The Sultan and the Phoenix
French viol music by members of the Couperin family and their contemporaries

Charivari Agréable

Susanne Heinrich
Lynda Sayce
Susanna Pell
Kah-Ming Ng

with

Sarah Groser
Reiko Ichise
Asako Morikawa

Programme Notes

Louis (c.1626-1661), François le Grand (1668-1733) and Armand-Louis (1727-1789) were the three most celebrated members of the distinguished Couperin family of musicians who flourished from the late 16th century until the middle of the 19th, holding a position of esteem parallel to that of the Bachs in Germany. Armand-Louis’ obituarist observed that he was ‘admirable, like his ancestors, for the science and charm of his compositions, for the most brilliant execution, as well as for the art of teaching and forming pupils, a hereditary art of his family’ (Journal général de France, 7 March 1789). The Couperins were first and foremost organists, and were closely associated with the church of St Gervais, Paris for 173 years from the time of Louis’ appointment on Easter Sunday 1653. Indeed Armand-Louis tragically lost his life rushing to Vespers at St Gervais from Ste Chapelle: ‘he was knocked over by a runaway horse who had escaped from beneath his rider; he received a mortal wound in his head and two broken ribs over his heart’. Armand-Louis published his collection of solo harpsichord music in 1751; two years later d’Aquin remarked that he was ‘a young man whom one must reckon among those displaying the greatest promise... . There is reason to think that the artist whose name he bears [d’Aquin is here referring to François Couperin] will one day live again through him. He has genius and technique; his registrations are brilliant’.

André Chéron (1695-1766) was a respected keyboard player and composer; at the time of Armand Louis’ edition (La Chéron) he also held the post of batteur de mesure at the opera, responsible for the premières of works by Rameau, Leclair, Pergolesi and Rousseau. 

In addition to his post as organist at St Gervais, by 1656 Louis Couperin held the court position of Ordinaire de la Musique de la Chambre du Roy for the treble viol in which role he performed in at least four court ballets in the later 1650s. Whilst most of his extant music is either for harpsichord or for organ (including 6 viol-like division basses), two fantaisies ‘pour les Violes’ for treble and bass survive along with two majestic, five-part string fantaisies of fluctuating metre reminiscent of operatic airs, which seem likely to have been performed as entrées de ballet at court. The one on this recording is dated 24 April 1655. The majestic La Piémontoise and the profound F sharp minor Pavan, which have been arranged from the Pièces de Claveçin, are spiced with piquant augmented chords and intricate suspensions. 

François Couperin’s La Sultane, written for the relatively unusual combination of two ‘dessus’, two bass viols and continuo dates from the 1690s, when the goût italien was all the rage in France. Brossard observed in his Catalogue that ‘every composer in Paris, and above all the organists, was furiously writing sonatas in the Italian manner’. In the preface to Les Nations of 1726, Couperin related how, as a young composer, he launched his early Italianate sonatas under a subterfuge: 

Charmed by those [sonatas] of Signor Corelli... I attempted to write one myself, which I had performed in the Concert Series in which I heard those of Corelli. Knowing the appetite of the French for foreign Novelties above all else, and being unsure
of myself, I did myself a very good turn through a little ‘technical’ deceit. I pretended that a relation of mine, in very truth in the service of the King of Sardinia, had sent me a Sonata by a new Italian composer. I rearranged the letters in my name to form an Italian one, which I used instead. The sonata was devoured with alacrity, and I need not trouble to defend myself. This, however, encouraged me. I composed others, and my Italianized name brought me, in disguise, great applause. 

However, the bass viol, which has a tone that Le Blanc likened to the ‘voice of an Ambassador... even a little nasal and most refined’ (Défense de la Basse de Viole 1740), epitomises the French style. Thus La Sultane, with its two bass viols, has a decidedly French flavour; in the utterly French air tendrement the two bass viols both have parts independent of the continuo bass. Les Baricades Mistérieuses is located in Couperin’s Second Livre de Pièces de Clavecin (1717); the constant use of the style brisé in the original makes it an excellent choice to transcribe back for the instrument that the harpsichord apes; a precedent is found in the transcriptions of the theorbist de Visée (c.1655-1732/3), of pieces such as Les Silvains. The mysterious barricades of the title appear to be a technical joke referring to the continuous suspensions which obscure the harmony.

Alcione (1706) by Marin Marais (1656-1728) was hugely popular with Parisian society: the opera was revived once during his lifetime, in 1719, and four times after his death, in 1730, 1741, 1756 and 1771—although in these later performances it was updated with music by Leclair, Francoeur, Rameau and others. The spacious chaconne concludes the five-act tragédie preceded by the chorus ‘Sing, sing so that our voices resound, create a thousand wonderful concerts so that our voices can announce the triumph of these lovers to the world’, which is repeated again after the chaconne.

Pierre Dumage (1674-1751) is only known for his Livre d’Orgue of 1712; the Récit, which is the sixth movement of the suite, lies well on treble viol with continuo. Louis-Antoine Dornel (c.1680-after 1756) was another Parisian organist with the strong penchant for Italian music remarked upon by Brossard; his Sonate en Quatuor is found in his Livre de Simphonies (1709). La Borde commented in 1780 that Dornel ‘had a high reputation in his lifetime, which was partly merited’. Marpurg, writing in 1754, explained that Jacques Duphly (1715-1789) ‘plays the harpsichord only, in order, as his says, not to spoil his hand with the organ’; d’Aquin continues: ‘one may suppose that he did well, since he passes in Paris for a very good harpsichordist. He has much lightness of touch and a certain softness which, sustained by ornaments, marvellously render the character of his pieces’. La Casaubon and La Madin come from Duphly’s Troisième Livre de Pièces de Claveçin (1756), and were published with violin accompaniment; these have been arranged for two treble instruments in the manner of Rameau’s Pièces de Claveçin en Concerts. 

Le Phénix (c.1734), a concerto for four bass viols (or ’cellos or bassoons), rose from the pen of the extraordinarily prolific and multifaceted Michel Corrette (1707-1795). Several years earlier Paris had been taken by storm by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, which were performed at the Concert Spirituel. Vivaldi’s influence is strongly felt in Corrette’s spirited and focussed work, in which tutti is contrasted with solo. The outer movements are highly energetic, whereas the central adagio juxtaposes rich homophonic passages, full of suspensions, with singing, aria-like melodies supported only by a simple bass.

Lucy Robinson, 2000

Notes on performance

Our CD programme is loosely based on a cursory overview of the ensemble use of the viol in its various manifestations and stages of evolution in France. The Couperin dynasty offers a convenient chronological framework within which the viol could be heard in various guises: from a consort setting to a ‘pièces de clavecin en concerts’ configuration; from a six-string bass viol to a five-string hybrid ‘quinton’. Underpinning this programme is the historical practice of adaptation, transcription and arrangement with which French baroque music is replete.

Many aspects of what listeners today regard as integral to a ‘finished work’ were never set in stone in the baroque period: the performers were expected to complete the compositional process. Such practices as ornamentation and continuo realization spring readily to mind. Instrumentation, too, was seldom circumscribed, as title pages often invite use of alternative instruments, albeit with commercial opportunism in mind. In Lully’s case, the composition of the inner parts or parties des remplissages was often left to his secrétaires Foucault and Philidor. Le Roux revealingly showed his readers how to adapt his solo harpsichord pieces into trio sonatas by extracting from the right hand part a melody, and improvising a contrepartie to form the other principal part. Accompanied keyboard pieces, such as those by Mondonville and Rameau, were reworked into works for larger ensembles; in Mondonville’s case, the Op. 3 Pièces de clavecin en sonates (1734) became the ‘6 Sonate à 4’ for 2 violins, 2 oboes, bassoon and continuo; while the movement entitled ‘La Pantomime’ from Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concerts (1741) formed the template from which the overture to his Les surprises de l’Amour (1748) was cast. 

We have followed this widespread historical tradition by arranging some pieces ourselves. Some involved direct transcription, such as the L. Couperin Pavan for a viol consort or the F. Couperin harpsichord piece for theorbo (in the style of de Visée, see above). Others were simple adaptations of keyboard works, such as the Récit by Dumage, while the pieces by Duphly were more freely recast using Le Roux’s principles. Other arrangements required more compositional input, such as the arrangement of the opening piece in the style of the composer’s known 5-part works, or the writing of filler parts for the Marais Chaconne, which had a part missing. We have left some pieces untouched, such as L. Couperin’s Fantaisies and Corrette’s Phénix, as well as the large-scale chamber works of Dornel and Couperin, although the latter two have been interpreted in a way to reflect the growing popularity of the pardessus de viole, considered a refined substitute for the violin, suitable for the use of ladies aspiring to public performance.

Kah-Ming Ng, 2001