Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

(Amadeus). Organist to the court of Louis XIV, Couperin left a vast body of works for harpsichord that epitomize the elegance of classical French art and are keystones of the instrument's repertoire.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

For more than 40 years the standard work on 18th-century French composer Francois Couperin has been Wilfrid Mellers's Francois Couperin and the French Classical Tradition (rev. ed., CH, Mar'88). Philippe Beaussant's French biography (Paris, 1980) appears now in English, the two works forming a similar yet complementary duo. Surviving biographical data on Couperin is frustratingly scant, scavenged almost entirely from the dry bones of baptismal certificates, marriage contracts, wills, and other legal documents. A successful novelist, Beaussant augments these documentary sources with illuminating observations on the social, cultural, and religious context in which Couperin flourished as harpsichordist to Louis XIV and organist at the important Parisian church of St. Gervais. Beaussant's exploration of the introspective, highly stylized elegance of Couperin's music contains much of value, particularly the fresh insights into the enigmatic titles of the composer's harpsichord pieces. A family genealogy, glossary of terms, and timeline of related events are appended. Some attempt to update the decade-old bibliography and discography would have enhanced Alexandra Land's stylish and idiomatic translation, which confronts Beaussant's occasionally Proustian sentence construction with ease. Highly recommended. -R. Wood, Wellesley College