Music from the age of Louis XV
John Kitchen plays the 1769 Taskin harpsichord from the Raymond Russell Collection
François Couperin (1668–1733)
Ordre no. 6 in B flat
1 Les Moissonneurs [2:08]
2 Les Langueurs-Tendres [3:31]
3 Le Gazoüillement [1:53]
4 La Bersan [2:34]
5 Les Baricades Mistérieuses [2:37]
6 Les Bergeries [4:44]
7 La Commére [2:13]
8 Le Moucheron [2:25]
Antoine Forqueray (1672–1745) [attrib.]
[4:23]
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764)
Jacques Duphly (1715–1789) 18
Delphian Records is grateful to Antonia Bunch for a generous donation towards the production costs of this CD
Recorded on 11-12 April 2012 in St Cecilia’s Hall, University of Edinburgh Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter 24-bit digital editing & mastering: Paul Baxter Instrument preparation: John Raymond
Cover image: François Boucher (1703–1770), Madame de Pompadour (1721–1764) (oil on canvas) / Louvre, Paris, France / Giraudon / The Bridgeman Art Library
Instrument photography © Edinburgh
University Collection of Historic Instruments Design: Drew Padrutt
Booklet editor: John Fallas
Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk
With thanks to the University of Edinburgh and to Prof Arnold Myers
Photo: Raymond Parks
On the death of Louis XIV on 1 September 1715, his great-grandson Louis XV acceded to the throne, and until he reached his majority in 1723 Philippe d’Orléans served as regent. The younger Louis then reigned until his death in 1774 and was initially a popular monarch, being known as ‘le bien-aimé’. His popularity did not last, however, as it became apparent that he had no interest in politics, knew little of finance and was interested only in pleasure. His policies (such as they were) greatly weakened the Treasury and no doubt helped to precipitate the Revolution which occurred 15 years after his death. Nevertheless, there continued to be a great flowering of music and art during most of his reign. This is sometimes regarded as increasingly decadent, even frivolous, and there is a certain truth in that; one has to search for profundity. However, there is much that is beautiful and refined.
The reign of Louis XV is also arguably the period when the harpsichord gained its greatest popularity in France. If the music of the period is characterised by refinement, elegance and grace and by complex yet subtle ornamentation, then these are qualities which are equally apparent in contemporary furniture, art and architecture. Indeed, French harpsichords of the period themselves display all these features; the music and the instruments could not be more inextricably linked. It is therefore a great privilege to perform this music on the glorious 1769 Taskin harpsichord.
François Couperin published his first book of harpsichord pieces in 1713, at the relatively advanced age of 45. It contains five suites or ordres which diverge widely in length and content, and it seems likely that Couperin was putting into order, as best he could, a large quantity of music that he already had to hand. The publication takes its place among a number of significant harpsichord livres which appeared in the last 15 years or so of Louis XIV’s reign. In 1716–17 Couperin published his Second livre – which therefore just qualifies as ‘music from the age of Louis XV’, although some pieces were no doubt written earlier. (In the 1717 preface Couperin apologises for the delay in their publication, giving a variety of reasons.) Various differences from the earlier volume are immediately apparent. The ordres are more uniform in length and there is more overall coherence, organic unity and variety from one movement to the next. Significantly, the traditional dances of the suite – allemande, courante, sarabande – now make only rare appearances. From Ordre no. 6 onwards they are almost entirely replaced by character-pieces bearing those enigmatic titles which have fascinated and frustrated commentators over the years, and which have elicited many, often conflicting interpretations. The comments which follow owe much to the research of Jane Clark, who has spent many years investigating Couperin’s titles.1
Ordre no. 6 is in the relatively unusual key for the time of B flat major, and contains eight movements, four each in rondeau and binary forms – Couperin’s two favourite structural types. The suite begins, not with a serious allemande, but with the tuneful peasant dance Les Moissonneurs, a rondeau portraying harvesters cheerfully going about their work; the contrasting couplets are sophisticated, possibly alluding to those members of the nobility who, in Louis XV’s reign, enjoyed playing at being peasants, shepherds, shepherdesses and the like. By contrast, Les Langueurs-Tendres (‘the lovelorn sighs’) languishes sensuously, eliciting from Couperin an extremely delicate, highly ornamented movement of great beauty. The third movement, Le Gazoüillement – another rondeau – exploits the higher range of the instrument in a characteristically Couperinesque way; the title suggests the chirping and twittering of birds, although Clark believes that there may also be a connection with one of Couperin’s patrons, the Duchesse Du Maine, whose conversation, by all accounts, was a ‘bright, shallow, witty stream of monologue’.2
The fourth movement, La Bersan, is vigorous and uncomplicated, apparently paying tribute to the Seigneur de Bersan, André Bauyn.
Few of Couperin’s titles have been more discussed than Les Baricades Mistérieuses, a splendid essay in harpsichord texture, largely confining itself to the rich and sonorous lower
range of the keyboard. Jane Clark links the whole of Ordre no. 6 with the divertissement, Le Mystère, staged in 1714 by the Duchesse Du Maine, in which the performers wore masks: could these be the ‘mysterious barricades’? Many other interpretations, some far-fetched, have been suggested for what has become one of Couperin’s best-known movements. The pastoral world is once again evoked in Les Bergeries, complete with a drone bass in the second couplet, and prefaced by the instruction ‘naïvement’; it is another rondeau, slightly yet imaginatively modified in its overall structure. Another vigorous movement follows: La Commére [sic: Couperin seems never to have used a grave accent] means ‘godmother’, but here it is probably being used in its less flattering sense of ‘gossip’. There seems no doubt as to the meaning of the final movement’s title – in Le Moucheron we hear the irritating buzzing of the fly all too clearly –yet here too there may be an allusion to the Duchess, who in one divertissement played the role of Fine-Mouche, a ‘sly minx’.
Mystery surrounds the 1747 publication of the Pièces de viole avec la basse continuë composées par Mr Forqueray le père. These were published by Jean-Baptiste Forqueray, son of the virtuoso bass viol player, Antoine Forqueray, and dedicated to Henriette-Anne, daughter of Louis XV and a pupil of JeanBaptiste. The pieces appeared simultaneously in versions for both bass viol and continuo
and for solo harpsichord – an astute move, because by 1747 the popularity of the bass viol was waning. However, the attribution of these pieces to Antoine, while unequivocally stated by Jean-Baptiste, is dubious for many reasons that cannot all be considered here; suffice it to say that harmonically, stylistically and in other ways the works seem to belong in the 1740s rather than the 1710s, when the father would have been writing. Also, a number of the titles refer to musicians from Jean-Baptiste’s circle. The gamba player and scholar Richard Boothby suggests that Jean-Baptiste probably wrote all the music himself,3 and this seems very likely. It is difficult to imagine what purpose such a deception could have served, however, and more surprising still when we learn of the tempestuous relationship Jean-Baptiste had with his irascible and cruel father, who even had him thrown in prison at one point. Perhaps he thought that the attribution to the recently deceased Forqueray père might boost sales, given that he had enjoyed such a considerable reputation in his lifetime. To add to the complexity of the situation, it is possible that Jean-Baptiste’s wife, Marie-Rose, was responsible for the harpsichord versions. These are wonderfully idiomatic and effectively exploit the sonority of contemporary French harpsichords, enriching the gamba versions with harmonic and textural additions.
consummate sensitivity of an eighteenthcentury French harpsichord for its full effect.
The energetic La Leclair, with its ‘stringcrossing’ effects, surely portrays the famous violinist who was a friend of Jean-Baptiste. These are followed here by two movements in C minor: first the remarkable sarabande grave, La Léon, in which the engraved notation attempts to convey the languorous and ultraexpressive manner of performance required, ‘the right hand being hardly ever quite together with the left’. In complete contrast, La Boisson is a vigorous and virtuosic gigue. Of all the music on this disc, Forqueray’s pieces seem particularly to respond to the exquisite qualities of the Taskin harpsichord.
in binary or rondeau form. Yet much is individual in Rameau’s harpsichord writing: textures are varied and imaginative, and sometimes quite sparse; their layout on the keyboard can be awkward for the player, if undeniably effective for the listener; certain works introduce an element of virtuosity and make technical demands that were unusual in French music of that period.
La Du Breüil is a gently-dotted and highly refined movement which requires the
Jean-Philippe Rameau published livres de clavecin in 1705–6, 1724, 1726–7 and 1741 (the Pièces de clavecin en concerts); his keyboard output also includes significant transcriptions of orchestral music for the stage. The five pieces included here, however, all come from the 1726–7 livre, and they demonstrate something of Rameau’s originality as a harpsichord composer. He was firmly rooted in the longestablished claveciniste tradition, and in the 1726–7 book still included the traditional dance movements of allemande, courante and sarabande – although these are now highly stylised works of considerable proportions. As with Couperin, we see an increasing emphasis on genre pieces throughout the sets, and, also like Couperin’s, almost all the movements are
La Triomphante and Fanfarinette are from the group of A major pieces: the rondeau ‘La Triomphante’ abounds in grand theatrical gestures and contains some harmonic surprises, while ‘Fanfarinette’ is a delicate, elegant little dance with an enigmatic title – it is hardly reminiscent of a ‘little fanfare’. The other three pieces included here are from the G minor group, beginning with the vigorous and tuneful Les Sauvages, which seems to have been a favourite in the eighteenth century. Rameau borrowed this movement for the opera-ballet Les Indes Galantes, and it appears also in arrangements by contemporaries. In addition to his composition, Rameau expended much energy on theoretical writing, and in 1722 had produced his celebrated (if rather impenetrable and confused) Traité de l’harmonie. The 1726–7 harpsichord book includes a long preface, ‘Remarques sur les pièces de ce livre’, in which he discusses, among other things, issues of performance practice; he then goes into considerable technical detail about harmony, modulation, enharmonics and so on, much of
this relating to L’Enharmonique, which boldly explores chromatic harmony. Rameau tells us that the arresting enharmonic modulation which gives the piece its title ‘may not perhaps be to everyone’s taste right away’ but goes on to point out that ‘it is based on logic and has the sanction of Nature herself …’. Perhaps he should have let ‘L’Enharmonique’ speak for itself; it does so most eloquently. L’Egiptienne is another dramatic and exciting movement, exploring a variety of scale and arpeggio figurations.
To an extent it recalls the galant writing found in Duphly and Balbastre, but it is more sophisticated – and more awkward to play.
Although he was highly regarded as a harpsichordist and teacher in the 1750s and 60s, the story of Jacques Duphly’s life, from the start, is rather melancholy: when first appointed to the organist’s post at the church of St Eloi in Rouen his aged predecessor, no doubt jealous of this 19-year-old upstart, locked him out of the organ loft. (Fortunately, the authorities then changed the locks.) His later life was not always happy either, and in 1789 he died in obscurity, although not in penury, a day after the storming of the Bastille. Unusually for a keyboard player in those days, he made the decision relatively early in his career to concentrate on playing the harpsichord only, so as ‘not to spoil his hand with the organ’.4
Many listeners were doubtless introduced to Duphly’s harpsichord music by Gustav
Leonhardt’s LP recording of 1975, where Leonhardt begins a penetrating and diverting sleeve-note with the memorable statement ‘Duphly had few truths to tell the world …’. Duphly published four volumes of pièces de clavecin between 1744 and 1768; the music is elegant, refined, pleasant, undemanding, sometimes lightweight and banal (particularly the quatrième livre with its trite Alberti basses). To borrow Leonhardt’s words again, this was ‘exactly what bored Parisian society wanted’. But there are some splendidly strong movements, such as the two from the fine troisième livre (1756) included in this recording: La Forqueray and Médée, both in the unusual key of F minor. ‘La Forqueray’ is cast in the still-popular rondeau structure, and (like Couperin’s ‘Les Baricades Mistérieuses’) exploits the lower half of the keyboard to great effect. It is presumably a tribute to one of the Forquerays, and its tessitura reflects that of the basse de viole. ‘Médée’ is a tempestuous, virtuoso movement which vividly portrays the fiery, vengeful and bloodthirsty character of the Greek mythological figure Medea.
publicly in Paris by the pianist Louis Diémer (1843–1919), who later bought the instrument. During the Second World War it was moved to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, but was reclaimed and returned to Paris after the war, and sold to Raymond Russell in 1952. Since 1964 it has been part of the Raymond Russell Collection housed by the University of Edinburgh in St Cecilia’s Hall. It has played an important and invaluable role in the revival of interest in making and playing harpsichords, having been used as a model by countless harpsichord-makers over the last 50 years or so.
Its appearance and decoration are simple and elegant, and the sound is sumptuous and highly refined. It has the usual twomanual disposition of 8’, 8’, 4’ and buff, the registers being operated by hand-stops. The action is extraordinarily sensitive, affording the player endless subtleties of touch and expressiveness; like most French harpsichords of this period, the lower register is particularly rich and opulent. It is thus a perfect vehicle for the music on this recording.
The celebrated Pascal Taskin instrument used in this recording was built in Paris in 1769. This most famous of all harpsichords survived the turmoils of late eighteenth-century France and was restored by Luigi Tomasini in 1882, at a time when few were interested in harpsichords. In the 1890s it was played
John Kitchen is a Senior Lecturer in Music and University Organist in the University of Edinburgh. He also directs the Edinburgh University Singers, and is Director of Music at Old Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church and Edinburgh City Organist with duties at the Usher Hall. He gives many solo recitals on organ and harpsichord, both in the UK and further afield, and he plays regularly with several ensembles, covering a wide range of musical styles. In addition, he is much in demand as a continuo player, accompanist, lecturer, adjudicator, writer and reviewer.
1 See Jane Clark and Derek Connon, The Mirror of Human Life: Reflections on François Couperin’s ‘Pièces de Clavecin’ (Huntingdon: King’s Music, 2002; revised 2nd edition, London: Keyword Press, 2011)
2 ibid., p. 67
3 Richard Boothby, programme note for the Georgian Concert Society, Edinburgh, 14 January 2006
4 F.W. Marpurg, Historisch-kritische Beyträge zur Aufnahme der Musik, i (Berlin, 1754–5), p. 459; corroborated by a similar comment by Pierre-Louis Daquin
John’s extensive discography for Delphian includes recordings of the 1913 Norman and Beard organ in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall (DCD34022), of Romantic organ music recorded in the Church of the Holy Rude, Stirling (DCD34064), and a highly acclaimed recording of the complete organ music of William Russell, played on the 1829 Bishop organ in St James’s, Bermondsey in London (DCD34062, 3 CDs). He was heavily involved in the ambitious Organs of Edinburgh publication (DCD34100, 4 CDs + full-colour book, 88pp), which comprises recordings of 22 Edinburgh organs. These projects are in addition to his recordings of many of the historic instruments in the world-famous collection housed at St Cecilia’s Hall in the University of Edinburgh.
© 2012 John Kitchen
John Kitchen
Instruments from the Russell Collection Vols I & II
John Kitchen early keyboard instruments
DCD34001, DCD34039
Edinburgh University’s Russell Collection is one of the world’s finest collections of early keyboard instruments. Delphian’s first-ever release features music by Byrd, Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Greene, Couperin, Clementi and Forqueray, while the second volume in John Kitchen’s ongoing project to bring the museum’s musical exhibits to life matches music by Handel, Purcell, the Scottish composer Robert Bremner and others including Mozart’s son Franz Xaver with a gloriously vigorous menagerie of spinets, virginals, chamber organs, clavichord and harpsichords.
‘a supreme achievement … Every one a gem, as are Kitchen’s stylishly bright performances’– The Scotsman, March 2006
Instruments from the Rodger Mirrey Collection
John Kitchen early keyboard instruments
DCD34057
The Raymond Russell Collection of Early Keyboard Instruments, housed since 1968 in St Cecilia’s Hall, the oldest purpose-built concert hall in Scotland, was further enhanced in 2005 when the University of Edinburgh received the extraordinary gift of twenty-two historic keyboard instruments from Rodger and Lynne Mirrey; as a result, the galleries at St Cecilia’s Hall now house one of the two most comprehensive collections of early keyboard instruments in the world. John Kitchen’s demonstration recital couples music with instrument in a way that informs and entertains.
‘Kitchen reveals [the newly-gifted instruments’] amazing diversity and quality in a programme that ranges from William Byrd on a 16th-century Venetian harpsichord, to three of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words on a 1797 Broadwood pianoforte. In between are the “toybox” delights of Dutch Renaissance dances on a Flemish triple-fretted clavichord, and some fruity Haydn on an early 19th-century Kuhlbörs pianoforte. Great pictures in the sleeve notes, too.’ – The Scotsman, September 2010
Handel: Overtures & Suites
John Kitchen harpsichord
DCD34053
Handel’s overtures had an independent life almost from their inception, and the practice of performing them on keyboard instruments has a similarly long pedigree, beginning with a number of transcriptions made by the composer himself. John Kitchen virtuosically evokes Handel’s orchestral palette in the welter of timbres and colours which he summons forth from the Russell Collection’s 1755 Jacob Kirckman harpsichord, a classic instrument from the very apex of the English harpsichord-building tradition.
‘stylishly played … The music is universally glorious’
– Sunday Times, August 2009
François Couperin: La Paix du Parnasse
Lucy Carolan, John Kitchen harpsichords
DCD34012
Though much of Couperin’s harpsichord music was written for a solo instrument, he composed a small number of pieces for two harpsichords, somewhat in the manner of a trio sonata. Lucy Carolan and John Kitchen pair their considerable talents on two of the world’s most exquisite original French instruments, the 1769 Pascal Taskin and the 1764/83 Goermans/Taskin double-manual instruments in the Russell Collection of Early Keyboards. This unique and unforgettable recital is a must-have for enthusiasts and serious Baroque connoisseurs alike.
‘Prepare to be knocked out by this collection’
– The Herald, September 2003
‘Carolan’s booklet notes, informal yet informative, bring delight and add to the attractions of a winning release’
– International Record Review, November 2003
