Extended sources for Couperin

The re-edition of music that was already very carefully brought to print in the 18th century under the supervision of the composer may seem superfluous. Following several facsimile editions, the reprint (Jószef Gát, Schott 1969) after the French complete edition of 1933 and the widely used edition by Kenneth Gilbert (Heugel 1972), the French musicologist Denis Herlin has now published a further version of the Premier Livre by François Couperin Pièces de Clavecin (1713). For players, the changes in the musical text compared to earlier editions may be minimal, as the peculiarities of the original print, such as different slurs and the avoidance of leaf marks, have been retained here too. However, a closer look reveals that this edition is based on a completely new foundation: it has now been possible to distinguish 16 editions (instead of the previous 7) of the print between 1713 and 1745, and numerous corrections from a complete and careful copy made by a French cleric from 1742 onwards have also been included. And a look at a collective print of French harpsichord pieces, which preceded the first print of 1713, also suggested that an additional piece (the anonymous La Badine in A minor) and the earlier variant of La Diane to print. Even those who cannot make friends with the Bärenreiter publishing house's music graphics and find the modernization of the accidentals unnecessary will have to fall back on this meticulous new edition of these central works of the French harpsichord repertoire in the future.

François Couperin: Pièces de Clavecin, Premier livre (1713), Urtext edited by Denis Herlin, BA 10844, € 46.95, Bärenreiter, Kassel 2016