Couperin et le Clavecin: An Examination of 17th-Century Harpsichord Music in France

Erika Gundesen, History 121: Final Paper

February 23, 2009
Introduction

In an era when instrumental music gained new independence from vocal genres, the

keyboard idiom came into its own for the first time. As a group of instruments rarely

used before the 17th and 18th centuries other than for continuo accompaniment, the

advances that occurred during this time were highly significant for keyboard repertoire

for many centuries to come.

Nowhere was this dramatic evolution more apparent than in France under the reign of

King Louis XIV, where some of the most important advancements of the period occurred

in every aspect of music. France’s resistance to foreign and particularly Italian musical

dominance led to an era of uninterrupted cultivation of national styles; all vocal and

instrumental music preserved a distinct character as a result1. The following discussion

will illustrate that the music of the French claveciniste school was both influential and

innovational.

Important Genres

Most of the genres of keyboard music can be traced back to instrumental forms of the

Renaissance, and can also be recognized throughout the later Baroque and in some cases

even Classical and Romantic eras. These include preludes, ricercares, and intonaziones,

which are generally used as introductory pieces to suites or larger works. The

unmeasured prelude, with its specific and inventive notation, was also a French

development. Fugal, imitative genres included the fantasia and the capriccio; other works

imitated vocal music, such as the organ-mass.

1
Claude V. Palisca. Baroque Music, 2nd ed. (Yale University, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1981), 175.

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 Sets of variations such as the partite were also popular, although less improvisatory

then other works. The basis for variations could be a religious tune or even a popular

melody. English virginal composers (a major influence on the French school – see

below) such as William Byrd (1540-1623) wrote highly virtuosic and very imaginative

works, including such works as the variations on “John, Come Kiss Me Now.” In this

piece, the melody appears in every variation, rather like the cantus firmus technique of

earlier masses.2 Variations were also important as an expansive factor for the melodies

and rhythms in dance music, which was by far the most important form developed by the

clavecinistes.

Because of the importance of instrumental music in accompanying dancing and ballet

at the court of Louis XIV, it is not surprising that dance music and especially the dance

suite are the most recognized works from the French school. The independence of

keyboard music is once again demonstrated in that these pieces were not actually meant

for dancing, but rather for the entertainment of the performer and the audience. The most

important dances were the moderate allemande, the quick courante, the slow sarabande,

and the lively gigue.

As will be discussed below, the suite developed in various different ways through

innovations by individual composers, including Chambonnières and François Couperin.

The gradual shift from modality to tonality, for example, can clearly be seen; the French

composers and teachers were the first to cast off the church modes of the past because of

their isolation from Italian traditions.3 However, the basic structures of the dances

generally remained the same, using familiar rhythms and often the traditional binary

2
Palisca, Baroque, 85.
3
Ibid, 188.

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form. These features, along with the elaborate ornamentation and style brisé that became

so well recognized in the French repertoire, were often included in genres outside dance

music as well.

Influences

Although the French school developed a unique national style, there was one foreign

influence that truly changed the world of keyboard music in France as well as other

countries in the Baroque era: the music of the English virginalists. As was mentioned

before, composers such as William Byrd as well as John Bull (1562-1628), Giles Farnaby

(1563-1640), and John Munday (1550-1630) wrote for genres that later appeared in

French repertoire, including dance music and variations. The most influential collection

from this period is the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, the primary source of keyboard music

from the late 16th century and early 17th century.

Typical virginal pieces used a variety of textures, from complex counterpoint to

simple blocked chords, all with a clear sense of harmonic direction. The motives were

generally short and often repeated; the variations form was common, with more

ornamentation added to each version of the main theme. Many composers, especially

Bull, used virtuosic techniques such as rapid repeated notes and extensive leaps.4

French composers adopted the idea of light-hearted imagination present in many of

these pieces.5 Some important technical elements also include the whimsical or

fantastical titles, which were used instead of the name of the dance. Lute composers such

as Denis Gaultier (see below) used titles such as LʼHomicide, or names of mythological

characters, as a type of dedication. This is also apparent in François Couperin’s ordres; in

4
John Caldwell, et al. "Keyboard music." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/14945pg1 (accessed January 28, 2009).
5
Prof. Manfred F. Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era – from Monteverdi to Bach. (New York: W.W.
Norton & Company, Inc., 1947), 169.

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his eighth suite in b minor, for instance, a slow and intense allemande is entitled La

Raphaéle. Other pieces were nicknamed Les Gondoles, LʼArlequine, and LʼAudacieuse,

named for their musical “personality” or even as literary illusions.6

English composers were also the first to use symbols for their ornaments; before then,

everything was meticulously written out or improvised by the performer. Many French

publications soon contained tables explaining the figuration for their ornaments or

agréments, which provided shape or character to the melody7. These included

suspensions, trills or tremblements, appoggiaturas, mordents or pincements, turns or

double cadences, and arpeggiations.

Another important influence on the school was more local: the music of Jean-Baptiste

Lully (1632-1687), the favourite composer of Louis XIV. Although his most

recognizable contributions are his wonderful operas, his work with the Baroque orchestra

was considerable and far-reaching. Because of the natural musical resources of the

clavecin, some composers including Jean-Henri dʼAnglebert (1629-1691, see below)

could actually imitate orchestral sonorities through rich and complex textures.8 The

French overture and air can also be seen in some later keyboard suites. Some were

original compositions, while others were direct transcriptions of Lully’s works; such was

his popularity.

By far the most important influence on clavecin music was another instrumental

idiom that was also associated with continuo accompaniment: the lute. The reason

behind this transfer of styles between two such different instruments was actually to do

with social perception; the lute was considered to be an instrument of the nobility, and
6
Palisca, Baroque, 191.
7
Kenneth Kreitner, et al. "Ornaments." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/49928pg7 (accessed January 20, 2009).
8
Bukofzer, Music, 171.

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many nobles as well as the king were competent players. Countless collections of lute

music were published during the Renaissance and early Baroque, and the lute played a

key role in the French ballets and airs de cour.

The lute rose to prominence with the music of Denis Gaultier (1603-1672), which

included his Piéces de luth in 1669. This collection included stylized dances, preludes,

and tombeaux (musical epitaphs, often with abstract forms and dance rhythms.) Other

members of the Gaultier family, such as Jacques and Ennemond Gaultier, were also well-

known lute composers; however, it was because of the work of Denis that the idiom came

into its own. Like the later clavecin composers, he arranged dances into collections;

however, they had no set order and were much more like anthologies than suites, with a

great variety and frequent doubles of movements such as the popular courante.

The central elements of the lute style included complex ornamentation and free-

voiced texture, as well as the decidedly important style brisé. This method of writing

came into being for the lute because of the quick declining of the sound from the plucked

strings. The texture became very free and polyphonic, with fast alternating notes in

different registers which gave the appearance of various voices in one continuous sound;

double and triple stops allowed the essential dance rhythms to come through. The

ornaments that are expressive decorations in clavecin music are a necessity to sustain the

voices and show rhythmic stress in lute music.

An interesting observation is that the shift of styles from lute to clavecin was not truly

a natural transition. While the style brisé was a necessity for the lute due to technical

limitations, it didn’t suit the new instrument at all because of its greater sustaining power.

Despite this, the harpsichordists diligently imitated the lute’s musical language until it

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became a premeditated, deliberate, and perfected style that contrasted for the first time

with the music of the other most important keyboard instrument, the organ. The melody

was ornate with sparkling rhythmic ornamentation and arpeggiated accompaniment, a

style that persisted from Chambonnières to the Couperins.9

Historical Development

Jacques de Chambonnières (1602-1672) is considered by many to be the founder of

the French claveciniste school; he was harpsichordist for the French court under Louis

XIII as well as Louis XIV and became highly renowned for his skill as a performer and

his influence as a composer. He was the first to emulate the style of the lute composers

such as Denis Gaultier, for example with ornamentation and free-voiced texture.

The sound and technique of the plucked strings of the lute was evident through

arpeggiated chords, suspensions, and other elements of the style brisé. However,

Chambonnières also experimented with the resources offered by his own instrument; an

expanded range, powerful chords at the culmination of pieces, and percussive elements

not possible on the former instrument.10

Chambonnières followed Gaultier’s model for suites in his major work, the Pièces de

clavecin in 1670, including stylized dances or character pieces with the literary or

representative titles of the English virginalists. He also wrote tombeaux, again in

imitation of his contemporary, using powerful lyricism. His dance suites established the

French tradition of unification by key (with the occasional exception of dances appearing

in the opposite mode for distinction), although he created as much other contrast as

9
Bukofzer, Music, 169
10
Palisca, Baroque, 185

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possible between movements. This differs from the German style on the other side of the

continent, in which thematic material often joined dance movements together.11

Chambonnières’ students included Louis Couperin, Nicolas Lebègue, and Jean-Henri

d’Anglebert; together, they formed the next generation of clavecin composers. Couperin

(1626-1661) was a notable viol player as well as harpsichordist, and worked at the

Church of Saint-Gervais. Lebègue (1631-1702) was an organist at St. Merry’s as well as

for the king. D’Anglebert (1629-1691) was a composer and harpsichordist at the court of

Louis XIV. Overall they continued in the style of their teacher, exploring the range of the

harpsichord while retaining the traditional style of the lute; they also were responsible for

important innovations in their own right, however.

Louis Couperin was known for his exploration of all the keys that were made possible

by mean-tone temperament. His music overall had a very severe nature in comparison to

other French writing, with an aggressive use of dissonance. The influence of Gaultier is

shown in the free, rhapsodic character of his preludes (leading to the unmeasured

preludes developed by Lebègue), some with very liberal rhythmic notation that left much

up to the performer. However, he also made use of strict counterpoint in many of his

compositions, which included works for clavecin, viol, and organ.

Nicolas Lebègue took notions of harmony and chromaticism further than his

contemporaries, choosing to include in his suites dances in relative major and minor keys

and pushing the limits of tonality in a way that foreshadowed the work of much later

Baroque composers.12 His work was also more formal than that of his contemporaries; he

dispenses with fanciful titles in favour of more musical ones, for example the Chaconne

11
Bukofzer, Music, 170
12
Ibid, 172.

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grave in his second book of harpsichord pieces.13 As was mentioned before, he published

the first unmeasured preludes. Lebègue wrote music for harpsichord and organ, and was

also one of the first to write organ suites.

Finally, Jean-Henri d’Anglebert expanded on Chambonnières’ ideas of using the

entire clavecin to its full potential in terms of range, texture, and full sonorities that recall

the French baroque orchestra. His dance movements were overall much longer, but he

maintained the traditional binary form. His influences are well represented in his only

published work, Pièces de clavecin (1689), which along with numerous suites contains

transcriptions of Lully’s orchestral works and a tombeau dedicated to his teacher.

François Couperin

Some of the greatest and most important musical and theoretical works of the French

claveciniste school were written by François Couperin (1668-1733), youngest and

greatest of the famous Couperin dynasty. After his father’s death, he was trained by the

organist of St-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie. He eventually inherited the post of organist at

Saint-Gervais; soon, Couperin was given royal privilege to publish his works, leading to

an eventual appointment as organiste du roi in 1693 at Louis XIV’s court. At the height

of his career he was unmatched as a teacher and composer for harpsichord and organ;

many of his works were also known abroad.14 His four livres of harpsichord music and

his treatise L’art de toucher le clavecin (1716) are still well known today.

Although Couperin, unlike many of his contemporaries, was very attracted to the

Italian style and interested in a possible joining of French and Italian styles (this is

apparent, for instance, in his trio sonatas), he remained true to the French style in most of
13
Edward Higginbottom. "Lebègue, Nicolas." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/16188 (accessed January 31, 2009).
14
David Fuller, et al. "Couperin." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40182pg4 (accessed February 2, 2009).

9
his works for clavecin. His melodies were simple and natural in character with rich and

expressive harmonic content; he used dissonances such as 7ths and 9ths for expression,

and his contrapuntal works showed a mastery of the style. 15 His exceedingly influential

ornamentation was used for expressivity, for example at cadences or climaxes; ornaments

also demonstrated points of rhythmic stress. However, it should be noted that his pieces

overall are not excessively virtuosic, as they were mainly meant for amateurs to play for

their own enjoyment rather than for an audience.

Couperin developed the French clavecin suite to its full potential, with twenty-seven

ordres in his four books of keyboard works. The suite was presented not as a collection

of works from which a few movements could be selected for performance, but rather a

complete work with contrast, variety, and continuity not restricted to unification by key

only. The position of each dance was important; for example, a tradition began of ending

the suite with a light-hearted movement such as the gigue.16 François Couperin was, on

the whole, one of the most celebrated and influential members of the school.

Conclusion

The importance of the work of the French clavecinistes can be easily seen in the

extraordinary reach of their influence. The style brisé, for instance, was soon adopted by

the organ as well despite the striking contrast from typical idiomatic works for the

instrument. Furthermore, the French style reached across the continent; German

composers such as Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667) travelled to Paris and brought

new musical ideas back to their homeland. The harpsichord suites of Froberger were a

vital influence on the music of famous composers including Johann Pachelbel, Dietrich

15
Fuller, “Couperin.”
16
Palisca, Baroque, 192.

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Buxtehude, George Frederic Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,

and Ludwig van Beethoven.

The music of Bach in particular demonstrates the great respect he had for the French

keyboard style. One need only look at his many keyboard suites (some are even called

‘Frenchʼ suites), which contain the typical stylized dances as well as many similar

ornaments. The introductory prelude to the fourth partita in D Major, for instance, almost

directly imitates the French overture with a slow opening section in double-dotted rhythm

followed by a faster fugal section.

The use of ornaments for expression or rhythmic accent rather than for the sustaining

of harmonies, an idea perfected by François Couperin, can also be seen much further in

the future. Trills, turns, and other ornaments are prominent in the Classical piano sonatas

of Mozart and Beethoven, for instance. Even Frédéric Chopin in the Romantic era used

elaborate passagework in many pieces, such as the Piano Concerto in f minor, as a form

of variation or to convey intimate emotions.

Overall, the French claveciniste school helped bring forth the keyboard as a

noteworthy and powerful instrument for the first time. Composers from Chambonnières

to the great François Couperin expanded the resources and the repertoire of the clavecin

with innovations that made the genre hardly recognizable from earlier eras; capable of the

same sonorities as an entire orchestra or chamber group, the independent clavecin

became one of the most important elements of a highly influential time in music history.

Bibliography

Bukofzer, Manfred F. “French Music Under the Absolutism,” in Music In The Baroque
Era - From Monteverdi To Bach, 164-173. New York: W.W. Norton Publishing, 1947.

11
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