Couperin, Francois

International Music Score Library Project [IMSLP] entry: Francois Couperin

Francois Couperin [1668-1733] was known as "Couperin le Grand", and was, with Rameau, one of the great French composers of the Baroque era.

Piece	MP3	Midi	Genre
Les Ondes		MIDI	harpsichord classical
	Les Ondes (The Waves) is the last piece of Ordre 5me, the last suite of Couperin's first book of harpsichord pieces. It takes the form of a rondo, with returns of the lilting main theme separated by four varied couplets, perhaps representing different sorts of wave. The piece is marked Gracieusement, sans lenteur (Gracefully, without dragging). Sequenced from a library copy, though I also have my own copy. I've used notes inegales (unequal notes) to add to the lilt; this is the contemporary practice of very slightly lengthening the first of a pair of equal notes and shortening the second. The ornamentation is as per the library copy. On a good harpsichord, this piece has a marvellous sonority, nothing like the "cat on a hot tin roof" characterisation of harpsichord music by Classic FM and other critics.
Le Tic-Toc-Choc ou les Maillotins		MIDI	classical harpsichord
	Le Tic-Toc-Choc is intended to evoke a clock; the subtitle of Les Maillotins, according to taste, either is a reference to the Maillot family, or means little hammers. The piece is marked Légèrement et Marqué [lightly/rapidly and marked]. So I have taken it fairly quickly, without racing, and with contrasting timbres for the `busy' right hand and the more tuneful left. It is a pièce croisée, meaning that Couperin intends it for a two-manual harpsichord, with the hands thereby crossing and uncrossing frequently and easily. For the piano, it therefore becomes a virtuoso piece, and even then loses something in the performance, This piece is from Couperin's 18th Suite, in his 3rd book of Pieces de Clavecin, published in 1722. It takes the form of a Rondeau or rondo, in which the recurrences of the theme are separated by three Couplets. Each occurrence of the rondo itself consists of a repeated theme, until the last, which is replaced by a short coda. Sequenced in 2025 primarily from the version at IMSLP published by Les Editions Outremontaises, with a 2005 copyright. This version was released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence; further information is available here, but the practical effects seem to be that you may do whatever you like with this work, even commercially, provided that you give appropriate credits and your work is itself released under a compatible licence. How this interacts with my own copyright, I leave to the lawyers. As the Outremontaises edition is virtually an urtext edition, I have used exactly the printed ornamentation, and ignored the temptations to elaborate or to vary the notes in the repeats.

For more information about MP3 and Midi files, and especially for why they may not work well, or even at all, on your computer, tablet, smartphone or browser, see here.
To see/hear pieces sorted by genre, click on a link under Genre.
To go back to the full list of pieces, click here.
Where applicable, the link above under Wiki entry will give you a biography of the composer; and the IMSLP link is to a page with available scores and online performances relating to the composer.
For general information about copyright and performance restrictions, see here.

Andy Walker, anw [at] cuboid4.me.uk [remove digit to construct address]