Louis Couperin

Louis Couperin was a French composer, organist, and harpsichordist, born around 1626 in Chaumes-en-Brie and died on 29 August 1661 in Paris. He was the first major representative of the celebrated Couperin musical dynasty. Although relatively little is known about his life, the main surviving biographical information comes from Evrard Titon du Tillet's Le Parnasse François and from inscriptions on Couperin's organ works, where he often noted both the date and the place of composition.

He was the eldest son of Charles Couperin, an organist in Brie, and he grew up in a musical family; his younger brothers Charles and François also became musicians. By about 1650 Louis was already composing, though he was known mainly in his native region. According to Titon du Tillet, Jacques Champion de Chambonnières, harpsichordist to the king of France, happened to visit Brie around that time. The young Couperins gave a concert in his honor and performed works by Louis, impressing Chambonnières so strongly that he soon brought Louis to Paris under his protection.

By 1651 Couperin was living in Paris, and his brothers followed him there. On 9 April 1653 he obtained the post of organist at the church of Saint-Gervais, and later he also served at court as a gambist. His career appears to have developed very successfully. In the mid-1650s he was reportedly invited to replace Chambonnières as harpsichordist to the king, but he declined out of respect for his friend and former teacher. He continued to work at Saint-Gervais and at the court of Louis XIV, and may also have worked for aristocratic families in Meudon.

Couperin died in 1661 at the age of about thirty-five; the cause of death is unknown. He was a highly prolific composer, but he did not live long enough to publish his works. His music survived only in manuscripts, principally the Bauyn and Parville manuscripts for harpsichord pieces and the Oldham manuscript for organ works.

Most of his harpsichord music consists of dances, including common forms of the time such as allemandes, sarabandes, courantes, and gigues, as well as rarer types such as branles and voltas. These works represent a further stage in the development of the style associated with Chambonnières. Particularly notable within his harpsichord output are his chaconnes, passacaglias, and above all his unmeasured preludes, for which he devised an original notation system in which nearly all notes are written as whole notes, while phrasing and performance details are conveyed through numerous elegant curved lines.

His music also shows the influence of Johann Jakob Froberger, with whom he may possibly have been personally acquainted. Couperin's organ music remained unknown for several centuries and was rediscovered only in the 1950s, with publication delayed for decades afterward. His organ output comprises about seventy works, mainly fugues, often called fantasies, and settings of church hymns. Among its important features are a move away from the strict polyphonic manner of earlier French organists and the explicit notation of registration; both traits later became characteristic of the French classical organ tradition. Certain melodic turns in his organ music, especially octave leaps in the bass, were likewise influential.

Connections

This figure has 2 connections in the Music Lineage catalog.