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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
On Francois Couperin's own evidence we know of the loss of the six Leçons de Ténèbres required to complete the set of nine. How much more of his occasional music remains to be found is beyond conjecture, but the identification by the author of a number of his motets, hitherto unknown, in the library at St. Michael's College at Tenbury considerably augments the corpus of Couperin's sacred music. The six volumes containing these motets form part of the rich collection of some 450 volumes of music copied by Philidor and his team for the Comte de Toulouse, son of Louis XIV and Mme. de Montespan, in the first years of the eighteenth century. The greater part of the collection passed into the hands of the founder of St. Michael's College, the Reverend Sir Frederick Gore Ouseley, in the 1850s, while some 60 books from the original Toulouse collection were added in 1934, too late to be listed in the published catalogue. Among this second acquisition was the set of Couperin volumes, and their absence from the catalogue is no doubt the reason for their long obscurity. Furthermore, Fellowes's manuscript catalogue of additions at the library gives an incomplete list of contents.
1 See Oboussier, Philippe, ‘A Couperin Discovery’, The Musical Times, cxii (1971), 429–30. The newly discovered motets are shortly to be published by Heugel, Paris, in an edition prepared by the author.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Cf. The Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Library of St. Michael's College, Tenbury, ed. E. H. Fellowes, Paris, 1934, pp. 5–6, 41–46; also ‘The Philidor Manuscripts’, Music & Letters, xii (1931), 116–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Versailles, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 59.Google Scholar
4 A copy in the British Museum, P.R.5.d.12.Google Scholar
5 Of the remaining sources, a collection (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Vm1 1630) made by Sébastien de Brassard (1655–1730) contains ‘Veni, sponsa Christi’ in a text considerably different from the Tenbury version; and a Philidor volume at Versailles (MS 18) includes ‘Laudate pueri’ (see below, p. 21).Google Scholar
6 Cf. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's definition later in the eighteenth century: ‘Aujourd'hui l'on donne le nom de mottet à toute Piece de Musique faite sur des paroles Latines a l'usage de l'Eglise Romaine, comme Pseaumes, Hymnes, Antiennes, Répons, &c.’ (Dictionnaire de musique, Paris, 1768, p. 302).Google Scholar
7 See Tenbury, MSS 288–92 (1691): a set of five books containing plain-chant musical for all the main Feasts in the Church's calendar, to be sung in the royal chapel of Louis XIV.Google Scholar
8 Of the 71 known motets by Delalande, 58 are psalm settings (N. Dufourcq (ed.), Notes et references … de M.-R. Delalande, Paris, 1957, pp. 233–5).Google Scholar
9 Mellers, W., François Couperin and the French Classical Tradition, London, 1950, p. 177.Google Scholar
10 Versailles, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 18.Google Scholar
11 I am indebted to M. François Lesure, of the Bibliothèque Nationale, and to M. Michel Huglo, of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, for help over the origin and use of the texts.Google Scholar
12 Not to be confused with the later foundation in 1725 of Le Concert spirituel by Anne Philidor.Google Scholar
13 Oeuvres completes de Francois Couperin, Paris, 1932–3, xi. 185–217.Google Scholar
14 ‘Le verset suivant se chante alternativement par les deux Demoiselles, & par tous les Dessus’ (Oeuvres completes, ix. 104 n. 23).Google Scholar
15 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Vm1 1131.Google Scholar
16 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Vm1 1132.Google Scholar
17 Quoted in Mellers, Couperin, p. 21.Google Scholar
18 Cf. A. Carse, The History of Orchestration, London, 1925, p. 34.Google Scholar
19 ‘Si l'on peut joindre une basse de viole ou de violon a l'accompagnement de l'Orgue ou du Clavecin, cela fera bein’ (Avertissement to Leçons de Ténèbres, 1715).Google Scholar