Sylvia Marlowe plays Couperin le Grand – Vol 2.
Harpsichord by William Dowd
Serenus recorded Editions SRS 12053 made in the U.S.A. (available in 1982)
Originally released 1968 by Decca 710161
The present recording is a re-issue of the original Decca recording, re-recorded by Serenus for this album. The original tapes are the property of the Harpsichord Record Company, Sylvia Marlowe, President.
Project supervisor for Serenus, Mullen Boyd;
Art procurement, J. Tucker Batsford
Cover engraving from Amedee Mereaux, “Les Clavecinistes,” Heugel et Cie., Paris, 1867
Side One
Band 1. 25th Ordre (11’06) 1st published 1968
00:00 I. La Visionaire
02:57 II. La Misterieuse
05:19 III. La Monflambert
07:23 IV. La Muse Victorieuse
09:23 V. Les Ombres Errantes
11:04 Band 2. L’Amphibie (6’28)
17:33 Band 3. Les Tours de Passe-passe (2’02)
19:37 Band 4. Le Croc-en-jambe (2’12)
21:52 Band 5. Le Reveil-matin (2’21)
Side Two
24:20 Band 1. La Favorite (4’51)
Band 2. 26th Ordre (13’11) 1st published 1953
29:15 I. La Convalescente
31:56 II. Gavotte
33:19 III. La Sophie
35:31 IV. L’Epine’use
39:43 V. La Pantomime
42:30 Band 3. La Bandoline (2’56)
45:29 Band 4. Le Tic-Toc-Choc, ou les Maillotins (2’35) 1st published 1946, 1958

François Couperin (1668-1733), the senior member of
the great “Five” among 18th-century composers for harpsichord
along with Bach, Handel, Rameau and Domenico
Scarlatti, bequeathed us four books of Pieces de Clavecin,
published between 1713 anti 1730.* Yet, of all these 254
pieces grouped in 27 Ordres, only a handful are generally
known to the musical public even today, despite the recent
intense interest in the music of the Baroque. To many,
Couperin is merely the creator of beguiling little genre
pieces, ornate, dainty rococo miniatures. The monumental
grandeur of many of the works recorded here should serve
to correct such a limited view of Couperin Ie Grand and to
reveal him as the foremost keyboard master of the French
Baroque grand manner in all its aspects. Composer and
performer at the court of Versailles for most of his life,
Couperin’s music reflects many facets of that vanished age
of splendor. This is specially the case in his Pieces de
Clavecin which he first played before an audience of royal
and noble listeners on the glorious French harpsichords of
the time. His keyboard writing in its way is as idiomatic as
that of his contemporary at the Spanish court, Domenico
Scarlatti, or his spiritual heir in the Romantic age, Chopin,
In his subtlety and variety Couperin is at once the most
enchanting and the most elusive of the great “Five” for
both listener and performer. His music mirrors in all its
complex development the stylistic change which took
place in France during his lifetime: the decline of the
grand Baroque towards the end of the long reign of Louis
XIV and the rise of the Rococo under that of his great grandson,
Louis the Well-Beloved, the 15th French king of
that name. Couperin, while remaining Gallic to the core,
sought to assimilate into his own style the Italian influences,
notably those of Corelli and his school, which
were coming into vogue in France at the end of the 17th
century at the expense of the older French Baroque manner,
exemplified most of a ll by the music of Lully, himself
a born Florentine who had come to Paris and created that
most French of musical idioms, Like the armies of his
royal master, Le Roi Soleil, Lully conquered almost the
whole of Europe in his time.
Fortunately for the modern harpsichordist, Couperin
was extremely explicit in his directions for performance,
even providing a classic book of instruction. L’Art de
Toucher Ie Clavecin, which appeared in 1716. In it he
dealt with some of the subtle expressive devices, such as
rhythmical alterations (Ies notes inegales), a kind of flexing
of the beat akin both to the Chopin rubato and to some
modern jazz performance practices. Each of the four volumes
of Pieces also contains a preface telling of the circumstances
of their composition and how they should be
played in certain respects, In evident reaction against the
tendency of performers in earlier times to take excessive
liberties with the text. Couperin directed that the performer
play precisely what he wrote, adding or subtracting
nothing, This was indeed a necessary and salutary rtlle
for the amateurs of the time; the virtuoso performer of the
music of others did not yet exist. But it is quite impossible
to believe that, for example. he meant to insist on the literal
repetition of a recurring rondeau theme each and
every time without any free ornamentation or rhythmical
variation whatever. The weight of the evidence and of tra·
dition is utterly to the contrary, Couperin himself showed
us what he really wanted by providing some of his earlier
pieces with ornamented alternative versions (doubles) and
petites reprises.
H.M. Schott

#WilliamDowd #SylviaMarlowe