Couperin le Grand: Grand Motets

Notes by Rebekah Ahrendt

Louis XIV, “le Grand,” King of France, did not like to hear the spoken prayers of priests at Mass. He did not like High Mass either; rather, he preferred a Low Mass consisting of one grand motet, one petit motet for the Elevation, and (naturally) a Domine salvum fac regum (God save the King). Louis’ preference for concerted motets in Latin inspired generations of composers in France. The genre became ever more popular in the latter 17^th century, and reached its highpoint in the early 18^th century.

This program centers on the work of someone else known as “le Grand”—composer François Couperin—and his contemporaries Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Sébastien de Brossard and Nicolas Bernier. His generation of composers successfully melded traditional French melodic shapes and dance rhythms with Italian melismas, abrupt changes of tonality and judicious chromaticism. A new style, known as “les goûts réunis” (the union of tastes), carried French music into the 18^th century and proved extremely popular with a new group of ever-more secularized concert public.

The motet, or “Versailles” motet as it came to be known because of Louis’ love, was a perfect candidate for the union of French and Italian tastes. Concerted motets first became popular in Italy in the 17^th century, and gradually worked their way into France. That they never had a liturgical function in France meant that they were never bound to stay within the sanctuary. Public concerts of motets were popular, and the works were often sung by stars of the Opéra or of the King’s Chapel.

One such work is Couperin’s Quatre versets d’un motet. Published in 1703, the title page proudly proclaims that it was composed “on the order of the King” and performed before him at Versailles in March 1703. The print also specifies the singers of that first performance. One was Couperin’s cousin, Marguerite-Louise Couperin. She was famed for her excellent taste and wonderful lightness of tone, and became a Musician of the King’s Chamber in 1702. The other was Marie Chappe, who held a similar court position from 1687 until the unbelievably late date of 1742, when she passed it on to her niece. The work is a showcase for the talents of two accomplished sopranos, and highlights Couperin’s mastery of texture. Based on Psalm 118, verses 11-14, the work opens with a duet for the two singers alone, deftly weaving the voices into a brilliant tapestry of sound. The second section, verse 12, features the accompaniment of violins, flutes and basso continuo in largely imitative passages with the solo voice. In verse 13, Couperin created an ethereal atmosphere for the vocalist by indicating that the violins should play the bass, while the flutes provide delicate embroidery of the melody. Couperin finished with a lively setting of verse 14, accompanied once more by the violins and flutes, with the basso continuo in a stratospheric range.

The Motet de Sainte Suzanne and Laudate pueri were probably composed in the 1690s, around the time that Couperin first achieved a court appointment. The two works are similar in structure and in their use of forces. Both are scored for three solo voices, violins, flutes, and basso continuo. Each is divided into eight sections, though the Motet de Sainte Suzanne includes a chorus that is repeated three times. The Motet de Sainte Suzanne, for soprano, haute-contre, and bass, also includes a dreamy passacaglia-inspired section and a dramatic recitative for the bass singer, as well as a number of delicious duets. Laudate pueri, for two sopranos and bass, favors trio versus solo scoring and includes only one duet for the two sopranos.

Couperin surely knew the work of his contemporary Bernier. The two worked in similar Parisian circles, and Marguerite-Louise Couperin was a favorite singer of Bernier’s. The two composers share similarities in style, both being fond of italianate ornaments and sequences. Though more famed today for his secular cantatas, Bernier was a highly accomplished sacred musician. In the same year that Couperin’s Quatre versets d’un motet appeared, Bernier published his first volume, a massive collection of twenty-six motets. The selection on this program is a three-voice Benedicam Dominum, for haute-contre, tenor and bass with violins, flutes and continuo. It bears much relationship to Couperin’s three-voice motets, with contrasting sections highlighting different voices and great use of the instruments as commentary.

Bernier’s publication, though dating from 1703, already announces him as the director of the Sainte-Chapelle. Charpentier, his predecessor there, was not quite dead yet. And the style that Charpentier introduced to France was going strong. It is largely thanks to the pioneering work of Charpentier that the “goûts réunis” ever succeeded in France. The composer may have been a pupil of Carissimi in Italy; upon his return to France, he achieved a number of notable posts and much renown, though he never was employed directly by the king. The Magnificat H. 80 is one of ten settings of this text by Charpentier. It was probably composed for the Jesuit church of St. Louis around 1690, when Charpentier was music director there. In this work, the composer manages to pack a lot of material into a short piece. Moving away from the typical French texture of five-voice chorus, Charpentier scores this work for four parts plus soloists. He uses a concertato style with much polychoral writing. Monodic sections for soloists alternate effectively with choral commentary. Considering that Charpentier was famous as an haute-contre singer, it is no great surprise that that voice features prominently in the solo sections.

Charpentier’s style was not approved of by many French critics, who felt threatened by the incursion of Italian musical devices. In the stylistic wars that raged at the end of the 17^th century, one of Charpentier’s great champions was Sébastien de Brossard. Also trained by Jesuits, Brossard was removed from the center of the action in Paris, being the director of the choir school at Strasbourg and later Meaux (home of Charpentier’s ancestors). But Brossard’s work traveled widely. His first collection of motets, published in 1695, inspired the rash of motet publications that included Bernier’s and Couperin’s contributions. Brossard’s collection was carried throughout Europe, and has even made it even as far as the library at UC Berkeley. The popularity of Brossard’s works is largely due to the level of perfection he achieved in the petit motet. In the 1690s, it was already recognized that the mixed style was best expressed in this genre. As a priest and a fluent Latin speaker, Brossard’s expression of Latin religious texts was highly refined. Parce mihi Domine is a fine example of this. The first in a cycle of Leçons des morts (Lessons for the dead), Parce mihi Domine was composed by Brossard at Strasbourg in 1696. The text comes from the book of Job, chapter 7. Opening with a “sonatina” for two violins and basso continuo, the work comprises seven contrasting sections that utilize the full possibilities of the alto and soprano voices. Brossard’s use of extreme dissonances effectively expresses the torment of the text.

Despite his position in the provinces, Brossard managed to amass a huge collection of music, especially that of Italian composers and of his friends in France. Afraid that the collection would be lost, Brossard donated it to the King’s Library in 1724. It is thanks to his forethought that certain works of Couperin and Charpentier survive. Brossard’s collection also includes the only surviving works of Jacques Fargeonnel, the former director of the Sainte Chapelle of Dijon. Fargeonnel had been the teacher of Brossard’s good friend Jean-Baptiste Bousset, who went on to Paris and knew Couperin and Bernier. Fargeonnel composed in a style typical to his generation; Brossard thus saw fit to “update” the music of his elder by adding two instrumental lines and recomposing some of the voice parts in Deus invictae virtutis auctor. Brossard also added a fifth voice to Fargeonnel’s original four-part choir, thus conforming to the French standard of the latter 17^th century.

Deus invictae autor ends with a resounding “Salvum fac regem,” just as the King would have heard at his favored Low Mass. Though Couperin is the only one of these composers who acquired the title of “le Grand,” his works and those of his contemporaries demonstrate why the French call this period “le Grand Siècle”—the Great Century.