Mark Kroll’s Couperin Project: Volume Six

courtesy of Naxos of America

It has been almost two years since I last wrote about Mark Kroll’s project to record the complete keyboard works of François Couperin. My last dispatch seemed to have more to do with personal frustrations with Centaur Records derived from the release of the fifth volume in the series prior to that of the fourth. Fortunately, the latest release, which came out a little over a week ago, seems to have restored the expected order, since it is identified as Volume 6!

As was the case on Volume 5, the new release consists of only two ordres. The first of these is the very first ordre in the collection in the key of G (“major-minor”). This is followed by the ninth ordre in the key of A (“major-minor”). Both of these suites were recorded on a harpsichord completed by William Dowd in 1974 based on a design by Pascal Taskin. However, the very first composition in that latter ordre is an allemande scored for two keyboards. The second instrument was made by Allan Winkler based on an instrument built by Carl Conrad Fleisher, and it is played by Peter Sykes.

This particular movement is likely to come as a jolt to some of the more attentive listeners. The pieces with programmatic titles often present easily recognizable themes and accompanying harmonies. It frequently (often?) seems to be the case that Couperin would summon such cues as justification for his titles.

The movements based on familiar dance forms, on the other hand, can be both richer and more demanding in content. From my perspective as a mediocre student, I have found that those dance movements tend to be more finger-twisting, often by virtue of thicker polyphonic textures. Adding another keyboard to the allemande that opens the ninth ordre almost sounds as if the overall texture has ramped up exponentially, rather than linearly! Even with my Dover Publications reprint of the scores edited by Johannes Brahms and Friedrich Chrysander, following the underlying themes and motifs was no easy matter.

Since all of these keyboard compositions were written for publication, I would guess that Couperin expected them to be purchased by music lovers whose technical skills were no better than my own. The movements with the programmatic titles would have been the primary “draw;” and I can imagine that well-to-do Parisians during the first half of the eighteenth century would have derived considerable entertainment from sampling these relatively short pieces. Truth be told, even with my own failing skills, listening is more an inspiration for trying to play, rather than an end in itself. Nevertheless, there are no end of entertaining diversions for the attentive listener in these two ordres; and I would like nothing more than an opportunity to listen to that two-keyboard allemande in a recital performance.