French or Italian, has vanished. He has
created an idiom which we can regard both as a triumph of the
declining civilization in which he lived, and as perhaps the most
central expression of the French tradition.

In 1733, the year in which Couperin died, Rameau, who had been
Couperin's neighbour in the rue des Bons Enfants, produced his first
opera. The association of the French musical tradition with the
theatre was re-established; it was to continue, more or less unbroken,
down to our own day. This renewed association was a further
growth of the less autocratic culture we have already noticed in
Couperin, and it is ironic that the emergence of a more 'popular*
culture should as the level of taste declined eventually lead a
sensitive spirit, such as Ckude Debussy, to the Ivory Tower.
Coupcrin's work, however, attains the perfect equilibrium between
an aristocracy of form and an intimate emotion; he could have
occurred only at that precise moment in French history. In the work
of a Lebrun, the formal gesture defeats the artist's integrity; in the
s 273

FRANgois COUPERIN: THE WORK

work of a Boucher, emotional indulgence reduces the art to (very
charming) sensory tittilation, without in the widest sense any
moral implications. But in "Watteau we find emotional intimacy to-
gether with a formal control which reflects a moral and spiritual
order. Couperin's relationship to most of his disciples seems to me
exactly to parallel that of Watteau to Boucher.

With the great exceptions of Rameau and Leclair, and to a lesser
degree Mondonville and Clerambault, Couperin's disciples are
musical Bouchers. They write to please; and please they do,
for one could scarcely imagine a more deliciously sensuous enter-
tainment music than the Conversations Galantes et Amusantes of
Dandrieu, Dornel, Du Phly, and Daquin in clavecin music, of
Guillemain, Mouret, Blavet, Corrette, and Boismortier in con-
certed music for strings and wind instruments. Their work implies
an instinct for social elegance; their indulgence of their emotions
never prevents them from raising their hats and making their bow
in the appropriate pkces. But they have forgotten why they raise
their hats. The gesture is automatic; they act from habit, having lost
their guiding sense of a moral order.

The best of Couperin's minor disciples, Dandrieu and Dagincour,
are thus, despite great sensibility and charm, derivative in a bad
sense; and they are essentially miniaturists, which Couperin, essen-
tially, was not. Even Rameau, Couperin's peer in the French classical
tradition, does not achieve in his keyboard music the close texture of
Couperin's finest work. His is more harmonic, less linear in lay-out,
more virtuoso and theatrical in treatment. It is more brilliant, and
more immediately emotional than Couperin's work; but it is not
therefore more profound. Perhaps Rameau's very finest pieces, such
as the superb A minor allemande and in a quieter vein Les Tendres
Plaintes, are an exception to this, having much of Couperin's sombre
dignity. But they are less characteristic of his work than an auda-
ciously imaginative, 'colouristic' piece like Le-Rappel des Oiseaux; a
grand Handelian piece like the Gavotte with variations or the A
major Sarabande; or an expansive virtuoso piece such as Les Tourbil-
lons, Les Cyclopes, with its non-melodic Alberti bass, La Dauphine,
La Triomphante, or the exciting rondeau Les Niais de Sologne. All
these, in the Handelian fashion, are based more on arpeggio forma-
tions than on scale-wise motion:
274

CHRONOLOGY, INFLUENCE, AND CONCLUSIONS

Couperin, like Bach, on the whole favours conjunctfmotion rather
than arpeggio figures.

Rameau, unlike Couperin, looks forwards rather than backwards.
There are passages in his clavecin works which were all written
early in his career, before he began to take himself seriously as an
operatic composer which already give intimation of eighteenth-
century sonata style-: La Poule is a genuine harpsichord piece in the
classical baroque tradition; yet towards the end, just before the coda,
there is a passage, harping on the chord of the dominant seventh,
which has in miniature die structural and harmonic effect of the
cadenza to the Mozartian concerto:

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

There is nothing comparable with this in Coupcrin. Similarly one
of the most remarkable of Rameau's pieces, L'Enharmonique, is deli-
berately a study in tonal relationships. It has a diminished seventh
cadence which is not produced by linear movement, but which is
harmonic in its own right, marking a rhetorical or dramatic point
in the structure, as do the cadences in the eighteenth-century sonata:

o. L ?

. j-j

etc.

Rameau's delightful Piices de clavecin en concert, cast in the three-
movement Italian form of allegro-andante-allegro, illustrate this
progressive 'modernism' even more clearly. Their keyboard part is
not a continue part like that of Couperin's trio sonatas, nor a piece
of polyphonic writing like that of Bach's sonatas. The keyboard is
treated as a virtuoso solo instrument, in a way that suggests Haydn
and Mozart's treatment of the combination of piano with strings.
The relation of the string writing to the new bourgeois rococo style
becomes patent in the version for string sextet which some disciple
made after Rameau had deserted chamber music for the theatre.

Perhaps the most illuminating instance of the decadence of the
French clavecin school is provided by the four volumes of pieces by
Du Phly, engraved by Mile Vandome and published by Boyvin in
1755 and subsequently. A few of Du Phly's pieces have still a Me of
Couperin's spirit; we may mention a charming rondeau on page 10
of the first book, and the first half of the Gavotte tendrement called La
De Villeneuve. But the second half of this piece is explicitly harmonic
rather than linear in effect, and in general Du Phly tends to build his
276

CHRONOLOGY, INFLUENCE, AND CONCLUSIONS

movements on simple chordal progressions rather than on line.
Movements such as La Cozamajor, La Larare, La Victoire, exploit
arpeggio and scale figuration in the virtuoso manner of Rameau,
though with a vague improvisatory flourish instead of Rameau's
intense brilliance. Perhaps the most extreme example of this tech-
nique is the very long, and dull, chaconne in F, which has extensive
passages of unambiguous Alberti bass 2 device which Couperin, as
a linear composer, justly regarded with suspicion.

Most of the pieces in the fourth book, which seems to be of some-
what ktcr date than the others, have a 'tune* at the top, with many
sequential repetitions, accompanied by Alberti basses; La De Guign
and La Du Drummond are typical examples. The third volume in-
cludes pieces in concert with violin; even the first volume ends with
a piece in C, marked Icgerement, which is built out of more than
usually footling scale passages and arpeggios rounded off, after a
double bar, with a reiterated Handelian full dose a musical method
of saying The End which is almost comic in its naivete.

It is clear that Couperin stood for something which, by Du Phly's
time, already belonged to a past world. Apart from Rameau, only
the great Leclair came close to Couperin's elegiac aristocracy, and
even he developed a more symphonic and harmonic style. Although
like Rameau he favoured a monothematic as much as a bithematic
technique, in his work too the suite is superseded by the Italian
concerto and the classical triptych of allegro-andante-allegro.
Couperin stood for something from which the French tradition
was turning away. His influence survived in France for barely
twenty-five years after his death. By 1771 Grimm was able to say:
*il y a deux choses auxquelles les Francois seront obliges de renoncer
tot ou tard, leur musique et leurs jardins'. The noble architectural
symmetry of the classical tradition had perished. 24

Couperin had an enthusiastic Belgian disciple in J. H. Fiocco.
Some of his pieces make a genuine attempt to reproduce both

84 An interesting gloss on the inability of the Handelians to appreciate Couperin's
limear idiom is provided by Dr Barney's comments on his ornamentation: "The great
Couperin . . . was not only an admirable organist but, in the style of me times, an
excellent composer for keyed instruments. His instructions for fingering, in his VArt
dt Tottcher le Clavecm, are still good; tho* his pieces are so crowded and deformed by
beats, trills and shakes, that no plain note was ever left to enable the hearer of them to
judge whether the tone of the instrument on which they were played was good or
bad.' (A General History of Music.)

277

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

Couperin's complexity of line (L' Inconstante or the dotted rhythmed
allemande from the D minor suite), and his serene naivete (La
Legere, the two gavottes from the D minor suite). Les Promenades de
Bierbeeck ou de Buerbeeck is a very close imitation of one of Couperin's
gentle flowing 3 : 8 movements with consistent semiquaver figura-
tion. The pieces are not however very distinguished, and are all dis-
figured by clumsy passages of parallel octaves which betray Fiocco's
inability to maintain a consistently linear style. Even in these his
most Couperin-like pieces he seems in danger of falling into the easy
homophonic style galant of a Du Phly; in pieces such as La Fringante
or L'Anglaise he quite explicitly writes straightforward arpeggiated
movements in the Italianate Handelian style. Most of the other
Belgian clavecinists, such as Boutmy and Gheyn, also use the Italian
technique. Such relations as they have with Couperin are only
superficial.

In England and Italy the music of Lully had exerted a most power-
ful influence, but the influence died with the culture that produced it,
if we except the reminiscences of Lully in Handel's English work.
Only in Germany was the French spirit deeply entrenched.

Because of the rime lag occasioned by the Thirty Years' War
Germany was culturally somewhat behind the times, so that the
French vogue in Germany came to its height after la gloire had
decayed. Communications between France, Belgium, and southern
Germany were stimulated by the Bavarian alliance, and French cul-
ture became the accepted criterion of taste. In the last decade of the
seventeenth century German composers were as eager to emulate
Lully as were their aristocratic patrons to emulate Lully's master the
Roi Soleil. French musicians such as Buffardin frequently visited
Germany, castles were built in Germany on the model of Versailles,
and a movement that had started in the Catholic south soon spread
to Prussia and the north. Frederick the Great was to entertain Vol-
taire, and to speak French more graciously than German.

Even before Lully's triumph composers such as Rosenmiiller and
Bleyer had been influenced by the French ballet. By the end of the
seventeenth century many German composers had gone to Paris to
study the French methods under Lully himself. Possibly J. J. Frober-
gcr was a professional copyist in French employment; he wrote
clavecin works including a highly impressive piece modelled on
278

CHRONOLOGY, INFLUENCE, AND CONCLUSIONS
Louis Couperin's Tombeau de M Blancrocher which derive from
the lute-like French keyboard style. Erlebach and Mayr were for a
time among Lully's pupils, writing quantities of dance suites in the
French manner; while in 1682}. S. Kusser published in Stuttgart his
Composition de musique suivant la methode fran$aise, contenant six
Ouvertures de Theatre accompagnees de plt4sieurs Airs. A little later
appeared Johann Casper Fischer's Le Journal de Printemps consistant
en Airs et Balets a 5 parties et les Trompettes aplaisir, entrancingly fresh
occasional music modelled on the Musiqite pour le Souper du Roi of
La Lande and others. The first volume of Fischer's clavecin music
was published in 1696. Most of the little dances are a more muscu-
lar version of those of Chambonnieres, though some of the big
chaconnes, notably the G major, are worthy of Lully himself. 25

The most notable of all Lully's German pupils and disciples was,
however, Georg Muffat, whose Florikgia suites were published in
1695. Muffat, who came from Passau, had at one time played in
Lully's orchestra. In his preface to the Florikgia, he maintained that
of Lully's work he had 'fait autre fois a Paris pendant six ans un
assez grand Estude ... a mon retour de France je fus peut-estre le
premier qui en apportay quelque idee assez agreable aux musiciens
de bon gout, en Alsace'. (My italics.) He can hardly have been
justified in claiming to be the first German composer to use the
French style, but it is true that he offers an example 'd'une melodic
naturelle, d'un chant facile et coulant, fort eloigne d'artifices superflus,
des diminutions extravagantes', and that for solidity of part-writing
and richness of harmony his example could hardly be improved
upon. Each suite has a title referring to some human quality (Grati-
tudio, Impatientia, Constanzia, etc.), and the tides of the individual
pieces that make up the suites are in French. Some are dances
aUemandes, bourrees, sarabandes, canaris, ballets, airs, passepieds,
and so on; others are of a descriptive nature Les Gendarmes, Balet
pour les AmazoneSy even Gavotte de Marly. Each suite is prefaced by a
full-scale Lullian overture, complete with double dotted rhythm,
the familiar crochet tied to a semiquaver figuration

26 The most interesting pieces in the collection are not, however, in the French style,
but in the German development of Mian toccata technique which Bach was to use
with wonderful effect in such things as the Chromatic Fantasia. Some of Fischer's
preludes, for instance the D major, are remarkably bold experiments in harmonic
progression*

279

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

a mple-rhythmed fiigal section often with a rousing conclusion in
parallel thirds. These overtures, and the other big movements such
as the passacailles, are exceptionally fine, with all Lully 's sonorous
grandeur and, in addition, a certain Germanic sobriety. One may
mention, in particular, the G minor overture, and the Passacaille in
A minor. Like Couperin, MufEat was later much influenced by Corelli
as weE as Lully, and published a series of Italianate concerti grossi.
By the time Couperin had become a musical celebrity, the taste
for things French was thus well-established in Germany, and it is not
surprising that he too became a dominating force in German music,
particularly keyboard music. Fux and Telemann copied not only
Couperin's tides, but also his airy texture, and the more percussive
features of his style. Telemann was especially francophile; Ues airs
frangois', he said, 'ont replace chez nous la vogue qu'avaient les
cantates italiennes. J'ai connu des Allemands, des Anglais, des Russes,
des Polonais, et meme des Juifs, qui savaient par cceur des passages
enticres de Bellerophon et d'Atys de Lully'. He was fortunate enough
to have his quartets for flute and strings pkyed by such distinguished
performers as Blavet, 26 Guignon, Forqueray, and Edouard, while in
1728 a Psalm and cantata of his composition were performed with
considerable success at a Concert Spiritual. He published a work
called Musique de table, partagee en trois Productions, dont chacune con-
tient I'Ouverture avec la suite & 7 instruments. The dances include such
typically French forms as the forlane, passepied, loure, chaconne,
musette, and rondeau, and the titles suggest a complete Watteau
decor, with Rejouissance, Allegresse, Badinerie, Flatterie, and even
Bergerie, Harlequinade, and La Douceur. Telemann's treatment of
the style is, however, more unambiguously homophonic than
Couperin's; for his sympathies, as J. S. Bach realized, were associated
more with the new kind of symphonic music than with the old
linear style of the classical baroque.

46 Blavet admired Telemann's work greatly, and, as Lionel de Laurencie has pointed
out, his own music betrays Telemann's influence, both in some of its ornamentation
and in certain pedal effects for instance, the tonic pedal for the flute in the Prelude to
Blavet*s Nouveaux Quatuours of 1738. In general, die German composers had a slight
reciprocal influence on their French hosts. It is noticeable as late as 1768, in Corrette's
Cinquante Pieces ou Canons lyriques a deux, trots, ou quatre votx, which are modelled on
Telemann's canons. In 1746 an article on La Corruption du Gout dans la Musique
Franfaise, published in the M6moires de TreVoux, mentions Telemann among other
baleful foreign corruptions, such as Vivaldi, Locatelli, and Handel.
280

CHRONOLOGY, INFLUENCE, AND CONCLUSIONS

A more significant mingling of French and German styles is pro-
vided by the most distinguished of Coupcrin's German disciples,
Georg Mufiat's son Gottlieb, and Johann Mattheson, who in his
Kernmelodische Wissenschaft of 1736 recommended the French style
to young composers, because 'Frankrcich ist und bleibt die rechte
Tanzschule'. This verdict on the 'claire et facile' melody of the
French, as opposed to Italian complexity, was endorsed by the
theoretician Quantz, after he had spent several months in Paris in
the late seventeen twenties. Like that of Telemann the musical
thought of Mufiat and Mattheson is more consistently homophonic
than Couperin's, and their texture is thicker; but they discover a
common denominator between the French and German styles, and
one may regard them, perhaps, as a cross between Couperin and
Handel. Mattheson's allemandes are often quite involved, in the
manner of Couperin and Bach for instance that from the C minor
suite:

His more customary manner is represented by the Air with doubles
in arpeggio accompaniment, from the same suite, or by the melan-
choly sarabande with variations from the F minor suite, Handelian
in technique, but more austere in feeling:

281

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

> i

> f

.
i/

-J

J J

etc.

Muffat, on the other hand, with his south German Catholic back-
ground, has all Handel's Italianate flamboyance, and writes move-
ments, such as the big prelude and fugue of the B flat suite, in a
rhetorical toccata style which Couperninever attempted:

Some of his finest pieces are chordally accompanied airs in Handelian
style, rather more abstruse harmonically for instance the B flat
282

CHRONOLOGY, INFLUENCE, AND CONCLUSIONS

minor sarabande from the same suite, with its poignant Neapolitan
sixths:

and throughout Muffat f^tnlc^ more 'chordaUy' than Couperin. He
has, however, some fine linear pieces which resemble Bach if not
Couperin (the G major, E minor and D minor sarabandes, and the
allemandes in D major and D minor); and something of the authen-
tic Couperin spirit still survives in the sprightly courantes, with their
contrapuntal entries; in the cross rhythms of the B flat Hornpipe; in
the audacious portamentos of La Hardies$e\ in the grandly rigid
rhythm of the G major chaconne; and especially in the flowing Hit
and dissolving harmonies of the G major gigue. Here too the tech-
nique depends on harmonic progression rather than linear move-
ment; Couperin does not use the Neapolitan sixth effect in this
explicitly chordal form:

*> r I

283

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

But the grace of the movement, with the undercurrent of wistful-
ness, recalls Couperin, Watteau, and the world of the fete champetre,
and Muffat must have been one of the last composers to understand,
intuitively, what the/ete champetre had stood for in spiritual terms.
Some of MufTat's suitesfor instance, the C major and D minor-
have an orthodox Lullian overture instead of the toccata prelude.
He is a highly impressive keyboard composer whose work ought
to be more widely known.

Some of Handel's dances were published in Paris in 1734 by
Antoine Bretonne, and were frequently pkyed during the following
decade. Reciprocally, both Handel and Bach studied Couperin's
work. Although Couperin's influence on Handel, who is tempera-
mentally closer to Lully, can have been merely superficial, we have
repeatedly mentioned that Bach found in Couperin a spirit with
whom he could sympathize. His own ventures into the French
style, in keyboard and orchestral suites, have little of Couperin's
galant finesse, but bring to his linear draughtsmanship an austerely
powerful German contrapuntal science. We have frequently dis-
cussed the general similarities between Bach's technique, and
Couperin's.

Even in the work of Bach's sons, the influence of Couperin is still
discernible, though the use which they make of him differs from
their father's.}. S. Bach found in Couperin a composer whose tech-
nique was basically linear, like his own; Carl Philipp Emanuel, in
his many pieces with French tides, 27 such as La Caroline, adapts the

88 Many of C P. E. Bach's pieces with French titles appeared in Marpurg's Raccolta
delle piu nuove composizioni di clavicembalo (Leipzig, 1756-57), and thus belong to the
middle years of C. P. E. Bach's career. The titles include such characteristic formulae
as L'Attguste, La Bergins, LA Lott, La Glein, La Prinzette, La Complaisante, La Capri-
cieuse, L'lrrtsolue, La Journalise, La Xenophon, Les Longueurs Tendres. Some of the
pieces are reasonably convincing imitations of Couperin; we may mention L'Irrtsolus
and La Journalise, especially the latter, with its habitually syncopated phrasing and its
characteristic breaks in rhythm. In all, there are twenty-four of these 'French* pieces.
On Marpurg, see below.
284

CHRONOLOGY, INFLUENCE, AND CONCLUSIONS
binary structure, the airy texture, the staccato arpeggio figuration
and the sequential passage-work typical of Couperin's lighter
movements (see opposite).

But the form is now harmonically and metrically dictated, in a
way which suggests Haydn and the early symphony; witness the
pause followed by a Neapolitan sixth in the coda, a device which,
depending on harmonic and dynamic contrast, is essentially dramatic
and symphonic, rather than a product of linear movement:

A passage such as this seems to invite orchestral treatment.

Similarly, some of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach's 'French' sara-
bandes revealingly illustrate the transformation of the sarabande into
the slow movement of the eighteenth-century symphony; and
although G. M. Monn has a movement with the authentic-sounding
grand-siede tide of La Personne Galante, it is hardly possible to see any
affinity between his music and Couperin, beyond a few skipping
staccato figures based on triads. His work, composed about the
middle of the century, depends on the tonal principles of the diatonic
sonata, and from it to the Mannheim symphonists is but a step. It is
no accident that the elder Stamitz first achieved fame, in the seven-
teen fifties, before a middle-class audience in France, as chefforchestre
to the enterprising Le Riche de k Poupliniere; and that the sym-
phonic works of die younger Stamitz and the other Mannheimers
were first published in Paris. The age of classical aristocracy, of the

385

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

late baroque, is outmoded by the age of the rococo. If we take Johann
Stamitz and C. P. E. Bach as representative of the two main
strands of the new period, we may say that in Stamitz we find
the deliberate cultivation of a bold popular style, designed to have
a commercial appeal to a relatively wide audience; while in C. P. E.
Bach's later work we find a romantic individualism, a preoccupa-
tion with sensibilite^ expressed not only in the almost lushly har-
monic nature of the slow movements, but even in his dedication of
his volumes to 'Kenner und Liebhaber 9 . Since 1750, these two
elements, the popular and the personal, have drifted gradually
further apart.

Probably the latest examples of Couperin's influence in Germany
are to be found in the keyboard work of Graupner, Krebs, Kirn-
berger, and Marpurg. Graupner has a rather beautiful Sommeil
movement; Krebs, a duller composer, has a piece called Harlequinade
which is, however, already more Mozartian than Couperinesque in
style and feeling. Some pieces of Kirnberger, such as Les Complimen-
teurs and Les Carillons, have more of the authentic manner, and his
D major chaconne is interesting as a transition between the gaUnterie
of Lully and Couperin, and the new, Mozartian galant convention.
But most striking is the Clavierstucke collection of Marpurg, pub-
lished in Berlin in 1762. Into this volume Marpurg has transcribed
Couperin's Le Reveil Matin, and pieces by other clavecinists such as
Clerambault, and has added pieces of his own which not only have
characteristic tides (La Badine, Les Fifres, etc.), but which are closer
to the linear style of Couperin than are most of the Germanic ver-
sions of his idiom mentioned in this chapter. The pieces are not,
however, much more than pastiche. The Couperin tradition is no
longer a living reality; it has been engulfed by the symphony, as was
the tradition of Bach.

And so, as the Viennese symphony prospered, Couperin was for-
gotten, both in Germany and in his own country. The revival of
interest in him has more or less coincided with the revival of interest
in Bach; and his position in French musical history is comparable
with that of Bach in the history of European music. Just as Bach sums
up the evolution of European music down to his time, and suggests
potentialities which have only recently been investigated; so
Couperin, in his less comprehensive way, has the whole of French
286

CHRONOLOGY, INFLUENCE, ANB CONCLUSIONS
musical history implicit in him, and hints at later developments in
Faure, Debussy, and Ravel. The two latter played a considerable
part in the re-establishment of Couperin and their attempt, in their
kter work, to reinstate the French classical tradition in place of their
earlier 'nervous' introspection is significant particularly in view of
their preoccupation with the world of Watteau and the Harlequin.
But still more important is the comparison with Faure, because
Faur's technique, as has been pointed out, has a similar combination
of harmonic subtlety in the inner parts with solid line drawing
between melody and bass. Faure, too, is a guardian of civilization
and tradition. His civilization, however, has a less direct relation to a
real world than CouperinV, it is an idealization, in an art form, of
his response to the French tradition. For this reason, perhaps, his
enharmonic fluctuations give to his urbanity a certain precarious-
ness. He cannot aspire to that proud serenity and mastery of styliza-
tion which was natural to Couperin because he lived in a society
which believed in itself, was confident of its values.

Couperin's civilization, as we have previously suggested, was both
real and ideal at the same time. It was real in the sense that it existed
outside his music in the world in which he lived; it was ideal in the
sense that, in his music, he presented the values of his society in a
form distilled of all merely topical and local dross. We have no real
parallel to this in English music. In some ways the civilized quality
of Couperin's music is, in its finest moments, not incomparable with
the urbanity of Ben Jonson. That magnificent poem, To the World,
A Farewell for a Gentlewoman, Virtuous and Noble, mates courtly
elegance with earthy vigour, urbanely balanced movement with
tragic passion, in a manner similar to that which we have noticed in
Couperin's greatest achievements. The exquisiteness of the courtly
lyrical poets, the spirituality of the seventeenth-century devotional
poets, and the immediate vitality of the dramatists and the Donne
tradition meet in Jonson's work; Couperin, too, shows that urbanity,
wit, and courtly grace may exist together with a deeply serious, even
religious, attitude to life. And if we feel that in Couperin there is
more exquisiteness and less earthy vigour, that should not lead us to
underestimate the vigour that is certainly there. Nor is it at all sur-
prising, making allowances for the difference in date and environ-
ment, that Couperin should have many temperamental affinities

287

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THE WORK

with Jonson. During the latter part of Jonson's life, English Caroline
culture was developing in a manner closely parallel to French cul-
ture. Had it not been for the Civil War, it is at least feasible that
Dryden or some other successor to Jonson might have been as con-
vincing in his heroic work as he was in his critical and satirical; that
we might have produced something closer to Racine than in fact we
did. In that case, it is possible that the masque might have developed
into the mature opera; and that Purcell, as successor to Jenkins and
William Lawes, might have been, not a greater genius, but a com-
poser more aristocratically elegant, more precise, more Couperin-
like. By the rime England had evolved her Augustan civilization she
seemed for the most part to have lost an awareness of tragic issues.
Apart from a few passages in Pope, our Augustan age has nothing
comparable with the greatest things in Couperin and Racine.

Couperin is not, of course, a composer whose outlook on life is
fundamentally religious, even mystical, as is Bach; nor has he Bach's
comprehensiveness. In some obvious respects, Alessandro Scarlatti,
La Lande, Handel, and Rameau are all classical baroque composers
on a grander scale than Couperin. None of them, however, comes as
close to Bach as does Couperin in his finest work; none of them has
-anything as aristocratically noble as La Favorite, as spiritual as the
Lefons des Tenebres, as tightly wrought as UApotheose de Corelli or
L'Imperiale, as tragic as La Passacaille, as civilized as La Convakscente.
No doubt Rameau is the key figure with reference to the future of
French musical culture, since his passionately disciplined theatrical
art looks forward to the next supremely great figure in the French
tradition, Berlioz. Yet Couperin himself is not as remote from
Berlioz as one might superficially imagine; and, unlike Rameau, he
also looks back, beyond Lully, to the sixteenth century and even the
Middle Ages. It is hardly too fanciful to suggest that Couperin is a
central link between Lassus, the richest and most multifarious of the
sixteenth-century masters, and Berlioz, the man who, despite his
much vaunted romanticism, is the greatest aristocratic master of
linear draughtsmanship in the nineteenth century.

And then, by way of Faure, Couperin establishes a link with the
modern world. Perhaps the nature of this connection is indicated if
one remarks, in conclusion, that the relation of the classicist Valery
to Racine resembles the relation of Faure's last works to Couperin.
288

Part III

Theory and Practice

De to us les dons naturels le Gout cst cclui qui se sent le
mieux et qui s'explique le moins; il ne seroit pas ce qu'il est, si
Ton pouvait le definir; car il juge des objets sur lesqueLs le
jugement n'a plus de prise, et sert, si j'ose parler ainsi, de
lunettes a la raison, . .

Cliaque homme a un Gout particulier. . . . Mais il y a aussi
un Gout ge'ne'ral sur lequel tous les gens bicn organises
s'accordent; et c'est celui-ci seulement auquel on peut dormer
absolument le nom de Gout.

ROUSSEAU'S T>ictionnairc

Uhe Musique doit tre naturelle, expressive, harmonieuse. . . .
J'apelle a la lettre nature! ce qui est compose de tons qui
s'offirent naturellement, ce qui n'est point compose de tons
recherchez, extraordinaires. . . . J'apelle Expressifun Air dont
les tons conviennent parfaitement aux paroles, et une Sym-
phonie qui exprime parfaitement ce qu'elle veut exprimer.
J'apelle harmonieux, trModieux, agreable, ce qui contente, ce qui
remplit, ce qui chatouille les oreilles.

BONNET, Histoire de la. Musique, 1725

Ce bel Art tout divin par ses douces merveilles,
Ne se contente pas de charmer les oreilles,
N'y d'aller jusqu'au cosur par ses expressions
Emouvoir a son gre toutes les passions:
fl va, passant plus loin, par sa beaute supreme,
Au plus haut de Tesprit charmer la raison meme.

PERHAULT, Le Siecle de Louis le Grand

Chapter Twelve

Couperin's Theoretical Work

THE THEORETICAL WRITINGS of Couperin comprise a small treatise
called Regies pour VAccompagnement; a larger work entitled L'Art de
toucher le Clavecin; and miscellaneous passages in the prefaces to his
published compositions.

The first of these, the Regies pour F Accompagnernent, is an early
work, probably dating from the last years of the seventeenth century.
It is a straightforward account of the methods of treating discord
current in Couperin*s day, and is interesting mainly because it indi-
cates Couperin's familiarity with the most advanced Italian tech-
niques. We may observe that Couperin here, early in his career,
gives theoretical backing to the abstruse dissonances of eleventh and
thirteenth, such as we have called attention to in our discussion of
his music.

The important treatise on clavecin playing was published in 1717,
at the same time as the second book of clavecin pieces, and was re-
issued shortly afterwards. In the preface to the second book of
clavecin works Couperin explains that he had written his didactic
book because it was 'absolument indispensable pour executer mcs
pieces dar* le Gout qui leur convient*. It is not a systematically
planned work, but rather a series of random reflections which
Couperin puts down as they occur to him. Here it will perhaps be
best not to attempt to summarize die contents in the order in which
they appear. Instead, we will arrange Couperin's opinions under a
series of headings, supplementing what he says in L'Art de toucher le
Clavecin with such comments from the Prefaces as seem relevant.

A Hints on Teaching Methods

Couperin begins by explaining his intention in writing his
Methods. Playing the clavecin, he says, is not merely a matter of

291

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THEORY AND PRACTICB

digital facility; it is a question of learning how to interpret, with
sympathy and taste:

La Methode que je donne icy est unique. . . . J'y traite sur toutes
choscs (par principes dctnonstres) du beau Toucher du clavecin. . . . Jc ne
dois point craindre que les gens cclair& s'y meprenncnt; je dois settlement
exhorter les autres a la docuite. Au moins les dois-je assurer tous, que ces
principes sont absolument necessaires pour parvenir a bien exporter mes
Pieces.

He then goes on to discuss the most suitable age to start learning the
instrument:

L'ige propre a commencer les Enfans, est de six a sept ans; non pas que
cela doive exclure les personnes avancees; mais naturellement, pour mouler
et former des mains a Fexercice du Clavecin, le plus t6t est le mieux.

The pkyer should be seated so that his elbows are approximately
level with the keyboard, and his feet resting gently on the floor. In
the case of small children whose legs are too short, it is wise to give
their feet some support, so that they may be securely balanced. The
body should be seated about nine inches from the keyboard.

Little movement of the body is called for in playing the clavecin,
and the beating of time with the head or feet should be avoided. 'A
Tegard des grimaces du visage, on peut s'en corriger soy-mSme en
mettant un miroir sur le pupitre de Tepinette/ In general one's
posture should be attentive but easy. Couperin remarks that, in the
early stages, children should not be allowed to play the clavecin
except in the presence of their teacher or some other responsible per-
son, because left to themselves they can 'd&ranger en un instant ce
que j'ai soigneusement pose en trois quarts d'heure*. He also offers
the sensible advice that it is profitable for children to learn several
pieces by ear and memory before studying notation. Thus they can
early acquire some command of musical expression without being
troubled by the mechanics of music. A very typical touch occurs in
a passage wherein Couperin advocates humility on the part of the
teacher:

II serait bon que les parents, ou ceux qui ont Tinspection g&t&ale sur les
enfans, eussent moins d'impatience, et plus de confiance en celui qui en-
seigne (surs d'avoir fait un bon dbtoix en sa personne) et que Thabile Maitre,
de son c6t6, eut moins de condescendance.

He further insists that a spinet or single manual harpsichord is suffi-
292

COUPBRIN'S THEORETICAL WORK

cient for children, and that it should always be 'emplume tres faible-
xnent', so that litde muscukr force is needed to press down the keys.
Only thus can suppleness and independence of the fingers be de-
veloped; and these qualities are more important than strength.
Douceur de toucher depends on keeping the fingers as close to the keys
as possible: 'La souplesse des nerfs contribue beaucoup plus au bien
jouer, que la force'. This point leads to our second heading:

B. Remarks OH the Nature and Technique of the Instrument

Les sons du clavecin etant decides, chaeun en particulier, et par consequent
ne pouvant ctre curie's ni diminues, il a paru presquc insoutenable jusqu'au
present qu'on put donner de Tame a cet instrument; cependant, par les
rccherches dont j'ai appuye le pcu de naturel que le del m'a donne, je vais
tacher de faire comprendre par quelles raisons j'ai su acquerir le bonheur de
toucher les personnes de gout.

H faut surtout se rendre tres delicat au ckvier et avoir toujours un instru-
ment bien emplume. Je comprens cependant qu'il y a des gens a qui ccla
peut tre indifferent, parce qu'ils jouent egalement mal sur quelque instru-
ment que soit.

These quotations indicate how Couperin regarded the clavecin as an
instrument capable of conveying great emotional sensibility; the
technique of fingering and ornamentation which he describes later is
the means whereby this sensitivity is realized. The French style is
essentially a clavecin style, the Italian a violin and sonata style. *Les
personnes mdiocrement habiles' prefer the Italian manner because
it is more obvious, less dependent on subtleties of phrasing and orna-
mentation. But the clavecin 'a ses proprietes, commc le violon a les
siennes. Si le clavecin n'enfle point ses sons, si les battements re-
double's sur une m&ne note nc lui conviennent pas estremement, il a
d'autrcs avantages, qui sont la precision, la netete, le brillant, et
I'&endue'.

With this passage from UArt de toucher we may correlate two
passages from the preface to the first book:

L'usage m'a fait connoitre que les mains vigoureuses et capables d'executer
ce qu'il y a de plus rapide et de plus leger ne sont pas toujours cellcs qui
reussissent le mieux dans les pieces tendres et du sentiment; et j'avoueray de
bonne foy que j'ayme mieux ce qui me touche que ce qui me surprend;

and

Le clavecin est parfait quant a son &endue et brillant par luy-ineme; mais,

293

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: THEORY AND PRACTICE

comme on ne peut enfler ny diminuer ses sons, je sjauray toujours gre* a
ceux qui, par un art infini soutenu par le gout, pourront arrivcr a rendre cet
instrument susceptible d'expression; c'est a quoy mes ancetres se sont
appliques, independamment de la belle composition de leurs pieces; j'ay
tache de perfectionner leurs decouvertes; leurs ouvrages sont encore du
gout de ceux qui Font exquis.

Couperin concludes this part of his treatise with some advice which
we have seen to be admirably demonstrated in his own practice:

Pour conclure sur le toucher du clavecin en general, mon sentiment est de
ne point s'eloigner du caractere qui y convient Les passages, les batteries
a portee de la main, les choses enters et syncopes, doivent etre pre'fe're'es &
celles qui sont pleines de tenues, ou de notes trop graves, fl faut conserver
une liaison parfaite dans ce qu'on execute; que tous les agr&nens soient bien
precis; que ceux qui sont composes de batemens soient faits bien galement,
et par une gradation imperceptible. Prendre bien garde a ne point alte'rer
le mouvement dans les pieces regimes; et a ne point rester sur les notes dont
la valeur soit pince. Enfin former son jeu sur le bon gout d'aujourd'hui qui
est sans comparaison plus pur que TAncien.

This last sentence is sociologically interesting, with reference to the
values of Couperin's society and eighteenth-century notions of
Progress and Perfectability. The rest of the quotation provides a
transition from Couperin's consideration of the nature and tech-
nique of his instrument, to the first of the means whereby the instru-
ment is rendered 'susceptible d' expression*.

C. Comments on Tempo and Rhythm

Couperin's comments on rhythm and movement are of great
importance, being one of the sources for our knowledge of the
rhythmic conventions of the early eighteenth century. He explains
that the French style has been underestimated in other countries he
is thinking, mainly, of Italy because our pieces are not played as
they are notated, whereas 'les Italiens ecrivent leur musique dans les
vrayes valeurs qu'ils Tont pensee'. Since our pieces have a descrip-
tive intent, they are played freely; we use words, such as tendrement
or vtvement, to indicate the mood of the piece, and it would be help-
ful if these words could be translated for the benefit of foreigners.
Moreover, we differentiate mesure from mouvement, whereas the
Italian sonatas 'ne sont gueres susceptible de cette cadence*. 'Mesure
definit la qualite et 1'egalite des temps, et Cadence est proprement
294

COUPERIN'S THEORETICAL WORK

Tesprit et 1'Ame qu'il y faut joindre/ 'La cadence et le Gout
peuvent s'y conserver independamment du plus ou du moins
de lenteur.' Here the term cadence seems to mean lilt and subtlety
of movement; we may compare die definition in Rousseau's
Dictionnaire:

Cadence est une qualite de la bonne Musiquc, qui donne a ccux qui
l'excutent ou qui 1'ecoutent, un sentiment vif de la mesure, ensuite qu'ils
la marquent et la sentent tomber a propos, sans qu'ils y pensent et comme
par instinct 'Cette chaconne manque de Cadence/

This use of the term should not be confused with its significance in
the air de cour, where it means a trill preceded by an appoggiatura,
usually occurring in a cadential phrase.

But although the French pieces are free in movement, there is
nothing haphazard about them. Even the tendre pieces should not be
played too slowly, owing to the short sustaining power of the instru-
ment. Mesure (metre) must always be respected; esprit must be ob-
tained through gout and cadence. The correct interpretation of these
irregularities of movement is one of the most difficult of all the
problems involved in early eighteenth-century music.

Dolmetsch's discussion of the conventional alterations of rhythm
seems to me the least satisfactory part of his invaluable book, because
he does not explain the complicated conditions which regulated the
employment of these effects. These conditions are, however, des-
cribed in detail in E. Sorrel's article on 'Les notes inegales dans
Fancienne musique fran^aise', published in the Revue de Musicologie
of November 1931. Sorrel's case is based entirely on contemporary
documents, so by supplementing Couperin's own very ambiguous
pronouncements on the subject with the testimony of the other
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century authorities quoted by Borrel,
we may hope to obtain some coherent notion of the correct inter-
pretation of Couperin's rhythms.

The tradition of notes inegales goes back, in French music, as far as
the early years of the sixteenth century, but the first important and
detailed statement on the subject is that of Loulie in 1696. According
to him, in any time, but especially in triple rhythms, there are three
possible ways of playing notes of half-beat value. Firstly the notes
may be all played equally. This method is called Detacher, and is used
in all passages which proceed by degrez interrompiis (i.e. by disjunct

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FRANCOIS COUPEJUN: THEORY AND PRACTICE

motion). In passages moving by conjunct motion, when a detacher
effect is intended, it is customary to place dots over the notes; these
dots do not indicate staccato, but merely the rather more weighty
effect which even playing gives to the notes, in contrast with the
habitually flexible treatment.

Secondly, the first note of each pair may be played slightly longer
than the second. This effect is known as Lower, and is used in passages
which proceed by conjunct motion. Thirdly, in passages in which
the first note of a pair has a dot affixed to it, the first note should be
very much elongated; this effect is called Pointer or Piquer. The terms
pointer, piquer 9 marteler, passer and tourer kter became more or
less synonymous; where dots are included in the written score a
more exaggerated effect is of course intended. The whole