> I wrote: Will re-read this enhanced version asap.
Let me post my mini-review of Glen Wilson's "The Other Mr COuperin", in
Early Keyboard Journal, Vol. 30-2013.
This articles poses interesting remarks and theses. Let me comment on some
of them:
1) p.7 last paragraph and p. 8 first paragraph, and many other paragraphs
throughout the article, add absolutely nothing for or against the
attribution of 17th c. "Couperin" pieces to either Louis or Charles.
2) p.9 last paragraph: "The unchallenged attribution [to Louis Couperin] had
taken on an almost totemic aspect ... when a new source appeared. The
Parville manuscript contained four new "Couperin" pieces which were
unhesitatingly attributed to Louis. A small alarm might have gone off when
one of these appeared to be to be an arrangement with double of a rigaudon
from Jean-Baptiste Lully's opera Acis et Galathée from 1686, a quarter
century after Louis's death."
A footnote clarifies that this idea originates in Gustafson and Fuller 1990.
Unfortunately, there is a date contradiction here. By 1686 Charles had also
died! (back on p.7 Wilson correctly dates his death in 1679). Therefore, if
the piece was really an arrangement from Lully's opera, Charles could not be
the composer either! Significantly, Gustafson and Fuller did NOT attribute
Parville to Charles (as Wilson does) but just to "a member of the family
alive in 1686": this could be François Le Grand, who by 1686 was already 18.
Of course, there is an alternative to the Gustafson-Fuller-Wilson
hypothesis: maybe it was the other way around and it was Lully who arranged
the harpsichord piece for his opera. This leaves as with no evidence about
the attribution of the Parville pieces to either Louis or Charles.
3) p. 10, last paragraph. "Other doubles ... in the Bauyn manuscript would
also be difficult to attribute to Louis. Jacques Hardel ... composer of a
gavotte ... to which a double was added by Mr Couperin."
Surely I am missing something, for there is no implication here
demonstrating that Louis could not be the author.
4) p.10-11. "... in the third part of Bauyn is another Couperin double on a
gavotte that Nicolas Lebègue published in 1677 ... perhaps ... composed
before Louis Couperin's death in 1661, but this is the earliest firm date
for Lebègue's presence in Paris."
Actually the source names Lebègue (who turned 30 in 1661) as "the famous
Parisian organist", possibly showing he had been in Paris for some time.
Alternatively, he may have composed the piece outside Paris before 1661 and
Louis had obtained a copy. Either way, this evidence hardly supports the
non-authorship of Charles.
5) pp. 11-13. The more I read these pages, the less convinced I am re any
real implication about the attribution to either Louis or Charles.
6) p. 14. "... Titon du Tillet... says '... he [François the elder] did not
have the same talent as his two brothers ... the harpsichord pieces of the
two brothers .' ".
This is the first good evidence, quite late in this article, that Charles
was also considered a composer of fine harpsichord pieces.
7) p. 17 " ... Tombeau de Blan[c]rocher ..." assumed ... work of Louis
Couperin, and it may very well be. But ... there is no reason why a
brilliant fourteen-year old could not have written this ... ".
Of course not. But the attribution to the older brother is, pace Wilson,
more likely.
8) pp. 18ff. A flurry of interesting historical information and scholarly if
rhetorical writing, backed by a substantial apparatus of footnotes and Works
Cited. Unfortunately, the reasoning is by analogy and accumulation of quotes
(again, many of them really unrelated to the subject under discussion),
rather than by systematic syllogism: I fail to find in these pages any clear
implication about the authorship of specific groups of these pieces.
Conclusion: Wilson's article is very well documented and makes fascinating
reading. He certainly has a good point that in the corpus of pieces
attributed in modern times to Louis Couperin a non-insignificant part is
likely to have been composed by his brother Charles. Unfortunately we know
that they made music together, that already in the 17th c. their works were
most likely copied together, and it is very difficult today to tell the
composer on the basis of style. IMHO the only good evidence we have is that
a few of these pieces were dated, they are most likely by Louis Couperin
simply because Charles was in his early teens, and many of the other pieces
show strong analogy of style with the dated pieces. This, I am afraid, is
all we really know.
My tuppence worth ...
CDV
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