François Couperin Le Grand Robert VeyronLacroix - Pièces Célèbres Pour Le Clavecin

I bought this LP when I was a teenager. I still remember the birds chirping in the background of "Les Barricades Mysterieuses."

Seems a espineta, lovely sound. (On the 1th one)

Marvelous as possible is ! Thank You from All My heart! ❤️❤️❤️

26:40 ... that tune ... Failing to locate, where I heard it before ... certainly not a Couperin ...

Wonderful upload ... Thank you very much for this, as ever ...

*_Sleeve notes by Jean Hamon (translated from the French by Constance Jewett) 1/2_*
François Couperin had reached forty-five years of age when
his first Collection of Harpsichord Pieces, engraved by du Plessy,
appeared. It was in 1713 and he was then organist of the King's
Chapel. Born in Paris November 10, 1668, he very soon acquired
the reputation of a child prodigy and at the death of hi$ father,
Charles, was promised the succession to his post as organist of
St. Gervais, although the son had just turned eleven. He did not
assume the post until six years later, having culminated his
musical studies with Jacques Thomelin, organist of Saint-Jacques-
la-Boucherie. In 1686 he published his two Organ Masses. At
first under cover of a pseudonym, then under his own name, he
tried his skill at chamber music with some Trio Sonatas in the
Italian style of Corelli and had them played in the salons of
aristocratic court society. This was the more easily arranged because
he had as pupils the Duke of Burgundy, pupil of Fénelon, the
Count of Toulouse and other nobles and also did not fail to
frequent the salons of the grands bourgeois or most prominent
financiers. Indeed, fate smiled upon the composer and it was a
successful and justly famous Couperin who in 1713, with the
King's prerogative, had his "First Book of Pieces for Harpsichord"
engraved, dedicated to Monsieur Payet de Villers. The Second
Book appeared in 1717, dedicated to Monsieur Prat, Collector of
Taxes for Paris; the Third Book (1722) and The Fourth (1730)
dispensed with patronage. There are 254 pieces in all, divided
into twenty-seven ordres (or Suites), five for the First Book,
seven for the Second, seven for the Third, eight for the Fourth.
But even if the first publication dates from 1713, it is reasonable
to believe that from about 1700 pieces were circulating which
were later to be collected in the First Book.
"I have always had a pretext for composing all these pieces,"
said Couperin. "Different opportunities furnished them. Thus, the
titles correspond to ideas I have had. I have not been obliged to
explain them; however, as among these titles there are some which
seem to flatter me, it is well to advise that the pieces which carry
them are portraits which have sometimes been found to be likenesses
to those titles and that most of these titles are given more
to the pleasing originals that I wanted to portray than to the
copies I have drawn from them."
Indeed, most pages in the work of the musician rest on a
literary theme: characterizations and portraits, good-humoured satires,
allegorical descriptions, pastoral and folkloric tableaux, scenes of
nature, amusements, sundry impressions and fantasies . That is
how Shlomo Hofman classifies them in his 1961 study of
Couperin's harpsichord style. Add to them the pure dances such
as the Passacaille. It is a relatively long piece for this composer,
with its eight variations and its 179 measures, full of melodic
invention and colour, rich in ardent and romantic feeling. It takes
the form, dear to Couperin, of a Rondo, its basic element recurring
like a refrain after each of the variations, a form which was to
precondition the passacaglias of Bach and Handel and the rondos
of Haydn and Mozart.

It's sublime, thanks a lot!

*_Sleeve notes by Jean Hamon (translated from the French by Constance Jewett) 2/2_*
Let us examine the anthology presented by Robert Veyron-Lacroix.
To the First Book belongs the Sarabande, La Lugubre,
which, despite its title, is not particularly gloomy. It calls for
intensely complex ornamentation, characteristic of the entire First
Book, and Couperin, who usually indicates the ornamentation of
the pieces himself, utilizes lavishly this pre-eminently Baroque
means of expression. The entire vocabulary of the time figures in
it and is supplemented by surprising inventions like the superimposition
of ornaments and prophetic innovations like the
rubato dear to Chopin. From the Second Book, Veyron-Lacroix
has chosen the Barricades Mysterieuses and the Fastes de la Grande
et Ancienne Ménestrandise. The first of these pieces, of tender,
shaded, dreamlike beauty and tight homogeneity, admirably groups
the various sound patterns and purposely keeps them within a
limited range, But the masterpiece is the Fastes on which Couperin,
in place of Ménestrandise, had at first printed "Mxnxstl'xndxsx,"
no doubt in derision as well as cleverness , This powerful guild
was threatening the King's organists who refused to pay the dues
required of entertainers, and it intended to make them pay them.
It is a parody in five tableaux, musically mimed, in which the
cast of "Ménestrand Notables and Jurors," puffed up and complacent,
file past; next come "the Hurdy-gurdy players and the
Beggars," "the Jugglers, Acrobats and Tumblers with bears and
monkeys," all disporting themselves in a humoristic, satirical
parade, rendered into music of great beauty. The tone darkens
and the mood becomes one of ferocity mixed with agony in
"The Invalids or Persons Maimed in the Service of the Great
Ménestrandise" whose extraordinary finale, "Disorder and rout of
the whole procession caused by the Drunkards, the Monkeys and
the Bears," seems to swarm like a "Court of Miracles," This is
truly the supreme derision. What sense Couperin has of type
and caricature!
A good number of the pieces in this recording belong to the
Third Book: the Folies Françaises, the Tic-Toc-Choc, Soeur Monique,
Les Calotins et les Calotines, the Carillon de Cythere, and
the Rossignol en Amour, As to Trophée , it is the first piece of
the twenty-second ordre and forms part of the Fourth Book.
This anthology faithfully represents the style of writing and
creative genius of François Couperin, In it this civilized Frenchman
shows himself less concerned with the tradition honoured by
harpsichordists of the time than with innovation, First of all, he
breaks the bounds of the form by interpolating a number of
dances and free pieces in various tempi between the traditional
movements of the Suite (Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue).
Next, with his harpsichord as confidant, he expressed not only
his irony, amusement at people and things, but also his sentimental
and gallant spirit, his moments of pride, tenderness,
melancholy, even pessimism. This he did without appearing to
patronize or condescend in the manner of a later Chopin or
Debussy. From the Second Book, we see the ordres arranged so
that the composer considers them aesthetic, psychological and
dramatic. entities not to be disturbed. We also encounter, in the
Second Book, works of an entirely new genre of profound poetic
expression, of gentle melancholy, of jokes smartly dashed off,
of effortlessly fused French and Italian styles, lute style, counterpoint,
melody singing to perfection, with a freedom of expression
that no predecessor had shown with such brilliance. In addition,
there is the whole gallery of "Musical Portraits," to be sure at
times a bit artificial, but realized musically with a keenness and
delicacy of touch that are completely new. Let us note in passing
the importance of scenes and sounds drawn from nature, such as
birds, bells, streams, which remain, up to Ravel. a constant in
French music. There is even is bit of Satie in Couperin when he
annotates a passage with a few words of commentary. Thus, he
notes, beside the staff in the "Rout of the Menestrandeurs":
"crutches," in the "Yellow Dominos" of the Folies Françaises :
"Coucou! Coucou !