Can music be a form of poetry? Can musical sounds approach the shades of a sonnet by Shakespeare? Perhaps not, but
Chopin and Couperin (Le grand) came close. In the first decades of the eighteenth century, Couperin was the leading French composer. Do not compare him with his younger contemporary
Bach, for the differences could not be greater. Complex fugues as Bach wrote them were an abomination to
… French taste. That Couperin borrowed from the Italians was daring enough for a French court musician. Keyboard music makes up the lion's share of Couperin's oeuvre. His numerous harpsichord pieces were published in four voluminous books (1713, 1717, 1722 and 1730). These books are in turn subdivided into suites (ordres), the count of which flows from one book into the next. Decorative art and sensitive recitation are the charms of this music. The titles are often as poetic as they are enigmatic. What would he have meant by Les Ombres-Errantes? The piece of the same name tells us both everything and nothing. Frédérick Haas plays a number of suites from the third and fourth books. (HJ)more
