1668–1733 · France · Baroque
François Couperin (1668–1733) was a French composer, organist and harpsichordist of the Baroque era, one of the notable members of the Couperin family of hereditary musicians. He is known above all for harpsichord pieces with descriptive titles. The site holds his pieces at elementary+ and intermediate level — a good place to start getting to know his music.
François Couperin was born on 10 November 1668 in Paris, into a family of hereditary musicians. The Couperins came from Chaumes-en-Brie and were one of the largest musical dynasties in France in the 17th and 18th centuries. The composer's father, Charles Couperin, served as organist at the Paris church of Saint-Gervais, a post his older brother, the harpsichordist and composer Louis Couperin, had held before him until his promising career ended in an early death. Besides the organ and harpsichord, Couperin also played the violin, the viola da gamba and the harp. For his skill as a performer and composer he was given the name "Couperin le Grand" — this is how his contemporaries set him apart from the other musicians of the family.
François began learning music from his father even before he could read or write; he never received a general education, and his letters showed a rather loose spelling and style. Charles Couperin died in 1679. The boy had already shown enough talent by then for his right to inherit his father's post as organist at Saint-Gervais to be secured, though, following the family custom of "survivance" — passing a post on within the family — the post was held for him, until he came of age, by Michel-Richard de Lalande. François's teacher became the organist Jacques Thomelin, who also served as one of the organists of the Royal Chapel at Versailles; according to his biographer Évrard Titon du Tillet, Thomelin was extremely kind to the boy and came to feel like a second father to him. Couperin's talent, it seems, showed itself early: already by 1685, before any formal contract was in place, the church council of Saint-Gervais had begun paying him a stipend.
At twenty-one Couperin lost his mother, Marie Guérin, though otherwise fortune generally seems to have favoured his life and career. In 1689 he married Marie-Anne Ansault, the daughter of a prosperous family, and a year later his collection of organ masses, Pièces d'orgue, appeared and was praised by Delalande. A few years after that, having proven himself as a player, Couperin obtained the post of court organist, succeeding his teacher Jacques Thomelin in that role. The sovereign himself valued his musicianship highly, and Couperin was named one of the four organists of the Royal Chapel, who served in turn by quarters of the year. Some time later Couperin also became court harpsichordist. The new post brought him into contact with well-known musicians and the court nobility; around that time he began writing his first chamber music, combining his court duties with his post as organist at Saint-Gervais. In 1693–1695, in a dispute with the Menestrandise, an old guild corporation, Couperin joined colleagues from the Royal Chapel in a lawsuit defending the right to teach music without becoming a member of it.
Couperin was of fragile health and a rather unsociable temperament, yet he pursued a respectable career as a musician and teacher and was held in esteem by the nobility. In the eyes of that same nobility, only Louis Marchand could rival him in skill. He carried out his duties at court and at Saint-Gervais with reserve and modesty. It was above all his harpsichord works that brought Couperin fame and led his contemporaries to regard him, alongside Jean-Philippe Rameau, as the leading master of that instrument in France.
In 1713 Couperin obtained a royal privilège to publish his works and that same year issued the first of four books of harpsichord pieces; in all, four such books appeared by 1730 — in 1713, 1717, 1722 and 1730 — bringing together 27 suites ("ordres"). Couperin did not use the word "suite", calling his collections "ordres" instead — a usage some of his colleagues and admirers went on to imitate. In 1716 a teaching manual, L'art de toucher le clavecin, appeared; it was withdrawn and reissued the following year, 1717. That same year, 1717, brought Couperin one of the highest court musical posts: he became a permanent musician of the king's chamber music, playing the harpsichord. After the death of Louis XIV in 1715, Couperin's involvement in the court's musical life may have lessened.
Couperin's health declined in the 1720s: by 1723 he needed the help of a cousin at Saint-Gervais. Among his last publications were Pièces de violes of 1728 and the fourth book of harpsichord pieces of 1730. In 1730 Couperin gave up his post, handing it to his daughter Marguerite-Antoinette; the post of court harpsichordist passed to her at the same time. From 1724 the family lived in a Paris house that still stands today, at the point where the rue Radziwill meets the rue des Petits Champs. The composer died in Paris on 11 September 1733.
Couperin wrote mostly for the harpsichord — more than 250 pieces of varied mood, almost every one under its own, often appealing title: Les papillons ("The butterflies"), Les barricades mystérieuses ("The mysterious barricades"), Les fauvetes plaintives ("The plaintive warblers") and many others; such titles usually have no settled translation. These pieces lean toward light salon music and, genre-wise, are mostly stylisations of the fashionable social dances of the day — the allemande, courante, sarabande, gavotte and gigue. Couperin grouped individual pieces into suites he called "ordres", and the suites themselves into books ("livres"): the books appeared in 1713, 1717, 1722 and 1730 and together made up 27 suites.
Couperin also wrote ensemble and sacred music. Among his instrumental ensembles are the 1714 collection Les concerts royaux ("Royal concerts"), whose pieces carry the first four numbers, and the 1724 collection Nouveaux concerts, ou les goûts réunis ("New concerts, or Tastes united"), which continues the numbering from five through fourteen, as well as L'Apothéose de Lully (1725). His known sacred works are two organ masses and three pieces collectively called Leçons de ténèbres. The teaching treatise L'art de toucher le clavecin (1716) offers advice on fingering, touch and ornamentation; attached to it are eight preludes, each set in the key of a piece from his first two harpsichord books, together with an Allemande written in the Italian manner. The site brings together Couperin pieces with Latin titles. At elementary+ level are the trio Precatio ad Deum ("Prayer to God"), the trio Dialogus inter Jesum et hominem ("Dialogue between Jesus and man"), the trio Aspiratio mentis ad Deum ("The soul's longing for God") and several preludes from that same treatise, L'Art de toucher le clavecin. At intermediate level are the duet Salve Regina, the ensemble piece Salvum me fac Deus ("Save me, God") and the duet Usquequo Domine ("How long, O Lord"). The elementary+ pieces are the easiest place to start getting to know Couperin's music on the site.