François Couperin was born into
a musical family in Paris in November
1668, his father being organist at St
Gervais. Alas Charles died early in
1679, but not before introducing his
son to the organ and harpsichord. The
boy proved talented and the administrators
at St Gervais were so eager to retain
his services that they persuaded Michel-Richard
de Lalande (a future Master of the Chapel
Royal) to hold the position provisionally
until young François came of
age.
By 1690 Couperin had
secured royal privilege to publish his
"Pièces d’Orgue", including
the two masses on this disc. The set
was lavishly praised by de Lalande,
who remarked, "(they are) very
fine and worthy of being offered to
the public".
For centuries the mass
had been celebrated with the use of
plainsong, characterised by alternation
of sung sections between the celebrant
and the choir. Gradually however, as
church organs were introduced, and became
more reliable, there was an increasing
desire to give them a greater role in
the religious service. In France their
use was codified in the Caeremoniale
Parisiense of 1668. Sometimes portrayed
as a set of rigorous and hidebound rules,
these were actually a reasonably flexible
set of guidelines designed to aid the
organist in his task.
Couperin’s masses follow
this style and do not deviate significantly
from those of his contemporaries, the
organ essentially being used either
to fill in gaps in the service or gently
to amplify the meaning of the text,
either sung quietly by the choir or
spoken by the celebrant. Indeed they
have been presented in this way in previous
recordings, one example being Erato’s
1995 release of the "Mass for the
Parishes", performed by the distinguished
organist Marie-Claire Alain and Les
Chantres de la Chapelle de Versailles
(0630-17581-2).
However the soloist
on this present release, Jean-Baptiste
Robin - who is incidentally a pupil
of Madame Alain - prefers to "highlight
the purely musical content" and
so both works are presented, as it were,
unadorned. This is a perfectly respectable
decision, given that in relation to
the "Mass for the Convents"
current research has failed to unearth
any specific plainchant text.
Furthermore, when the
instrument involved is the famous Cliquot
organ of Poitiers, his choice is easily
vindicated. This gem is considered to
be François-Henri Cliquot’s masterpiece,
the last in a long line designed and
constructed by a family designated "organ
builders to the King", and whose
origins date back a decade or so before
Couperin’s birth.
Robin, who has studied
with Olivier Latry and Louis Robilliard
as well as Alain, won an open competition
in 2000 to become organist of the Cathedral
of St Pierre. It is therefore hardly
a surprise that he clearly knows and
loves this instrument and is capable
of using its marvellous colours to best
advantage. He seems a mite livelier
than Alain, capturing the spirit of
the dance, which imbues so much French
music of this period. Moreover the wonderful
reed sounds are particularly well caught
by the engineers who seem to have adopted,
to their advantage, a slightly more
distant microphone placing than their
Erato counterparts a decade earlier.
The felicities are
many. For instance listen to the contrasts
between registrations in the various
sections of the Gloria of the Mass for
the Convents; the tierce, trompette
and chromhorne are sheer delight, as
is the gorgeous reedy pedal at the end
of the Offertoire in the companion mass.
I suppose this issue
will inevitably be classified as specialist
repertoire, a point reinforced during
a recent scouting expedition to a local
retail outlet, which did not yield one
copy among their new Naxos releases.
Shame on them! Even with the recent
price rise these discs must count as
a great bargain, and deserve a wider
audience. Thoroughly recommended.
Ian Bailey
Jean-Baptiste Robin (Cliquot organ of Poitiers
Cathedral) 
