François Couperin (1668-1733)

Ordre dix-huitième de clavecin (1722)

La Verneüille 
La Verneüilléte 
Sœur Monique 
Le Turbulent 
L’Attendrissante 
Le Tic-Toc-Choc ou Les Maillotins 
Le Gaillard-Boiteux 

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Johannes Brahms (1833-97)

Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5

Allegro maestoso

Andante espressivo

Scherzo: Allegro energico

Intermezzo: Andante molto

Finale: Allegro moderato ma rubato - Presto

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In order to make the distinction between the many renowned musicians of the Couperin family, including another ‘François’, the great French Baroque composer François Couperin became known as Couperin le Grand. This great French dynasty can be traced back to 1366, with the rural trader, lawyer and amateur musician Mathurin Couperin spawning a succession of instrumentalists who taught their children, passing on their skills to the point where Louis Couperin (1626-1661) became organist at the Church of Saint-Gervaise, Paris. This post stayed in the family until 1826, a period of 173 years; following Louis’ death at 35, Charles Couperin inherited the role before passing it onto his son, 'Fançois le Grand’, at the age of 11. François took up the post aged 18 after a seven-year custodianship by Michel Richard Delalande, during which time he was immersed in the instruction of the court organist, who effectively adopted him.

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François Couperin le Grand (henceforth, ‘Couperin’) therefore grew up in the heart of Louis XIV Paris, famed for its mannered habits of dress, language and movement. Paradoxically, the aim was to appear ‘natural’, which meant re-learning how to walk, talk and gesture in the most refined, courteous way possible. One expression of this context is the way Couperin decorates the independent lines of his contrapuntal texture with ornaments, marked with a precise system of symbols that were explained in his keyboard treatises. These ornaments are an intrinsic part of the music, not simply florid artifice; the character of the pieces would be all but lost without them.  

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All of the courtly mannerisms of Louis XIV France came together particularly clearly in the codification of French dance at the time, each becoming more crystalline in its rhythmic and stylistic markers and finding its expression, naturally, in music. The instrumental suites by European Baroque composers, with their gigues and courantes, are full of French dances, even using the French spelling for the Spanish Sarabande. Couperin makes extensive use of dance forms and rhythms, grouping pieces together into suites in much the same way as, for example, Bach does.

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Whilst dances and musical gesture are at the core of many of Couperin’s 234 pieces for harpsichord, so too is characteristic imagery: many of the titles, including those heard in this programme, paint a picture of a scene, person or situation. This habit was picked up again in the nineteenth century and beyond (think of Schumann’s Carnaval, Op. 9, with titles such as Papillons or Arlequin). Many of the references used by Couperin in his titles are too remote for us to fully comprehend today, possibly intended as in-jokes or caricatures, or named after individuals about whom we know little or nothing.

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Finally, we must note that much of Couperin’s inspiration came not just from his immediate environment, but that, like most other great Baroque composers, Couperin’s musical outlook was fundamentally cosmopolitan. In particular, he looked to Italians such as Corelli to create what he described as a réunion des goûts (‘a meeting of tastes’) between French and Italian styles.

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In 1713 Couperin received the royal ascent to publish, a privilege lasting 20 years. He published four books of harpsichord pieces, between 1713 and 1730, each containing numerous numerous Ordres de clavecin – suites containing around six short pieces. Though each of the individual pieces making up the individual Ordres is often no more than a two or three minutes long, performing any one of his four books would take between two and three hours; it is a vast output of music. 

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The Ordre dix-huitième de clavecin was published in 1722 as part of the Troisième Livre, and comprises six pieces, three each in F major and F minor. La Verneüille is a grand allemande in F minor depicting the Duke of Bourbon, named Verneuil; the second piece, we presume, refers to his daughter. The third piece, Sœur Monique is a rondeau-pastoral in F major, perhaps intended to honour a nun named Monique, though sœur functioned as a contemporary euphemism for a prostitute. Le Turbulent is a vigorous dance in double time, with a second section in triple time. L’Attendrissante  (‘The Touching One’) is a sorrowful piece that is written for the lower half of he keyboard, returning to the serious mood of the opening movement. The tightrope dances of the famous, circus-trained Maillot family are portrayed in Le Tic-toc-choc, a piece of keyboard wizardry that requires two harpsichord ‘manuals’ (keyboards) to achieve its repeated-note effects; on the piano, this becomes a stunningly virtuosic feat. Le Gaillard-Boiteux (‘the fellow who limps’) closes the suite with a swinging, jolly rhythm in the ‘Burlesque style’.

 

Anthony Friend

 

After Beethoven, and in rivalry with his older contemporary Richard Wagner (1813-1883), Brahms was one of the towering figures in nineteenth-century German music. In his large-scale works, such as his four symphonies, and in his chamber music, such as his violin sonatas and string quartets, he updated the Classical forms of Beethoven and Schubert for the Romantic era. In his piano miniatures, he succeeded Schumann and Schubert, and in his choral works he looked back to the Renaissance and Baroque polyphonists. In sum, he combined three centuries of Western classical music with folk and dance styles, and recast them in the language of the art music of the second half of the 19th century.

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Brahms was the son of a double bass player in the Hamburg State Theatre, who taught him violin, alongside his piano and composition lessons. From the age of 13, he earned money playing the piano at theatres, for dances, and, on occasion, in unsavoury taverns filled with prostitutes. In 1848, he made his public debut as a pianist in more salubrious circumstances in Hamburg; but he had a lifelong appreciation for gypsy music, allusions to which abound in his compositions, not least in his Hungarian Dances, WoO1. In 1853, Brahms met the great violinist Joseph Joachim while in Hanover accompanying the Hungarian violin virtuoso Reményi on a concert tour. Joachim, who would later give the première of Brahms’s Violin Concerto, Op. 77, was impressed by Brahms’s compositions and wrote letters of introduction to Liszt and Schumann on his behalf. Schumann then launched Brahms’s career with an article in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik entitled Neue Bahnen (‘New Paths’), hailing him as a genius. Brahms became extremely close to both Robert Schumann and his wife Clara, for whom he nurtured an unrequited love and provided support after Robert Schumann’s early death. Thereafter, Brahms enjoyed a highly successful career in his own lifetime, as both a composer and pianist.

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It was also in 1853 that Brahms composed his Sonata in F minor, published the following year as his Opus 5, and presented to Schumann as part of the body of work that prompted him to sing Brahms’ praises in print. It is a gargantuan work, seeming to anticipate his efforts to compose a first symphony that would eventually take him nearly 20 years to complete. Instead of the usual three or four movements, Brahms gives us five, with a short Intermezzo appearing between the Scherzo and the Finale, full of Beethovenian, funeral march-like repeated-note figures. This recalls the stormy, grandiose quality of the opening Allegro maestoso; a substantial first movement that contrasts moments of the most delicate lyricism with heroic gestures in which the pianist flings themselves at the upper and lower extremes of the keyboard. The second movement, Andante espressivo, allows Brahms’ melodic gifts to shine in a song-like melody-and-accompaniment texture. It was possibly conceived as a setting of a text that appeared in the score, by C. O. Sternau, from the poem Junge Liebe (‘young love’):

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Twilight falls, the moonlight shines,

Two hearts are united in love,

and keep themselves in bliss enclosed.

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The Scherzo is sometimes an elegant waltz, and sometimes almost comically, furiously aggressive in its bombastic octave-laden piano writing and lurching chords. An ominous repeated-note figure, possibly echoing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, appears in the middle of the movement, interrupting the flowing Trio, and then again in the subsequent Intermezzo movement. The Finale begins almost as if it were a Scherzo, full of buoyant staccato rhythms, surprising flourishes and pregnant silences, but it builds to a climax so virtuosic that it might make Liszt blush – a powerful statement of intent for a composer barely 20 years old.

 

Anthony Friend