The Couperin Family

La Fronde - Louis Couperin: Suite in a-mi-la-re
The Grand Siècle - François Couperin: Prelude No. 5 in A major from "L'Art de Toucher le Clavecin"; 7 pieces from "Premier Livre de Pièces de Clavecin, V. Ordre" in A major/A minor;
Régence - 5 pieces from "Quatrième Livre de Pièces de Clavecin, XXII. Ordre" in D major/D minor
Twilight - Armand Couperin: 2 pieces from "Pièces de Clavecin" op. 1
Revolution - Gervais-François Couperin: Variations on "Ah! Ça ira!"

Jean-Christophe Dijoux,
double-manual harpsichord after an anonymous model, Paris 1677, copy by Malcolm Rose (1988) after an original in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
double-manual harpsichord after Joseph Joannes Couchet, Antwerp 1680, copy by John Koster (1983) after an original in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The Couperin dynasty, originating from Chaumes-en-Brie near Paris, spanned from 1591 to 1860 and produced some of France's most celebrated organists. Louis Couperin's music survives only in copies and displays a remarkable expressive power. His nephew François Couperin, organist to Louis XIV and later to the regent Philippe II, left four books of Pièces de Clavecin in which the legacy of the Grand Siècle gradually gives way to a stronger Italian influence. François's nephew Armand-Louis, a gifted organist and improviser, carries on the French harpsichord tradition, though his style betrays the more frivolous taste of his era. Armand-Louis died on the eve of the Revolution; his son Gervais-François outlived him by more than thirty years. The penultimate member of the family is a colourful figure who drew both admiration and contempt from the early Romantics. This concert offers the chance to hear, on two different instruments, the evolution of a musical language across a historical context as varied as it was turbulent.