Trevor Pinnock - Trevor Pinnock at the Flint Collection: Louis Couperin, Pièces de Clavecin (2017)

The harpsichord music of Louis Couperin (c.1626-1661) occupies a unique place in the glorious flowering of French keyboard music of the baroque era. His short life story is a touching one, marked by strong family bonds, then by the devastation of war, professional success and recognition, before the tragedy of sudden sickness and an early death. He left an indelible mark on musical history in a span of just ten years. His gift for memorable short melodic phrases, declamatory rhythms, surprising harmonies and luminous textures results in his works often remaining in a hearer s imagination long after a performance is over. THIS SELECTION OF PIECES None of Couperin s works was printed in his lifetime since he died just before the art of engraving keyboard music was launched in France with Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers s first organ book (1665), followed by Chambonnières s two harpsichord volumes (1670). We cannot therefore be sure how he would have grouped them in published collections. Although he did not leave his harpsichord pieces grouped into precisely defined suites , he must often have made selections of pieces in the same key, and the preludes were surely intended to precede such selections. The grouping of Couperin s pieces found in the main seventeenth-century French manuscripts does not always suggest obvious ways of grouping them so the choice of such groupings will always be an individual one. For this recording, Trevor Pinnock has made his own personal selection of pieces in three keys.