Lesson 34 The “Concerts” of François Couperin: Ornamentation, Module Four

Score 34.1

Score 34.2

In the preface to his Concerts Royaux, published “Avec Privilége du Roy” in 1722, Couperin tells us that they are a different kind of composition from his previous ones. “They are suitable,” he writes “not only for the harpsichord, but also for the violin, flute, oboe, Viol and bassoon.” From this we may infer that almost any instrumentation is acceptable: for our purposes, violin with harpsichord and bass viol would seem ideal, possibly with an added theorbo.

“I wrote them,” continues Couperin, “for the little chamber concerts where Louis the Fourteenth had me come almost every Sunday of the year.” The reason for Louis’s continual commands was his increasingly melancholy disposition as he approached the end of his long reign. Couperin tells us that he himself played the harpsichord with M. Duval (violin), M. Philidor (oboe), M. Alarius (viol), and M. Dubois (bassoon), a chamber music ensemble of unmatchable quality in the history of Baroque music!

The second volume of Concerts, including the seventh, was published in 1724 under the title of Les Goûts-réünis, meaning the re-uniting of the Italian and French styles. Two years later, in 1726, Couperin was to publish four trio sonatas under the title of Les Nations, and with this work came a confessional anecdote that is both telling and charming.

Sometime in the 1690s, Couperin tells us, he had written a sonata, “the first of its kind ever to be composed in France. It has,” he continues “quite a singular story. Charmed by the sonatas of Signor Corelli and by the French works of M. de Lulli, both of whose compositions I shall love as long as I live, I ventured to compose a sonata myself which I arranged to have played by the same groups as I had heard play Corelli’s. Knowing how keen the French are on all foreign novelties in all matters and lacking confidence in myself, I did myself a favour through an inoffensive stratagem. I pretended that a relative of mine that I actually do have and who is attached to the court of the King of Sardinia had sent me a sonata by a new Italian composer. I arranged the letters of my name so as to form an Italian name that I gave instead. The sonata was received with much acclaim and I will say nothing further in its defense. I wrote others and my Italianised name brought me, wearing this mask, great applause. Fortunately my sonatas enjoyed sufficient favour for me not to blush at my subterfuge.”

As this early sonata was never published and the manuscript is lost, we can only speculate as to what anagram of his name Couperin used.

Our main task in this lesson will be to understand the meaning of the symbols Couperin uses for his agrémens and to learn how to execute them correctly and expressively. For this, we shall draw on sources both by Couperin himself and by other composers and theorists of the time. Figure a shows our primary source, Couperin’s own table of ornaments from his First Book of Harpsichord Pieces (1713).

Many contemporary sources maintain that agrémens cannot truly be learned from a written table at all, but only by ear. “It is practically impossible,” writes Michel Pignolet de Montéclair in 1736, “to teach in writing the manner of forming these agréments well, since the live voice of an experienced teacher is hardly sufficient for that.”¹

Saint Lambert agrees: “It is not possible to explain them well in writing because the manner of expression changes according to the pieces where they are used. And,” he adds, “I can only speak here in general terms: that the agréments must never alter either the line [chant] or the tempo [mesure] of the piece. The speed of the agréments corresponds to the tempo of the movement, but whatever the tempo, they must never sound rushed. Good taste [le bon goût] is the sole arbiter. It’s very important to know how to execute these agréments well; for without that, they disfigure the pieces instead of augmenting their beauty, and it would be better not to do them at all than to do them badly.”²

In any case, Jean-Philippe Rameau writes in 1760, the rules can never replace the teacher. “It will be by example and never by rules,” he affirms, “that he [the master] can show the man of taste how to use his fine talents as a performer.”³

In spite of by the skepticism voiced by Montéclair, Saint Lambert, and Rameau, I offer below as much information on the agrémens relevant to the Concert under examination in this lesson as will serve our purpose. In deference to their views, however, you will indeed find a video clip on the website in which I demonstrate those agrémens on the violin.

Video 34.1

In the text I shall be referring mainly to explanations given by Couperin himself in his L’art de toucher le clavecin, first published in 1716, but I shall also quote from other tables of agrémens offering additional instructions and occasionally contradictory views as to their execution.

Let us begin with the four agrémens that we find in the opening one and a half bars of the first movement (Figure b). These are the tremblement, the port de voix, the pincé, and the tierce coulée. I will also explain the large comma after the last note of Figure b,

although this ‘ornament’ does not appear in any table.

Note: ornaments embedded in the text below are transcriptions of those found in Figure a.

We start with the tremblement, a trill indicated by the wavy line above the fourth note of the first bar (Couperin sometimes spells them “tremblemens”).

The tremblement has three parts, clearly illustrated (Figure c) in L’art de toucher le clavecin.

The duration of the appuy is “in proportion with the length of the note on which one is trilling” says Loulié, but Henri-Louis Choquel says it must be “half the value of the note.”

A slow tremblement can express many things: passion, anger, regret, sorrow, thoughtfulness, etc. However, in fast movements it can also be a mere trifle, a frivolous fluttering.

When the tremblement is tied to an upper preceding note, no appuy is needed, because the upper note has already been sounded. However, the upper note should be held over to avoid the impression that the tremblement is beginning on the lower note (Figure d). In such cases, one should avoid lurching into the tremblement in an ungainly manner, a tasteful crescendo through the held-over note being preferable

A detached tremblement (Figure e) likewise begins on the upper note. If the preceding note is the same as the upper note, the upper note is repeated, but we should be wary of playing it louder than the previous note.

We will encounter tremblements that are too short to have much or even any appuy or point d’arrest: in a fast tempo the character of the tremblement may be too fleeting to require them. Couperin sanctions such arbitrary decisions: again, the “bon goût” will be the ultimate arbiter.

The pincé (literally “pinched”) is a mordent, either a simple one (pincé simple) or a complex one (pincé double). The symbol is the same for both, so the decision as to which to play is left to the performer, a question of taste and judgment. Nor is there any rule as to how many notes a pincé double should contain: “It is the value of the notes,” Couperin writes, “that must in general determine the duration of the pincés doubles.”

(Figure f ) illustrates the pincé simple and the pincé double that, according to Couperin, should have a point d’arrêt at the end; this he marks with a star.

Jean Rousseau, in his Traité de la viole (1687) states that the notes in the pincé should be faster than in the tremblement, while according to Jacques-Martin Hotteterre (1708) they should be played as fast as possible. Such advice should certainly be heeded when the pincé occurs on its own, particularly when the aim is primarily to add sparkle to a note. However, the speed of a pincé after a port de voix (see below) may be slower, depending on the emotional context and the length of time one has lingered on the port de voix itself.

The speed of the notes in a pincé double will follow the same criterion: faster for sparkle but slower if the affect is more serious—for example, one of languishing reflection. In such cases, it will be effective to start the notes of the pincé double slowly and then speed them up, as in the tremblement.

Couperin states that all parts of the pincé should be “included in the value of the main note,” implying it should be played on the beat, not before it. He also indicates clearly whether the lower note should be sharp, natural, or flat (Figure g). One other remark of Couperin’s deserving of our attention here is that the pincé double on the organ and harpsichord replaces the vibrato (“martèlement”) of stringed instruments.

The note tied to the cʹ in the following example (Figure h) is called a port de voix (literally the “carrying of the voice”), a form of upward appoggiatura.

The port de voix is an ornament that allows for many subtle variations. According to Montéclair and others, it is always accompanied by a pincé: there are no examples in our Concert that deviate from this principle. A pincé, on the other hand, can exist independently from a port de voix.

When the pincé consists of just two notes, the combined ornament is called a port de voix simple. When the note needs a more lingering ornament, it can become a port de voix double (the term “double” referring to the pincé). There is no sign to distinguish between these two ornaments, illustrated in Figure i.

In the early part of the seventeenth century, the port de voix was generally played before the beat, but in Couperin’s music, as described in his L’art de toucher le clavecin, the port de voix is played on the beat, thus forming a dissonance with the bass, following which it resolves gently upward via a slur to the principal note. As its name implies, it was originally a vocal ornament, with the voice sliding up to the main note. Its length can be anything from short and crisp to long and languishing, depending on the desired affect. Although it is one of the most common of ornaments, it is also one of the most expressive. Indeed, says François David in 1737, it “ornaments in so graceful a manner that it serves to express everything that the soul can feel.” But, he adds with a sigh of regret, “few singers have succeeded in rendering it as touching and as sensitive as it should be.”⁴

The port de voix, writes David, may incorporate a Messa di voce, his charmingly poetic analysis of which is worth pondering: “One must bring it forth with gentleness in the first of the three parts. . . . swell [enfler] the sound imperceptibly on the second part and let it die as one has caused it to be born in the third part.”

Bénigne de Bacilly, in his Remarques curieuses sur l’art de bien chanter (1668), writes more than eighteen pages on the port de voix, in the course of which he describes several variants: one of these is the port de voix glissé, possible only in a slow tempo, where the voice, instead of rising directly to the main note, slides slowly up to it.⁵

An instrumental version of this is the son glissé, described by Montéclair in his treatise on the flute, while a similar sliding (the coulé de doigt) is indicated in French viol treatises of the time. On the violin, however, a normal, unaccented finger action with no slide is probably preferable in the majority of cases.⁶

The note “a” tied to the “g” immediately after the pincé in Bar 2 of our Concert is known as a tierce coulée. Just as the port de voix is a note that rises to the main note, the tierce coulée is a note that connects a descending interval of a third, thus making the transition smoother. Montéclair describes the coulé, which in other situations can also rise, as “an ornament that sweetens the melody and smoothens it through the linking of sounds” (the word “couler” means “to flow”).⁷

Couperin neglects to give us any clear advice about this ornament, possibly because it can be used in so many ways, on or before the beat, stressed or as a fleeting passing note, according to the context.

After the tierce coulée in Bar 2 there is a large comma that Couperin does not include in his table. However, in his preface to the Troisième livre de pièces de clavecin (1722) he explains this sign thus: “This is to mark the end of phrases [‘chants’] or of our harmonic phrases, and to make it clear that one should separate the end of a phrase a little before moving on to the following one. This is almost imperceptible in general, although when not observing this little silence [petit silence] persons of taste feel that there is something lacking in the performance: in a word it is the difference between those who read everything straight through, and those who stop at the full stops and commas. These silences must be made audible without altering the beat.”

This should serve as a reminder to us that, however carefully we practice the minutiae, we must not lose sight of the longer harmonic phrases.

We have already noted the importance of clear phrases in Baroque music; with this marking, Couperin makes his phrases unequivocally clear to us. Sometimes, as in Bars 8, 9, and 10, the absence of bass allows the top line time to take a breath at the comma before proceeding. At other times, as in Bar 2, the bass permits no taking of time, although by clipping the preceding note, the effect of taking time can nonetheless be achieved. We should remember Couperin’s instruction that the commas should be “made audible without altering the beat.”

A more subtle use of the comma can be observed by comparing Bar 3 with Bar 4. In Bar 3, the commas disassociate the notes on either side of them: it is therefore clear that the notes after the commas are anacruses to what follows.

However, in Bar 4, the absence of a comma after the first note implies that the second note (fʹ) is not an anacrusis but is simply another note of the F major chord, following on from the note before (cʺ). Couperin could have placed a comma before the octave leap, but the very nature of that leap would have rendered such a comma superfluous.

We thus have two ‘mini-phrases’ in Bar 3, clarified by the commas, and a phrase lasting for the whole of Bar 4, clarified by the absence of any comma.

The other ornament we need consider before proceeding to our detailed Observations in Lesson 35 is a convention rather than an agrément, one that is ubiquitous in French music but is never indicated: the notes inégales or “unequal notes.”

Throughout this book we have stressed the difference between rhythm and beat, and we have advocated the expressive power of rhythmic fluidity as opposed to mathematical precision, of subtlety as opposed to any misguided theoretical pedantry.

Couperin puts it like this: “I find that we confuse the beat [la mesure] with what we call ‘cadence’ [rhythm, or flow] or ‘mouvement’ [movement]. Beat defines the quantity and the equality of the notes and ‘cadence’ is really the spirit and the soul which one must add to it.”⁸

In French music, such fluidity and subtlety became recognizable hallmarks of national style, the concept of notes inégales mentioned and explained in more than forty French treatises between the mid-sixteenth century and the revolution of 1789, and thus firmly enshrined in the national aesthetic. “The thing is,” says Couperin “that we write differently to how we play, with the result that foreigners play our music less well than we play theirs.” More specifically “We dot [‘nous pointons’] groups of eighth notes in stepwise motion; and yet we write them as equal!” (The exclamation mark is his.)⁹

Montéclair is in full agreement: “In whatever measure (time signature) it may be, the notes of which four are needed to fill a beat (in other words all groups of eighth or sixteenth notes) are always inégales.” However, notes that do not move in step are to be played equally.¹⁰

One might wonder how rhythmical inégalité could be considered so essential an ingredient of French taste for so long. I believe that, put quite simply, playing stepwise notes in an equal manner would have exemplified what was considered crude, plain, and lacking in subtlety, qualities anathema to the civilized and cultured “gens de qualité” of the day. Those who cherished the hallowed virtues of contemporary French aesthetics, sophistication, refinement, elegance, and grace could only be offended by such rhythmical primitivism.

Saint Lambert (1702) states that the extent of inégale, like the tempo, is a matter of taste. Engramelle (1775) agrees, stating that although the first note in a pair of eighth notes is always longer than the second, the extent of this inégalité is variable. In a march, for example “the first note (in a pair) must be like a dotted eighth note, the second a sixteenth note.” In a gentler piece, he states, the ratio is subtler, for example 3:2, a kind of tripletization or even 7:5, meaning just the very subtlest of inégalité.¹¹

This subtle inégalité is “so delicate,” Bacilly tells us, “that it is scarcely apparent.”¹²

On the other hand, real triplets, or groups of three notes, are always equal. So are repeated notes, notes that do not proceed in stepwise motion and notes too rapid to be clearly inégales. If notes are slurred in pairs, the first will be longer and more stressed than the second, but according to Quantz (XI, § 12) slurred notes must be equal when there are more than two notes under a slur (i.e., 4, 6, or 8). Jacques-Martin Hotteterre, however, gives us examples of notes slurred in fours marked “gently, the eighth notes dotted” [doucement, et les croches pointées]. The indication notes égales is not uncommon and means that notes must be equal. Notes with dots above them must also be both equal and detached.

Couperin marks what he calls “liaisons,” signs to mark the notes that should be tied and slurred. In the majority of cases, these can be taken to mean bowed slurs, although occasional adjustments might be necessary. Refer to Figure a (above) for the exact signs.

From the late seventeenth century until about the time of the Revolution, the standard pitch for French chamber music, the Ton de la chambre, was around 404 Herz. This was slightly higher than Ton de l’Opera used for opera in Paris from the mid-seventeenth century to the mid-eighteenth century, which was around 393 Herz. If you wish to experiment with these low pitches (and if your harpsichordist is willing to tune down too) you will probably need to use a thicker gauge of string. The reward (in addition to historical righteousness) will be a gentler, mellower sound, preferred by Georg Muffat as having “liveliness combined with sweetness.”

“The pitch to which the Lullists tune their instruments,” Muffat tells us, “is generally a whole-step lower and in theatrical productions even one-and-a-half steps lower, than our German pitch . . . (which) seems to them to be quite too forced and piercing.”¹³

The ornaments listed below are ones that do not appear in the Septiéme Concert but that Couperin uses elsewhere. I have not included ornaments specific to the harpsichord.

Both these ornaments relate to breathing: the aspiration (Figure k) indicates the shortening of a note, while the suspension (Figure l) indicates delaying it. They are subtle ornaments and do not affect the tempo. The suspension mainly occurs in tender and slow pieces, whereas the aspiration can appear in fast ones as well.