musica Dei donum
CD reviews
Gervais-François COUPERIN & Hélène DE MONTGEROULT: Keyboard works
[I] Gervais-François COUPERIN (1759-1826): "Sonatas, Variations & Rondo"
Simone Pierini, fortepiano
rec: Sept 18 - 21, 2023, Monte Compatri, Palazzo Annibaldeschi
Brilliant Classics - 97190 (© 2024) (71'59")
Liner-notes: E
Cover, track-list & booklet
Scores
Spotify
Ah! ça ira, mis en Variations;
Complainte béarnoise, mise en variations;
Les Incroyables, op. 6;
Les Merveilleuses, op. 7;
Rondo in D;
Sonata in C, op. 1,1;
Sonata in D, op. 1,2
Source:
Deux Sonates pour le clavecin ou le piano forte avec accompagnement de violon et violoncelle ad libitum, op. 1, [1788]
[II] Hélène de Montgeroult: "Complete Piano Sonatas"
Simone Pierini, fortepiano
rec: June 15 - 17, 2021, Monte Compatri, Palazzo Annibaldeschi
Brilliant Classics - 96247 (© 2023) (2.45'44")
Liner-notes: E
Cover, track-list & booklet
Scores
Spotify
Sonata in F, op. 1,1;
Sonata in E flat, op. 1,2;
Sonata in f minor, op. 1,3;
Sonata in g minor, op. 2,1;
Sonata in C, op. 2,2;
Sonata in a minor, op. 2,3;
Sonata in D, op. 5,1;
Sonata in f minor, op. 5,2;
Sonata in f sharp minor, op. 5,3
Sources:
Trois Sonates pour le Forte-piano, op. 1, 1795;
Trois Sonates pour le Forte-piano, op. 2, 1800;
Trois Sonates pour le Piano-forte op. 5, 1804-07/1811
French keyboard music of the late 17th and the first half of the 18th century is quite popular among performers and audiences. The repertoire from the classical period is far lesser known and not often performed and recorded. That makes the two productions which are the subject of this review all the more important.
The Couperin family is one of the famous musical dynasties of the pre-romantic era. For about two centuries the Couperins played a major role in music life in France, especially as organists of various churches in Paris, but also as players of other keyboard instruments. The most famous of them are Louis (c1626-1661) and his nephew François (1668-1733), nicknamed 'le Grand'. In recent times Armand-Louis, grandson of Louis' brother François, has also received quite some interest, and his oeuvre has been the subject of various recordings. The first disc to be reviewed here comprises a selection from the oeuvre of his son Gervais-François. With him we are firmly in the classical period and in the time that the French Revolution dawned or was actually taking place. That has left its traces in the composer's oeuvre.
The largest part of that oeuvre comprises keyboard music, as he - like all members of the Couperin dynasty, including several women (among them his mother) - were keyboard players and more in particular organists. As was so often the case, he received his musical education first from his father, and in this case also his mother. In 1789 he became organist at St Gervais, apparently as successor to his brother Pierre-Louis, who died that year. That happened shortly after the death of their father, who was the victim of a traffic accident. The latter was one of the four organists of the Chapelle Royale; each organist acted as such for a quarter of the year. That role was also taken by Gervais-François.
The time of the French Revolution was not easy for composers. Many of them had been, in one way or the other, been associated with the monarchy. Some of them tried to save their skin by writing patriotic airs or variations on them. In 1793, after the reopening of the Opéra, Couperin and his colleague Nicolas Séjan played such airs on two small organs in boxes on either side of the stage. Another token of Couperin's attempt to please the new régime is the series of variations on the revolutionary song Ça ira. His colleague Claude-Bénigne Balbastre did the same, adding the new 'national anthem' Le Marseillaise. It is probably a token of the chaos of the time that in the same year he wrote these variations he composed such on the royalist song Complainte béarnoise, which is about "a troubadour complaining that the king Louis XVI is kept in the Palais de Tuileries in Paris, at the beginning of the revolution" (booklet).
For organists times were especially difficult, as they were obviously closely associated to the church. "In one of the most bizarre scenes of the Republican aberration (6 November 1799), Couperin found himself playing dinner music on the greatest organ in Paris, at St Sulpice, while Napoleon and a nervous Directory, which was to be overthrown three days later by its guest of honour, consumed an immense banquet in the nave below, watched over by a statue of Victory (herself about to be overthrown), whose temple the church had become" (New Grove). When churches reopened, Couperin played in those that had not been destroyed, such as St François. And after the Restoration he quickly adapted to the new wind that was blowing: in 1814 he published Louis XVIII, ou Le retour du bonheur en France as his op. 14.
The assessments of his stature as an organist have been different. He was famous for his performances of the Te Deum, including imitation of thunder. Johann Friedrich Reichardt heard him play during mass and judged that "[an] organist of that ilk has no business calling himself a Couperin". In New Grove, David Fuller expresses a different view: "Gervais-François may well be the most interesting composer of the family after Louis and François Couperin." The pieces included here support that assessment.
The two sonatas are fine works. They open with a fast movement in sonata form. The second movement of the Sonata in C is an andante, whereas in the Sonata in D it is a set of seven variations on a nice theme, with much variety in the way the two hands are treated. Both sonatas end with a presto of very different lengths. These sonatas were published with ad libitum parts for violin and cello. That was according to the fashion of the time, but these parts can - as the addition ad libitum indicates - be omitted without any substantial loss.
Especially interesting, given the time in which Couperin worked, are the Op. 6 and Op. 7, apparently intended as a pair. Simone Pierini, in his liner-notes, explains: "The two pieces refer to the followers of a fashion highly favoured by the aristocracy in Paris during the French Directory (1795–1799). The followers of this new fashion, the Incroyables (i. e., the "incredibles") as concerns men, the Merveilleuses (the "marvelous women") for the women, greeted the new regime with an outbreak of luxury, decadence, and even silliness, perhaps as a reaction after the Terror period. They usually dressed in a stereotypical way, attended thousands of balls (there were around 640 ballrooms in Paris at the time), and refused to pronounce the letter R: this is shown evidently in Couperin's Les Incroyables, where a recurring motif in the score is always accompanied by the written-out sentence "Pa'ol d'honneur! C'est incoyabl" (my wo[r]d of honour, it is inc[r]edible) which is a clear mockery of this usance."
I can't remember having heard any piece by Gervais-François Couperin before, and this is a very interesing addition to the discography of the Couperin dynasty and the history of French keyboard music in general. Pierini delivers excellent performances, in which he uses the possiblities of the fortepiano to full effect. He plays an original instrument, built by Johann Haselmann (c1800-1810). When I first heard it, it reminded me a little of the clavichord. Its sound is different from other instruments I have heard, and I find it quite intriguing. That said, I wonder whether a French instrument may have been more appropriate.
The second production is devoted to a composer I had never heard of. However, a search on the internet reveals that the oeuvre of Hélène de Montgéroult has received quite some interest. Even so, it is remarkable that in recent years her complete keyboard sonatas have been recorded twice, on a historical instrument (by Simone Pierini) and on a modern concert grand (by Nicolas Horvath; Grand Piano, 2021). As Pierini's liner-notes are rather economical with regard to the sonatas, I have used the booklet to the latter's recording for this review.
As her full name indicates, Hélène-Antoinette-Marie de Nervo de Montgeroult, Comtesse de Charnage, was of noble birth. In 1784 she married André-Marie Gaultier, marquis de Montgeroult. Obviously, this made her position during the French Revolution rather problematic. Having studied with Nicolas-Joseph Hüllmandel, Muzio Clementi and perhaps Jan Ladislav Dussek, she participated in musical performances in salons in Paris, together with amateurs and professional musicians from home and abroad. One of the latter was the violinist Giovanni Battista Viotti, with whom she played improvisations. Several composers, among them the above-mentioned Dussek, dedicated works to her.
This came all to an end due to the Revolution. In 1793 she and her husband left the country as part of a delegation seeking support abroad to save Queen Marie-Antoinette from the guillotine. Her husband was imprisoned in Mantua and died there. When she returned in France, she was in serious danger, but was saved thanks to the intervention by the founder of the Institut National de Musique (later the Conservatoire
de Paris), who convinced the Revolutionary Tribunal that she was indispensable to the school as one of France's greatest pianists. There is a story that she escaped from the guillotine by playing an improvisation on Le Marseillaise, but this dates from the second half of the 19th century and is not supported by any documentary evidence.
Although Montgeroult has received quite some interest from performers and the recording industry, New Grove spends only six lines to her life and career and omits a work-list. Thanks to Wikipedia we at least know which music of her pen has been published. Apart from the nine sonatas which are the subject of the recording by Pierini, it comprises a single keyboard piece with the opus number 3, three fantasias Op. 4, six nocturnes for voice and keyboard Op. 6 and the Cours complet pour l'enseignement du forte-piano, a treatise which includes 972 exercises and 114 études.
The first publication dates from 1795: the three sonatas Op. 1. They are all in two movements in a fast tempo, which makes them representatives of the early classical style. The first movements are in sonata form. Notable is the hand-crossing in the first movement of the Sonata in E flat, which has the character of an opera overture. With regard the opening movement of the Sonata in f minor the syncopation between the two hands needs to be mentioned.
In 1800 a second set of three sonatas came from the press as the Op. 2. Whereas the first is again in two movements, the other two sonatas have three. The second movement of the Sonata in g minor, marked presto, is a toccata in two sections. The slow movement of the Sonata in C, marked andantino quasi allegretto, is a pair of contradances. The third movement has the form of a rondo. The Sonata in a minor has a violin part with the addition ad libitum. The liner-notes to Horvath's recording suggest this sonata could reflect the improvisations by Montgeroult and Viotti, especially the first movement. The last movement of this sonata is the most brilliant of the set, in a very fast tempo.
The Op. 5 was first published by Érard between 1804 and 1807, who produced a reprint in 1811. These three sonatas are more brilliant and much longer than any of the previous sonatas. The first is in four movements, the other two in three. The Sonata in D requires hand-crossing in the first movement, and motifs alternate between high and low registers. The adagio non troppo is full of chromaticism, as is the very short third movement, marked allegro assai. The fourth movement is written in the rhythm of a saltarello. The first movement of the Sonata in f minor ends in F major; there are no repeats. The last movement is called allegro agitato con fuoco, which is a perfect description of its character. It is preceded by a strongly-contrasting aria con espressione. The Sonata in f sharp minor opens in the style of a concerto, "full chords interspersed with fast scales as in a quasi-improvised solo", write Horvath and Deborah Hayes, who refer to Italian opera, which seems the result of the performance of Italian music in the salon concerts in which Montgeroult participated before the Revolution. This may also explain the use of the rhythmic patterns of the tarantella in the last movement.
Pierini plays the same Haselmann fortepiano he used in Couperin's works. Horvath and Hayes mention that in 1802 Montgeroult bought an Érard fortepiano. From that perspective such an instrument would have been more appropriate. That said, having listened to these sonatas on the Haselmann, I never had the feeling that it was the wrong instrument. That may be due to the style of the sonatas. It is probably no coincidence that the liner-notes to both recordings several times refer to composers from the German-speaking world: Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. It is also known that Montgeroult admired Bach and Handel. The speechlike sound of the Haselmann, in the German-Austrian tradition, seems well suited to do justice to these sonatas. To my ears they sound more German and Italian than French.
Pierini turns out to be the perfect advocate of Montgeroult's oeuvre. These performances are the first I have ever heard, and I am very impressed by the quality of the music, as well as the level of the interpretations. Pierini's dynamically differentiated and strongly rhetorical approach does them full justice and reveals their qualities. He does not hold back in the fast movements, which are played with fire and passion. In the slow movements there are many moments of deep expression, thanks to thoughtful and refined playing.
It certainly would be interesting to hear them on an Érard, just to check if that would make any substantial difference. However, I am happy with these performances which should make these works better known, and hopefully Montgeroult's sonatas are going to be included in the standard repertoire of the classical era.
Johan van Veen (© 2025)
Relevant links:
Simone Pierini