LES FASTES DE LA GRANDE

ET
ANCIENNE MENESTRANDISE
The Annalsof the Great and Ancient Minstrelsy

LES FOLIES FRANÇAISES

PIÈCES DE CLAVECIN

AIMEE VAN DE WIELE

HARPSICHORD

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_H-1037 (mono)
H-71037 (stereo)

François Couperin le Grand was born in 1668 and died in independents protested to the King and on both occasions the
1733, a lifetime just 17 years ahead of Bach's. ‘Though to an extent composers won their freedom from those whom they felt were
they spoke the same musical language, these two lived musical mere musical tradesmen. Coujerin's satire puts them neatly in
worlds apart, each the inheritor of a great tradition. Perhaps this guise and in the process gives us an enlightening look at the
nowhere else can we more easily hear the difference between them popular music of the day, which Couperin clearly knew very well.
than in their keyboard works. To compare with.the-srehades -and- Æt is obvious, for instance, that in this time, before the chordal
fugues of Bach, the Italian Concerto, the Goldberg Variations, music of high society had penetrated to it, village and street music
the Bach suites both English and French (about as French as was full of the instrumental drone style that survives today mainly
French fries), this recording offers a fine cross-section of the in bagpipes and: in some of our older American mountain folk
Couperin oeuvre, as published by him in four books (1713, 1717, music.
1722 and 1730) divided into twenty-seven ordres—loose suites of The five little pieces bring us the Notables and Jurists
short pieces in the same key, each piece given a fanciful title in (referring perhaps to the trial before the King), the “vielle
the French manner. (The figures next to the pieces in the listing players,” an ancient violin-like instrument against a mock-solemn
(1668-1733)
given at the top of this page indicate the book and ordre from bourdon bass, then a brace of jugglers, monkeys, bears and what-
which each piece stems.) Many of them are musical portraits of not—cruel description of the Ménétriers (minstrels), were it not

AIMEE VAN DE WIELE, HARPSICHORD

the notables about the Court of Louis XIV; they are as well, for the charm of the music. Then come cripples, pensioners
collectively, an excellent portrait of Couperin himself. (shades of the musicians’ pension fund!) and finally, total rout
Couperin’s keyboard works are useless as piano music. So and disorder, occasioned by the drunks, the monkeys and the bears.
long as the grand pianoforte of Chopin and Liszt maintained its L'Attendrissante, slow music in a low register (Band 3)
musical “hegemony,” this gentle, colorful art was hopelessly lost speaks of some cryptically sad soul, perhaps known to contem-
to us. Unlike many of Bach’s keyboard works it is specifically porary listeners, if not to us. Le tic-toc-choc (Band 4) reverts to
idiomatic, composed for the harpsichord alone like the hundreds whimsy and a clock-like rhythm. (“Maillots,” says Mellers, are
of short works by that other great harpsichordist, Domenico swaddling clothes, i.e., diapers—is this a child’s toy?) La Favorite
SIDE ONE
Scarlatti. The background for this music is in fact remote from (Band 5) is indeed a major Couperin favorite, a characteristic
PRELUDE (L’ART DE TOUCHER the piano; it is more closely allied to the French school of lute rondeau made up of a memorable opening musical idea of
LE CLAVECIN, #7) 2:45 music and to the immense store of sophisticated secular music downward chromatics and expressive sevenths, alternating with
LES FASTES DE LA GRANDE ET for plucked strings that had dominated the musical world of the a series of intervening couplets, increasingly vigorous.
ANCIENNE MXNXSTRXNDXSX (II/11) 9:37 educated nobility in Europe for centuries back.
It is not often enough realized that until the end of the SIDE TWO. Le Carillon de Cythére (Band 1) suggests ethereal
Ist Act: Les Notables et Jurés
sixteenth century the sound of plucked strings—from dozens of bells in a mythical pseudo-Greek paradise. (The modern equi-
2nd Act: Les Viéleux et les Gueux
different instruments of all sizes and shades of tone—was a valent would be Shangri-la, or perhaps the movie’s Isle of Capri.)
3rd Act: Les Jongleurs, Sauteurs et
common and expected sound. For example, Thomas Morley's The work may have been for organ. Les Barricades mystérieuses
Saltimbanques avec les Ours
First Booke of Consort Lessons, published in 1599, was scored for (Band 2) are, Mellers suggests, no more than musical barricades,
et les Singes the lyric suspensions that continually block resolution of the,
Ath Act: Les Invalides: ou gens Estropiés a “broken consort” that included no less than three plucked
instruments, the treble lute, the cittern and the strangely named harmonies. Les Ombres Errantes (Band 3), wandering ghosts,
au service de la Grande
pandora. Even Monteverdi's huge instrumental ageregations, a would seem to be a-political, merely a somewhat lugubrious
Ménestrandise
few decades before Couperin’s birth, included large numbers of fantasy.
5th Act: Désorde et déroute de toute
plucked instruments. It is from this recent background and from Les Calotins et les Calotines (Band 4) refers to a then
la troupe causés par les
Yvrognes, les Singes et les Ours the long courtly tradition of music for the lute that the harpsi- current secret society of young people, mostly from military circles
chord music of Couperin sterns. The clavecin (French for harpsi- who in the decreasing decline of the court’s former splendor, as
L'ATTENDRISSANTE (111/18) a7
chord) was merely an ingeniously mechanized producer of this Louis XIV withdrew more and more, organized a mock-regiment
LE TIC-TOC-CHOC, ou LES MAILLOTINS (111/18) 2:10 which produced witty poetry and burlesque dramatics to protest
once-common sound whereby much more elaborate musical tex-
LA FAVORITE (1/3) 6:40 tures could be performed than via the fingers unaided. the lack of gaiety. Their half-improvised entertainments were
The pleasant French tradition of attaching fanciful ttles done from makeshift stages—perhaps, Mellers suggests, “Trétous”’
SIDE TWO to short instrumental pieces, still extant in Debussy and Ravel, in the title means “trétaus,” the trestles which supported them.
dates from before Couperin. It, too, goes back to plucked music, Le Rossignol en amour (Band 5) is one of many bird pieces, a
LE CARILLON DE CYTHERE (I11/14) 2:25 particularly poignant one. If, as one modern clavecinist suggested
to the airs de cour for solo voice and lute and to a parallel school
LES BARRICADES MYSTERIEUSES (11/6) 2:58 of precieux lute music of the earlier part of the century whose to this writer, it is the carnal act being described, then the allusion
LES OMBRES ERRANTES (I1V/25) 2:26 somewhat foppish composers wrote cryptic titles to their elegant is even more delicate in terms of music. L’Arlequine (Band 6)
LES CALOTINS ET LES CALOTINES pieces, intended strictly for the fashionable elite that was in the brings in the Italian comedia dellarte, already widely popular in
ou La PIECE À TRETOUS (111/19) 3:05 know. That tradition persisted into Couperin where it met a France and points to Couperin’s well known rapprochement oi
LE ROSSIGNOL EN AMOUR (III/14) 2:37 erander soul and became that gentle, sharp-edged but forgiving the French and Italian musical art. La Garnier (Band 7)—
L'ARLEQUINE (IV/23) 1:51 satire that so delighted Couperin’s numerous followers in the referring to a masculine subject (ie. La Pièce Garnier or
LA GARNIER (1/2) 3:54 declining years of the great Sun King. Today only an immensely “Garnier’s Piece”) is a portrait of Couperin’s friend and organist
LES FOLIES FRANCAISES ou LES detailed knowledge of the whole picture of court life under Louis co-worker, Gabriel Garnier.
DOMINOS (III/13) 9:15 XIV can hope to explain most of Couperin’s titles. Fortunately, Les Folies Françaises ou Les Dominos (Band 8) is another
Ist Couplet: La Virginité (sous le they are not vital to an understanding of the music itself though larger-scale collection, this time in the form or a chaconne-type
Domino couleur d’invisible) they give us interesting clues as to the composer's thinking and set of variations. As per the word-play of the title, it is not only
2nd Couplet: La Pudeur (sous le the temper of the times. The following explanations are mostly a humorous comment on human ‘foibles, the ‘‘follies” of life, but is
Domino couleur de rose) derived from Wilfred Mellers’ excellent book “François Couperin also a pun on the fact that the piece is built upon a version of
3rd Couplet: L’Ardeur (sous le Domino incarnat) and the French Classical Tradition.” the Spanish dance (Folia) which was a favorite subject for varia-
4th Couplet: L’Espérance (sous le Domino vert) SIDE ONE. Prelude from L’Art de toucher le clavecin (Band 1). tions, the most famous perhaps being Corelli’s well known “La
5th Couplet: La Fidélité (sous le Domino bleu) Couperin was one of those rare literate composers whose use of Folia” for violin and continuo, Each of the characters who parade
6th Couplet: La Persévérance (sous le the written language was graceful and communicative. His treatise on the invisible musical stage is dressed in a domino costume of a
* Domino gris de lin) of 1716, “The Art of Playing the Harpsichord” is a thorough guide different symbolic color. Virginity’s domino is quite invisible,
7th Couplet: La Langueur (sous le Domino violet) to his own music and yet is far from a pedantic book of rules, while Modesty’s is a blushing rose. Ardor, next, is incarnat, Hope
8th Coupiet: La Coqueterie (sous diférens There is, indeed, living music in the book, specially composed by is green and Faithfulness blue, unaccustomed tints. At the sixth
Dominos) the writer to illustrate his points. This prelude is in itself a variation (couplet), symbolism waxes surrealistic—Perseverence is
9th Couplet: Les vieux Galans et les splendid opening portrait of the composer with its grave, stately linen-gray, Languor is violet; Coquettery parades, of course, under
Trésorieres suranées motion, dignified, elegant yet profoundly human. many colors. The Ancient Gallants and Superannuated ‘Treasurers
(sous des Dominos pourpres Les fastes de la grande et ancienne Mxnxstrxndxsx march under dominoes of purple and the color of dead leaves
et feuilles mortes) (Ménestrandise) (Band 2) is a five-act satire with a very real (M. Dali please note) while the Benevolent Cuckoos appear under
10th Couplet: Les Coucous bénévoles background of embittered warfare between an ancient guild of their traditional yellow, for cuckoldry. Taciturn Jealousy is in
(sous des Dominos jaunes) professional musicians and a group of independent composers dirty gray and, at the last, Frenzy, or Despair is all in black. The
11th Couplet: La Jalousie taciturne including Couperin. Les Ménétriers, originally a medieval guild whole motley crowd parades before us in imagination while
(sous le Domino gris de maure) out of the fourteenth century, had been reconstituted in 1659 as Couperin’s music traverses some of the finest pages of variation
12th Couplet: La Frénésie, ou le a kind of musicians’ union and had thereupon tried to gain form in the harpsichord literature.
Désespoir (sous le Domino noir) control of all French music as a licensing organization. ‘Twice the EDWARD TATNALL CANBY

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