Complete Works of Louis Couperin on Erato

Cover image (presumably of keyboardist Jean Rondeau) of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

Some readers may recall my writing this past July about how I begin every day with a brief session with my Yamaha Clavinova. For the past months, I have been working my way through the first of the two Dover volumes of the Complete Keyboard Works of François Couperin. Ironically, as I approach this landmark, I have recent acquired an Erato box set of ten CDs and one DVD accounting for the complete works of Louis Couperin, François’ uncle.The Wikipedia page for this elder Couperin provides only the year of his birth, 1626, meaning that, even if we do not know the exact date, next year will mark his 400th anniversary. According to the Amazon.com Web page, this collection will be released this coming Friday; and, as most readers will expect, that Web page can be used to process pre-orders.

The keyboardist is Jean Rondeau. His performances alternate among three harpsichords and two church organs. Much of the catalog consists of solo suites, however there are also a generous number of selections involving both vocalists and additional instrumentalists. There are also “guest appearances,” compositions by Couperin’s contemporaries, some of whom, like Marin Marais, are likely to be familiar, while others such as Ennemond Gaultier, who pre-dated Couperin by roughly half a century, have not yet found a place for recordings on Amazon.com! (My only “fun fact” about Gaultier is that he composed a courante given the title “La Belle Homicide!”)

While I have listened to all of the CDs and found them engaging, I have to confess that learning any background about this music is no easy matter. It is only on page 140 of the booklet that the editorial notes (presumably by Rondeau himself) “spill the beans.” The first sentence is as follows: “Given that no manuscripts in Louis Couperin’s own hand have survived and that multiple sources exists, my editorial approach has been to produce a sort of personal edition, making decisions based on these varied sources.” Unfortunately, this means that there is no way to correlate the content with the List of compositions by Louis Couperin Wikipedia page; nor will the curious listener find any assistance on the IMSLP “Compositions by” Web page. For that matter, while the booklet provides the necessary details for the track listings, there is no index to consult to guide the curious listener to a particular selection.

I suppose the problem is that there is no agreed-upon “standard” for organizing this repertoire and then cataloging it. Were the music itself to be familiar, this would not necessarily be a significant issue. However, I suspect that this new release will be purchased by music lovers with little, if any, knowledge of either the composer or his music. If my own “informed background” was frustrated by the “packaging,” I can only wonder how more “casual” listeners are likely to feel about this offering!