History of the pianoforte and pianoforte players

by Oskar Bie

The “Earlier Ages” appear in four figures—the first exercise gives the syncopated “Muse naissante,” the second the rocking “Enfantine,” the third the rioting “Adolescente,” the fourth the “Délices” in violoncello style, which is Couperin’s favourite for the attainment of the most delightful effects.

Or the great “Shepherds’ Feast” with the twanging musettes of Taverni or Choisy, and the lightly rocking rhythms.

Or the five-act Ballet of the “Pomp of the great and ancient Menestrandise.”[43] Act I., the pompous entry of the Notables and sworn probationers. Act II., a bag-pipe song of the hurdy-gurdy-men and beggars. Act III., a joyous dance of the jugglers, clog-dancers, and Merry-Andrews with bears and monkeys. Act IV., a duet of the crazy and the lame. Act V., breaking up of the whole troop by the animals—furious étude in semiquavers.

Next, the cycle of the old and young men; the former sober, the latter happy.

But, before all, that original of Schumann’s Carnival, “Les Folies françaises ou les Dominos.” Maidenhood in invisible colours, Shame in rose, Impetuosity in red, Hope in green, Faithfulness in blue, Perseverance in gray, Longing in violet, Coquetry in a domino of many colours, the old gallants in purple and gold, the cuckolds in brown, silent Jealousy in dark gray, Rage and Desperation in black. Externally the form is that of a great ballet of the time; internally it is the variation of collected pieces on a single harmonic succession, its contents are the allusions easily comprehended at the time; the characterisation is carried through with great skill; but its musical setting is even shorter than is usually the case with Couperin’s clavier-pieces.

The Preludes, which Couperin appended to his “Art de Toucher le clavecin,” he named, in accordance with their ad libitum performance, the Prose of clavier-literature. These dances and pictures were to him the poetry, rhymed and rhythmical. And it was precisely their formal completion which was of importance for the future of clavier-literature. We see the forms developing. In his best pieces the Sonata is already foreshadowed. The fulness of motives, as they occur to him in his two best compositions, the splendid “Favorite” and the stupendous “Passacaille,” is elsewhere thematically limited. In the recapitulation of the main theme at the beginning of the second part of the pieces, in the rhythmic similarity between the rondo-motive and its “couplets,” in many a thematic working-out, shown for example in “La Trophée” with its wonderfully modern sonata-style, lies the promise of thematically-developed music of succeeding generations. To the same purpose is his increasing sense for the association of several pieces. The many slow second pieces, or the popular dances such as the Polonaise, the Sezile, the Musette, which form the concluding parts of a group, the repetition of the first part after the second, the divisions into slow movement, slower, and lighter, which are specially visible in “La Triomphante,” and “Les Bacchanales”—all these are as much the germ of the future sonata arrangement, as the severer thematic was the germ of sonata-playing. The charm for us lies in observing, in the springtime of art, the natural uprising of these forms which appear to us almost laws of nature.

His “Art de toucher le clavecin,” the first school-book specially devoted to the clavier, was published in 1717 and dedicated to the king. This was a noteworthy advance. There was to be no longer a teaching of mere notation, but a teaching of technique and execution. “The method which I here propose,” says Couperin, “is unique, and has nothing to do with the tablature, which is only a counting of numbers. I deal here chiefly with all that belongs to good playing. I believe that my observations are clear enough to please connoisseurs and to help those who are willing to be helped. As there is a great difference between grammatical and rhetorical rules, so there is an infinite distance between tablature and the art of good playing.” Such a general musical “fabrication” and grammar, in spite of many advanced ideas, had been the work of St Lambert, which appeared from 1702 to 1707, and which in its first part (called “Principes du Clavecin”) devotes only a few lines to actual clavecin playing, and extends the second part (called “De l’accompagnement”) also to the organ, and other instruments. It is painful to him that his experience is treated lightly and turned into a “school.” The parents of the pupils, he says later, ought to place the most implicit reliance on the teacher, and yield him the completest powers. The teacher even takes the key of the instrument with him, and no playing should be attempted without his supervision. The scholar sits with his fore-arm horizontal before the clavier, elbows, hand and fingers in a line—the fingers thus lying quite flat on the keys. He has his body turned very slightly to the right, and the right foot a little stretched out. In order to prevent grimacing while playing, he often places a mirror in front in which he can watch his motions. A bar over the hands occasionally regulates the equality of their height; for the holding of the hands high makes the tone necessarily hard. Looking about of any kind is forbidden, and above all, coquetting with the public as if the playing were no trouble at all. And although, finally, everything in the performance depends on experience, taste, and feeling, yet rules are given for performance to which the player must conform. Couperin frequently disregards the fingering of his predecessors, and to the examples which he gives of his new art he adds confidently in a side-note that he is convinced that few persons in Paris have the old rules in their heads—Paris being the centre of all good. Step by step we have harder and harder studies developed from a single figure, and directions for finger exercises fill the rest of the volume. The change of fingers on one note, the avoidance of the same finger twice in scale passages, the first application of the thumb in passing under are his characteristic points. These are all symptoms of the endeavour to form a legato style suitable to the clavier; they are the external indications of the suppression of the lute. Couperin’s abhorrence of a vacuum runs through his whole teaching of the clavier. The adornments, the avoidance of too long note-values, the legato finger-exercise—all are the systematic development of the powers which arise from the necessity of short tones in the clavier. He once introduces a charming short fugal allemande, in which both voice-parts work in contrary motion in most flowing style in order to show what “sounds well” on the clavier, and opposes to it the one-sided broken chords of the Italian sonatas of whose light style he has on other grounds the highest opinion. “The clavier has its peculiarities as the violin has its. If its note cannot swell, if the repetitions of one tone by striking do not suit it, it has advantages on the other side, precision, neatness, brilliancy, and width of compass.” Perhaps Couperin was the first who had an absolutely good ear for the clavier.

In comparison with him his elder and younger contemporaries must give place. Dumont, le Begue, D’Anglebert, Loeilly, Marchand, Dandrieu, and even the brilliant Rameau, composer of operas and founder of modern musical theory, are his inferiors. It is now demonstrated that Rameau published his first clavier-compositions in 1706, seven years before those of Couperin. But these pieces had just as little meaning and result as those of Marchand which appeared the year previously. They must have differed little from the style of the old school of Chambonnières. Rameau in later years is much freer and more developed, like Couperin, whose work he continued with the happiest results. He is no pioneer, but an improver of the ways. How powerful are his allemandes, how dainty his gigues, how brilliant the conduct of the thematic in his Cyclopes and his Trois Mains! What a depth of invention appears in his variations on Gavottes, in his Gigues, and in his splendid Niais de Sologne! How wonderfully melodious is his “L’Enharmonique,” what a realism is there in his “Hen” and in the “Call of the Birds”! How clear, how penetrating, how rich in promise is his technique! In him there are musical conceptions of extreme penetration and melodious harmonic turns which live for ever in the ear. From the “twenties” to the “sixties” all kinds of new editions of his works were produced, so popular were they, as they would still be, if the public knew these enchanting little works.