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442 8197

Eloq uence

COUPERIN
Messe pour les paroisses
Messe pour les couvents

C M C M 119.5MM
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Gillian Weir

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The organ of the Prediger-Kirche, Zrich

by Th. Kuhn A.G. Mnnedorf, Switzerland, 1970

HAUPTWERK RCKPOSITIV SCHWELLWERK PEDAL

16' Pommer 8' Gedackt 8' Holzgedackt 32' Untersatz (stopped)
8' Prinzipal 8' Quintatn 8' Salicet 16' Principalbass
8' Kopelflte 4' Prinzipal 8' Schwebung 16' Subbass
8' Gamba 4' Blockflte 4' Prinzipal 8' Octavbass
4' Octave 2' Octave 4' Rohrflte 8' Spillflte
4' Spitzflte 1 1/3' Quinte 2 2/3' Nazard 4' Octav
2 2/3' Quinte 1' Scharf 3f. 2' Waldflte 4' Nachthorn
2' Superoctav Sesquialter II 1 3/5' Terz 2' Mixtur 5f.
1 1/3 Mixtur 4f. 8' Krummhorn 1 1/3' Sifflte 16' Posaune
1/2' Zimbel 3f. Tremulant 1' Mixtur 4f. 8' Zinke
8' Suavial (from c') 16' Dulcian 4' Klarine
8' Cornett 5f. (from f) 8' Schalmei
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Tremulant

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Recording producer: Michael Bremner
Recording engineer: Stanley Goodall
Recording location: Prediger-Kirche Zurich, Switzerland, 1972, by kind permission of the Church
Council
Eloquence series manager: Cyrus Meher-Homji
Cover illustration / Art direction: Chilu Tong

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text of that part of the mass to which they
relate. Like many a work originally destined
for the liturgy, Couperins Messe pour les
paroisses and Messe pour les couvents are
both thoroughly satisfactory as concert
works, each being in the nature of a suite of
21 contrasting and, for the most part, fairly
short movements.
Both masses are as much concerned with
matching the colourful ceremony enacted
below the organ-loft as with evoking a
devotional atmosphere. They bring together
elements of the majestic, the theatrical, the
C M worldly these being projected by organ
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tones which seem to leap from the
instrument as well as the quietly reflective.
Some movements are cast in the somewhat
austere polyphony of the late sixteenth-
century motet or viol fantasias, the threads
bound in a rather dense web of sound. In the
Parish Mass one of these strands is usually a
phrase of the plainsong upon which the work
is based Cunctipotens Genitor Deus often
Ears coming to this music for the first time FRANOIS COUPERIN (1668-1733)
may be puzzled by the harmonies which are CD 1 4535
sometimes removed from the familiar Messe pour les paroisses
procedures found in music from the same 1 I Plein chant du premier Kyrie, en Taille 128
period by Italian or German composers. The 2 II Fugue sur les jeux danches. 2e Couplet 158
3 III Rcit de Chromhorne. 3e Couplet 256
constant fluctuation between major and
4 IV Dialogue sur la Trompette et le Chromhorne. 4e Couplet 145
minor versions of a chord produces a 5 V Plein chant. 5e et dernier Couplet 107
chromaticism very different in its feel from 6 VI Plein jeu. Et in Terra pax 108
that practised by Couperins contemporaries 7 VII Petite fugue sur le Chromhorne. 2e Couplet du Gloria 046
such as J.S. Bach or Corelli. James Anthony's 8 VIII Duo sur les Tierces. 3e Couplet 143
description of seventeenth-century French 9 IX Dialogue sur les Trompettes, Clairon et Tierces du Grand Clavier, 218
et le Bourdon avec le Larigot du Positif. 4e Couplet
harpsichord music as operating in a pre-
0 X Trio 2 dessus de Chromhorne et la basse de Tierce. 5e Couplet 158
tonal shadow zone is equally applicable ! XI Tierce en Taille. 6e Couplet 354
here. Couperin was later to embrace the @ XII Dialogue sur la Voix humaine. 7e Couplet 235
more cosmopolitan baroque style. His two XIII Dialogue en trio du Cornet et de la Tierce. 8e Couplet 232 C M 119.5MM
Y B
$ XIV Dialogue sur les Grands jeux. 9e et dernier Couplet 127 (4.71)
masses written when the composer was a
young man deeply influenced by his % XV Offertoire sur les Grands jeux 800
^ XVI Plein chant du premier Sanctus en Canon 044
predecessors, are, however, essentially French
& XVII Rcit de Cornet. 2e Couplet 057
in concept and sound. * XVIII Benedictus. Chromhorne en Taille 324
( XIX Plein chant de lAgnus dei en Basse et en Taille alternativement 138
David Tunley
) XX Dialogue sur les Grands jeux. 3e Couplet dAgnus 212
XXI Deo gratias. Petit plein jeu 052
The above notes are based upon David Tunley,
Franois Couperin and The Perfection of Music
(Ashgate, 2004). This book is dedicated to Dame

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Gillian Weir who performs Couperins two organ

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set out in long notes. In contrast, there are masses for this recording.
movements indebted to dances like the
gigue, while others draws out long lines of
melody etched in the characteristic tones of
the classical French organ.

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CD 2 3838 another professionally copied version procedures or Ceremonials varied in detail

Messe pour les Couvents (differing in details from the other) that from place to place, in general terms they
1 I Plein jeu. Premier Couplet du Kyrie 112 existed in the library at Versailles. It has been were very similar.
2 II Fugue sur la Trompette. 2e Couplet du Kyrie 125
conjectured by the editors of the revised
3 III Rcit de Chromhorne 315 As organist at Saint-Gervais, Couperin was
4 IV Trio dessus de Chromhorne et la basse de Tierce. 120 edition of Couperins complete works that
expected to follow the procedures relating to
4e Couplet du Kyrie the Versailles version was conceived as a
musical performance laid down in the
5 V Dialogue sur la trompette du grand clavier et sur la montre, 150 presentation copy from the young
Ceremonial for the diocese of Paris drawn up
le bourdon et le nazard du positif. 5e et dernier Couplet du Kyrie composer anxious to display his credentials at
in 1662. However, far from being hampered
6 VI Plein jeu. Premier Couplet du Gloria 140 court, while that of Carpentras was destined
7 VII Petitte fugue sur le Chromhorne. 2e Couplet 034 by many restrictions, it would seem that the
for wider circulation. Both the Carpentras organist or composer had merely to ensure
8 VIII Duo sur les Tierces. 3e Couplet 131
and Versailles copies became the basis of the
9 IX Basse de Trompette. 4e Couplet 131 that out of the twenty or so occasions when
0 X Chromhorne sur la Taille. 5e Couplet 249 revised edition of the two organ masses the organ alternated with choir or priests in
! XI Dialogue sur la Voix humaine. 6e Couplet 208 published by LOiseau-Lyre in 1982. their chanting of the ordinary of the mass,
@ XII Trio. Les dessus sur la tierce et la basse sur la trompette. 7e Couplet 124 seven of these instrumental responses should
C M XIII Rcit de tierce. 8e Couplet 305 Although Couperin's two works are C M 119.5MM
thoroughly enjoyable in purely musical terms, use the plainsong chosen for that service.
Y B
$ XIV Dialogue sur les Grands jeux. Dernier Couplet 121 Y B
(4.71)
% XV Offertoire sur les grands jeux 524 they were composed to serve a liturgical Apparently, the Paris Ceremonial did not
^ XVI Premier Couplet du Sanctus 052 function. The so-called organ mass was an extend to closed establishments such as
& XVII Rcit de Cornet. 2e Couplet 038 extension of the age-old custom of convents. Certainly, Couperin's Messe pour
* XVIII Elvation. Tierce en Taille 330 responsorial singing in which priest and choir les couvents has no plainsong basis at all,
( XIX Agnus Dei 056 being freely-composed throughout.
alternated in the chanting of plainsong. With
) XX Dialogue sur les grands jeux. Dernier Couplet dAgnus Dei 119
XXI Deo Gratias. Petit plein jeu 039 the development of polyphony the choral While when performed as part of the liturgy
responses were often couched in elaborate Couperins masses involve choral responses, it
Gillian Weir
at the organ of the Prediger-Kirche, Zurich versions of the plainsong. In the organ is more usual, nowadays, to hear them as

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masses the instrument took over the role of organ solos in their own right, the

the choir, and by Couperin's time the
alternation of plainsong and organ response
had become a tradition of many years'
standing, regulated by procedures laid down
Total timing: 8413 by the Church in France. While these
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movements following one upon the other
without the participation of singing in
between. Most of the titles of these
movements relate both to the organ
registration stipulated by Couperin and the

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related to a degree unknown elsewhere. So
strong was this relationship that composers
very often gave the registration as the title of
a movement, as can be seen in the list of
movements of Couperins two organ masses.
Clearly, all registration depended upon the
resources of each instrument, but nevertheless
there existed a remarkably high degree of tonal
standardisation in France during the
seventeenth century. Some composer-
performers gave suggestions in their
publications about which stops to use for
certain registrations and because some organs
of the period have now been restored we have
C M
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organ masses sounded in those days. (This is in
striking contrast to what little we know about
the registration of German baroque organ
music.) Because Couperin's organ music was
conceived in terms of the classical French organ,
it goes without saying that it will sound almost
unintelligible if played on a nineteenth-century
romantic organ. Some of the Messe des
paroisses looks rather dull on paper. Yet when
played on an instrument that possesses a close
approximation to the tonal resources of
Couperin's, it achieves a haunting beauty
through the combination of its musical thought
and the sensual allure of the sound itself.
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The Two Organ Masses
While the name of Franois Couperin is not
immediately associated in popular
imagination with sacred music, nevertheless,
not only does it represent the major
concentration of his activities as a composer
in his youth and early maturity; his music for
the church also includes some of his finest
works. His two organ masses comprised his
first publication.
The Messe pour les paroisses (Parish Mass)
and the Messe pour les couvents (Convent
Mass) are both contained in his Pices
dorgue issued by the publisher Ballard in
1690. Publication is perhaps too strong a
word for a volume of music in which only the
title-page is printed, the music itself being
written out by a professional copyist from
Couperins own now lost manuscript.
Although a few inferior editions of
Couperins Pices dorgue were made in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
Ballards single issue was only discovered in
the early years of the twentieth century at the
library of Carpentras in southern France, thus
offering the first reliable source for a modern
edition. This appeared in Volume XII of the
complete works published by LOiseau-Lyre in
1933. Unknown at that time, however, was
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Gillian Weir remembers Franois Couperin (1668-1733, known as
LAge dOr the Golden Age of French Couperin le grand) was the most illustrious
music, from 1650 to 1750, has always been member of a family of musicians active in France
my passion. It was epitomised by the Court of from the late sixteenth century to the mid
Louis XIV, the Sun King, where style was all. nineteenth century. He was born on 10
All the arts flourished there, led by the King, November 1668 in Paris, and was only eleven
who sponsored divertissements every when his father died. Such was the young boys
evening, and who himself spent four hours precocity that the parish council appointed him
each day practising the intricate dances which to succeed his father when he reached the age
were a feature of the court entertainments. of eighteen. Its confidence in the child was not
misplaced, and a year before that birthday the
The music appears deceptively simple, but it is
church council agreed to pay him 300 livres a
the simplicity of perfection, the distillation of
year until a formal contract was drawn up,
the style. Beneath the elegant phrases deep
suggesting that the young musician had already
passions rage, just as behind the fluttering fan
been Saint-Gervaiss organist for some time, C M 119.5MM
of a great lady at court might lie the passions Y B
even though the post officially was filled by (4.71)
aroused by her masked lover at a ball.
Michel-Richard Delalande.
When Decca invited me to record for them I
The young Couperins training had been
immediately chose a series of recordings of
placed in the hands of Jacques Thomelin,
French Classical music, starting with the
organist at Saint Jacques-la-Boucherie, who
greatest composer of all, Franois Couperin le
was also one of the four organists at the Royal
Grand. Most of the recordings were made on
Chapel. A few months before his 21st
historic instruments, but as I admired the
birthday Couperin married Marie-Anne
splendid work being done by modern builders
Ansault whose family enjoyed excellent
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in working with a refined mechanical action
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business connections that were to usefully
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and traditional casework and design
serve the young organist-composer, who, the
techniques, I chose a modern organ by the
following year, successfully obtained a six-year
Swiss builder Kuhn for this one.
royal privilge to publish his compositions.
Gillian Weir Following the death of Thomelin, Couperin
September 2005 auditioned to become one of the organists at
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the Royal Chapel in 1693, and was chosen by
the king himself, who declared the young
man to be the most experienced of them all.
Couperin, then aged 25, was required to be
at Versailles from January to March each year,
so allowing him to serve Saint-Gervais for the
remaining months.
Soon afterwards he was also appointed
harpsichord teacher to members of the royal
family the Dauphin (Duke of Boulogne),
Anne de Bourbon and Louis-Alexandre de
Bourbon (Duke of Toulouse). This
appointment and other commitments at
court led to an increasing presence at
C M
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years of Louiss reign when Couperin was
required to be at court every Sunday evening
to play chamber music for the ailing king. The
Duke of Toulouse, who under Couperins
tuition became a good amateur musician and
an ardent music-lover, was to maintain a
group of musicians at his chteau at
Rambouillet and at the Htel de Toulouse in
Paris where Couperin undoubtedly
opposite the stables of the Htel de Toulouse
After the kings death in 1715 he secured the
post of harpsichordist in the musique de
chambre, which, for 43 years, had been held
by the now enfeebled Jean-Baptiste
DAnglebert, son of the famous seventeenth-
century player and composer, an
appointment which Couperin passed on to
his daughter Marguerite-Antoinette when he
himself began to feel the inroads of ill health.
Indeed, ill health constantly dogged him in
latter years and he died on 12 September
I733 and was buried in the church of Saint
Joseph, part of the parish of Saint Eustache.
The French Classical Organ
Before coming to the works themselves it is
helpful to know something about the kind of
instrument for which Couperin wrote. French
organ building during the seventeenth
century had developed along lines quite
different from those in Germany. Certainly
there were superficial similarities: the grand
orgue (or main manual) which was
placed, like the Rckpositif, behind the
player's back. But whereas German
instruments developed considerable
resources in other manuals, particularly the
pedals, those in France relied largely upon
the grand orgue and the positif de dos; even
the pedals on seventeenth-century French
organs were, in a sense, 'extras'. Thus most
of the movements of Couperin's two masses
can, with notable exceptions, be played
without pedals.
But above all, it was the tonal quality that
distinguished French from German
instruments. While German builders
produced organs which featured transparent
and bright sounds ideal for the polyphonic
music being written by the seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century German masters, French
builders sought tonal variety and colour. They
made much use of the tierce, a rank of pipes
which sounded a note two octaves and a
third above a stronger 'foundation' note,
reinforcing the fifth harmonic, and imparting
nazard and larigot) were richly exploited by
French builders, providing tonal
combinations distinctly different from
German instruments. They also developed to
perfection the more robust reed stops, two of
which became indispensable: the trompette
(on the grand orgue and pedal) and the
cromhorne (on the positif). Another reed, the
voix humaine, was also found on most large
instruments, but curiously enough was
missing from Couperin's instrument at Saint-
Gervais.
The carefully calculated relationships
between groups of stops on the two essential C M 119.5MM
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manuals led to a standardisation of (4.71)
registration unknown in Germany. That
called the plein jeu (the most characteristic
sound of the classical French organ) was the
result of a combination of stops from both
grand orgue and positif, producing a rich,
brilliant and dynamic tone to which
composers turned for strong, direct
utterances, like the opening Kyrie

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associated with a large number of pipes to registrations which required the tierce a movements of the two masses. The

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performed, and he gave the composer a

generous pension.
The relationship was probably strengthened
in 1724 when Couperin acquired a house in
the fashionable Rue des bons enfants
placed above the player's head corresponded
to the Hauptwerk of the German instrument,
while the positif de dos with its more
intimate character (its pipes in a higher
register than those of the grand orgue) was
sonority very characteristic of the French
classical organ. This practice of artificially
bringing into prominence a particular
overtone gave rise to stops known as
'mutations' and these (which included the
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registration known as the tierce en taille,
with its poignant tenor solo wreathed in a
halo-like accompaniment, called out for
music of noble eloquence. Indeed, in French
organ music, sound and sentiment were

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(4.74) 241MM (4.74)
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CD BOOK SADDLE STITCH

SEL#:442 8410 DATE: 25/5/06 L/S: TECH: CYAN MAGENTA TOTAL

LABEL:Decca FILE NAME: YELLOW BLACK NUMBER OF
T
ARTIST:Ashkenazy, Barenboim JOB #: PMS PMS COLORS BAC
K FR
ON

TITLE:SCHUMANN: SCHUMANN Concertos SEPARATOR:

607
TEMPLATE: UMG_CD_BOOK_SADDLE_JUL00.qxt

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0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 25 25 50 50 75 75 100 100 95 95 97 97 99 99 75 50 25 10 CM MY CY
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