François Couperin was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.
The Couperin family was a musical dynasty of professional composers and performers. They were the most prolific family in French musical history, active during the Baroque era. Louis Couperin and his nephew, François Couperin le grand, are the best known members of the family.
Davitt Moroney is a British-born and educated musicologist, harpsichordist and organist. His parents were of Irish and Italian extraction – his father was an executive with the Anglo-Dutch Unilever conglomerate. From 1968 onward, he undertook his undergraduate and graduate studies in musicology at King's College London, the faculty of which was headed by Thurston Dart, a great influence on the world of early music. Moroney later pursued advanced harpsichord studies with Kenneth Gilbert and Gustav Leonhardt. Moroney also holds performance and teaching diplomas (1974) from the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. After earning his PhD in musicology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1980 with a thesis on the music of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd, he returned to Paris and worked mainly as a freelance performer until returning to the United States to serve on the faculty at UC Berkeley in 2001.
Johann Jakob Froberger was a German Baroque composer, keyboard virtuoso, and organist. Among the most famous composers of the era, he was influential in developing the musical form of the suite of dances in his keyboard works. His harpsichord pieces are highly idiomatic and programmatic.
Louis Marchand was a French organist, harpsichordist and composer. Born into an organist's family, Marchand was a child prodigy and quickly established himself as one of the best known French virtuosos of his time. He worked as organist of numerous churches and, for a few years, as one of the four organistes du roy. Marchand had a violent temperament and an arrogant personality, and his life was filled with scandals, publicized and widely discussed both during his lifetime and after his death. Despite his fame, few of his works survive to this day, and those that do almost all date from his early years. Nevertheless, a few pieces of his, such as the organ pieces Grand dialogue and Fond d'orgue have been lauded as classic works of the French organ school.
Jacques Champion de Chambonnières was a French harpsichordist, dancer and composer. Born into a musical family, Chambonnières made an illustrious career as court harpsichordist in Paris and was considered by many of his contemporaries to be one of the greatest musicians in Europe. However, late in life Chambonnières gradually fell out of favor at the court and lost his position. He died in poverty, but at an advanced age, and not before publishing a number of his works. Today Chambonnières is considered one of the greatest representatives of the early French harpsichord school.
Gustav Maria Leonhardt was a Dutch keyboardist, conductor, musicologist, teacher and editor. He was a leading figure in the historically informed performance movement to perform music on period instruments.
François d'Agincourt was a French harpsichordist, organist, and composer. He spent most of his life in Rouen, his native city, where he worked as organist of the Rouen Cathedral and of three smaller churches. Highly regarded during his lifetime, d'Agincourt was one of the organists of the royal chapel. The single surviving book of harpsichord music by him contains masterful pieces inspired by François Couperin; also extant are some 40 organ works that survive in manuscript copies.
Jean-Henri d'Anglebert was a French composer, harpsichordist and organist. He was one of the foremost keyboard composers of his day.
Nicolas-Antoine Lebègue was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was born in Laon and in the 1650s settled in Paris, quickly establishing himself as one of the best organists of the country. He lived and worked in Paris until his death, but frequently made trips to other cities to consult on organ building and maintenance matters. Lebègue's reputation today rests on his keyboard music. He made particularly important contributions to the development of the French organ school by devising pieces with independent pedal parts and developing the Tierce en taille genre. His oeuvre also includes the earliest published unmeasured preludes, as well as some of the earliest known noëls.
Jean-François Dandrieu, also spelled D'Andrieu was a French Baroque composer, harpsichordist and organist.
Élisabeth Claude Jacquet de La Guerre was a French musician, harpsichordist and composer.
The Bauyn manuscript is a manuscript currently in possession of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. It is, along with several printed collections and the Parville manuscript, one of the most important sources for French harpsichord music of the 17th century.
The Parville manuscript is a manuscript currently in possession of the UC Berkeley Music Library. Along with the Bauyn manuscript, it is one of the most important sources for French harpsichord music of the 17th century.
Louis-Antoine Dornel was a French composer, harpsichordist, organist and violinist.
Armand-Louis Couperin was a French composer, organist, and harpsichordist of the late Baroque and early Classical periods. He was a member of the Couperin family of musicians, of which the most notable were his great-uncle Louis and his cousin François.
Charles Fleury, Sieur de Blancrocher was a French lutenist. Known principally under the name Blancrocher, he was one of the leading performers of his day, active in Paris. Whether he composed or not is unknown; a single dance movement survives, attributed to him, in the so-called Manuscrit Vaudry de Saizenay. His name became well known in the late 20th century, for after his sudden death as many as four major composers wrote tombeaux in his memory: lutenists Denis Gaultier and François Dufaut, and harpsichordists Louis Couperin and Johann Jakob Froberger. The latter witnessed Blancrocher's death, and the lutenist apparently died in Froberger's arms.
Marguerite-Louise Couperin was a French soprano singer and harpsichordist, who came from the musically talented Couperin family dynasty. The Frenchman Évrard Titon du Tillet, in his 1732 book Le Parnasse françois, describes her as "one of the most celebrated musicians of our time, who sang with admirable taste and who played the harpsichord perfectly."
Jacques Thomelin, also named Jacques-Denis or Alexandre-Jacques-Denis, was a 17th-century French composer and organist.
