Jean Rondeau on Louis Couperin

Jean Rondeau's monumental project to record the complete works of Louis Couperin - forerunner of the musically influential Couperin dynasty - is really rather a unique project.

Along the way it encompasses the unique 'unmeasured prelude' genre that Couperin particularly refined, organ fugues, works for small wind ensemble and more. It's so clearly a labour of love for Jean - and as he explains, has been a very long time brewing!

In additition to the box-set, there are ten CD-length download and streaming only albums for those who prefer their music in digital format. 

I suppose an obvious question in some ways - where did you first get the idea of embarking on this project?

My relationship to this project is quite special, and it has gone through different phases. It began with a crucial moment: my encounter with the music of Louis Couperin, which was a true gateway into music itself, knowing that one of his unmeasured preludes was the very first piece I ever approached on the harpsichord at the age of six. His music has accompanied me ever since; it has been a central element in my relationship with the harpsichord — a familiar place I would return to often, a kind of refrain that helped me grow.

Because of this, and because of my very powerful connection to the artistic act of recording, it seemed inevitable that I would eventually consider a recording project devoted to Louis Couperin. I hadn't expected it to take on such proportions. It was difficult for me to fit into the 80-minute constraint imposed by a CD — a format that already feels somewhat outdated — and above all to have to choose from among more than 130 pieces for harpsichord.

So I decided not to choose, and instead to spend time with each one of them. And not stopping there, I decided to record his complete works for organ as well, along with the chamber-music repertoire. And rather than stopping at that, I wanted to sketch a musical fresco of what the emerging French style of the mid-17th century might have been, including a whole array of composers who, in one way or another, crossed Louis Couperin’s path or are connected to him.

Was it a tough sell to the record label - the complete works of what is perhaps not even the most famous member of the Couperin family?

I must admit that my record label, Warner Classics and the Erato imprint, to my great surprise, immediately accepted, supported, defended, and believed in this project. There was a consensus that this was not only a recording project but also a heritage project. Given the direction in which the recording industry is heading, this project took on a special resonance — because of its uniqueness, of course, but also its scale and ambition.

But naturally, to achieve this result, nothing happened in the usual way. We had to rethink the structure of the project, how to approach it, and even how to finance it. Today the project is out, and we are happy to share it with the public and with as many listeners as possible — and above all to see that its release is going quite well, and that this composer, who is certainly not the most widely known, is arousing curiosity among audiences.

The unmeasured preludes are one of the most special things about Couperin’s work - ahead of their time in many ways. What do we know about how he developed this genre?

The unmeasured preludes are indeed completely unique works in the history of music. First of all, they had a rather sporadic existence, and there are very few examples of this kind of notation in European written music. One must understand where they come from. The harpsichord began to take on a central role in the musical sphere around the mid-17th century, initiated by Chambonnières, then by Louis Couperin, and then followed by a whole constellation of composers in their wake. But before the harpsichord, the lute was the supreme instrument in France. One can see this easily when exploring its repertoire, but also in the fervor devoted both to the lutenists and to the music written for them. The unmeasured preludes stand directly in the lineage of lute writing — music that plays intensely with resonance and maintains a close connection to improvisation.

Because of their nature as “written-down improvisation”, one can sense what an improvisation or a prelude might have been like — to test the instrument, the acoustics, the temperament — during a musical gathering in Paris around 1650. There are harpsichordists, lutenists, composers, amateurs… and one feels the devotion to the lute (notably in the many tributes — the Tombeaux — that composers wrote for lutenists, but also in the music itself and in the inspiration it draws from that instrument). Apart from the absence of measured rhythm, the uninterrupted flow of cadences reveals an improvised gesture — a form constructed in a more impulsive way, where points of repose and narrative twists are unsettled and unpredictable.

Moreover, because of the nature of the notation, one must make a double effort: first, to decipher what is actually “being said” in the written text — a bit like reading a literary text from which punctuation or spacing were missing, and our brain must work harder to identify where one word ends and the next begins — and second, to resist a kind of surrender that would make everything lose its sense. In this way, I would say that these pieces are the Grail of interpretation, because the very definition of interpretation becomes especially meaningful here.

The freedom it offers the performer must have been amazing, so why did it die out? I think there aren’t really any beyond 1720 or so?

In addition to what I’ve just said, I want to clarify that my perspective on musical freedom belongs to a precise framework. It is within a temporal limit that a certain idea of freedom can emerge, because this is inherent in the very nature of music. If music is a terrain of freedom, then we must follow its own nature and functioning to grasp it. We often fantasize about freedom by placing it outside the music itself — by taking excessive time, by disobeying the time structure the music requires. On the contrary, freedom may lie in a certain rigor with respect to the text, because then it is no longer an individual freedom but the freedom of the narrative — which frees itself from the weight of form through the strength of its story and its unfolding.

For listeners who might want a gentler introduction to Couperin rather than diving in at the deep end - can you suggest a few particularly ear-catching pieces they should try out?

This project is quite colossal: 10 CDs, 12 hours of music, around twenty musicians, and a dozen composers. Perhaps I should have thought of providing a “user’s guide” — how to approach an object like this. Although it was conceived as a trajectory beginning with the first track of the first disc and ending with the last track of the last, I think it's good to taste its different colors: a harpsichord piece here (the first prelude of the first disc), an organ piece there (the final track of the last disc), an ear turned toward the viol consort works (the Pavane 120 transcribed for consort, for example), or toward the pieces for oboe band (the anonymous Paduan, for instance).

And gradually, each listener may find what draws them in, what they want to follow — the handle that opens the door to this universe, to this French style of the mid-17th century, which I cherish so deeply, about which I love to speak, and which above all I love to share.