Couperin, and a visit to Saint-Gervais

I have become obsessive about the writing in of fingerings as a first step in learning a new piece on the organ. There are, however, exceptions, and this Sunday's music by François Couperin (1668-1733) exemplifies one of them: music of the French Classical period. I love this repertoire; all it takes is a four-measure phrase to transport one back into the Ancien Régime. There is an elegance, a grace, at times a grandeur, to this music that one finds nowhere else in the history of music.

But this music cannot be pinned down. It is filled with ornamentation, with notes inégales, with a fluidity of rhythm, and always an improvisatory spirit. I am unwilling to commit to playing the ornaments in specific places; with this music I try different things each time I play through a piece in a practice session. When it comes time to play it in public, the ornaments will likely be drawn from the variety of them that have been tried in rehearsal, but I leave it to the subconscious to make the decisions, hopefully in good taste.

Written fingerings remain helpful in places, especially in passages where there is less ornamentation. But on the whole, I leave much more to the moment of performance than I would with any other part of the organ repertoire.

Aside from fingerings, one learns the music as one would learn any keyboard score: slow play-throughs a phrase at a time, rhythmic variants, work in larger and larger segments – but with continuing variety of ornamentation, constant experimentation with tempo on the small scale – hold back a little here, push ahead a little there.

It so happens that Couperin's church, Saint-Gervais in Paris, has survived to this day. The instrument is very precious, one of only four organs in Paris to survive the Revolution and all that followed in more or less original condition. Here is a link to the Saint-Gervais page from the excellent website "Organs of Paris" describing the church and the instrument, and here is a sampling of music by Couperin played on the instrument, with video of the church. I especially love the passage at about 3:30 in the video where one sees the console.