Mes pièces favorites de Monsieur François Couperin

Featuring

Yago Mahúgo
François Couperin

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Couperin's 1716 volume, 'L'Art de toucher le clavecin', was an innovative method detailing ornamentations, fingerings, and proper hand placement, crowned by eight preludes and a brief Allemande.

Performer Biography

Yago Mahúgo, the harpsichordist on this album, was chosen as "Spanish Artist of the Year 2013" by 'El Mundo' newspaper and has won awards at the Budapest and Bruges Harpsichord Competitions.

Composer Biography

François Couperin, born in 1668, was orphaned at age eleven but showed such prodigious musical gifts that the Butlers of Saint-Gervais guaranteed him his father's organist post.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Couperin preferred "what moves me to what surprises me" and infused his harpsichord music with the 'stil luthé' and a tendency to favor the low register to communicate serious emotions.

Compositional Technique

The 'stil luthé', a technique from lutenists involving interspersing passing notes, was adopted by Couperin as a distinctive mark, even as the lute's splendor in France was waning.

Compositional Technique

Couperin consciously departed from the classical ordering of harpsichord pieces into pre-established dance suites, instead grouping them into 'Ordres' that could be called 'disorders' due to their unpredictable sequence.

Historical Context

In Couperin's time, 'languishing' was not gloomy but sweetly melancholic, pleasant, and fully accepted, often expressed in bucolic and serene E flat major.