~The Mysterious Barricades~

 

François Couperin's piece for harpsichord, "Les Barricades Mistérieuses" or "Les Barricades Mystérieuses" ("The Mysterious Barricades"), has caught the imagination of many artists, writers and musicians. These pages are devoted to charting the works it has inspired.

 

The pages are still under construction and I have a number of entries to add. But if you know of any references to the piece in novels, poems, paintings, or other pieces of music, I would be grateful to be informed about them. You can contact me at the following email address: sevnine AT miami DOT edu.

The Title

While the piece itself is haunting and beautiful, its effect has surely been enhanced by its mysterious title. Couperin gave most of his harpsichord pieces titles. This practice stemmed from "the music of Chambonnières and the earliest works of the French 'clavecinists' who, in turn, had borrowed the habit from the lutenists of the late sixteenth century" (David Tunley, Couperin, BBC, 1982, p. 79). Some of Couperin's pieces are named after people or types of people, some indicate something the music is supposed to represent. A few of the names, however, remain mysteries to us.  David Tunley adds that "even in their own days these same pieces might well have appeared enigmatic to all but a handful of the composers' circle" (ibid., p. 82-3). Such appears to be the case with "Les Barricades Mistérieuses." However, this has not stopped people from speculating.

In 'The mirror of human life': Reflections on François Couperin's Pièces de Clavecin by Jane Clark and Derek Connon (Redcroft, King's Music, 2002), Jane Clark links the VIth ordre to a divertissement staged by one of Couperin's patrons, the Duchesse Du Maine in 1714. The entertainment was called Le Mystère ou les Fêtes de l'Inconnu (The Mysterious One or the Celebrations of the Unknown One). In the performance, the King's musicians and Marguerite-Louise Couperin (François' sister) wore masks, emphasizing the mysterious presence celebrated by the divertissement, possibly the exiled Stuart James III. Clark suggests that the barricades mistérieuses may refer to these masks (p. 67-8). With regard to another piece, La Misterieuse, in the XXVth ordre, Clark suggests a possible reference to the Duchesse Du Maine's interests in freemasonry.

Wilfrid Mellers also wonders if there is a link to a divertissement. He suggests that the piece is "one of Couperin's technical jokes, the continuous suspensions in the lute style being a barricade to the basic harmony; and this may link up with the illusory devices in a masque decor. Barricades has its modern sense after 1648, but if the harmonic ambiguities might be described as 'revolutionary' in the context of baroque orthodoxies, the tone of the music remains, even in its mystery, impeccably aristocratic" (François Couperin and the French Classical Tradition, new version, London, Faber and Faber, 1987, pp. 400-2). However, none of Couperin's other names with which I am familiar refer to technical aspects of the music itself other than to name its form or type. So on Meller's hypothesis, this title would be quite an anomaly. And why should the 'barricades' to the basic harmony be described as 'mysterious'?

[To be expanded]

 
                            Creative Commons License                                                                           Simon Evnine, last updated: 9/25/07