Unmeasured or non-measured prelude is a prelude in which the duration of each note is left to the performer. Typically the term is used for 17th century harpsichord compositions that are written without rhythm or metre indications, although various composers of the Classical music era were composing small preludes for woodwind instruments using non-measured notation well into the 19th century. The form resurfaced in the aleatory music of the 20th century, where various other aspects of performance are also left to free interpretation.
The first unmeasured preludes appeared during the Renaissance era. They were short improvised compositions for lute, usually performed as an introduction to another piece of music or to test the instrument. Later unmeasured lute preludes retained the improvisatory character of the genre but became more complex and lengthy. Unmeasured preludes flourished into full-fledged compositions by the middle of the 17th century. However the development of lute music had already stopped by that time and the last surviving unmeasured lute preludes date from the end of the same century.
A sample of Louis Couperin's unique notation for unmeasured preludes.
Unmeasured preludes for harpsichord started appearing around 1650. Louis Couperin is usually credited as the first composer to embrace the genre. Couperin wrote unmeasured preludes using long groups of whole notes, and these groups were connected by long curves. This kind of notation is found in Couperin's unmeasured preludes and was also done by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. Another important contribution to the development of the genre was made by Nicolas Lebègue, who used diverse note values in his unmeasured preludes. The first ever published unmeasured preludes appeared in Lebègue's Le pieces de clavessin in 1677.
François Couperin's didactic L'art de toucher le clavecin (1716) contained eight preludes that, while unmeasured and improvisatory in nature, were measured for teaching purposes. These pieces, along with several preludes from Nicolas Siret's Second Livre de Pieces de Clavecin (1719), were among the last unmeasured harpsichord preludes written.
A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. The prelude may be thought of as a preface. While, during the Baroque era, for example, it may have served as an introduction to succeeding movements of a work that were usually longer and more complex, it may also have been a stand-alone piece of work during the Romantic era. It generally features a small number of rhythmic and melodic motifs that recur through the piece. Stylistically, the prelude is improvisatory in nature. The prelude also may refer to an overture, particularly to those seen in an opera or an oratorio.
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.
Louis Couperin was a French Baroque composer and performer. He was born in Chaumes-en-Brie and moved to Paris in 1650–1651 with the help of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières. Couperin worked as organist of the Church of St. Gervais in Paris and as musician at the court. He quickly became one of the most prominent Parisian musicians, establishing himself as a harpsichordist, organist, and violist, but his career was cut short by his early death at the age of thirty-five.
Nicolas Siret was a French baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was born and died in Troyes, France, where he worked as organist in the Church of Saint Jean and the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Both his grandfather and his father were organists in Troyes.
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.
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 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 was a French Baroque composer, harpsichordist and organist.
Élisabeth 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.
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.
Gaspard Le Roux was a French harpsichordist active in Paris at the beginning of the 18th century. Little is known of his life, which is exacerbated by the commonality of his name among musicians and dance instructors in Paris. A Le Roux is mentioned as the contributor of an air spirituel in Mercure galant, but whether this refers to Gaspard in unclear. The name is also found in Nicolas de Blégny's Le Livre commode contenant les adresses de la ville de Paris … pour l’année 1692, although no address is included; in a tax document, Rolle des sommes qui seront payées par les Organistes et Professeurs de Clavecin de la Ville et fauxbourgs; two records of Gaspard Le Roux receiving annuities through the notaire publique Alexandre Lebèvre are dated 8 May 1702 and 5 August 1706 [this is the last known reference to Le Roux]; and the record of his being granted a Privilège du Roy [sic] dated 9 April 1705. [A previously discovered reference by French musicologist Pierre Hardouin that claimed the receipt of an inventory of Le Roux's chattels on 7 June 1707 has been proved incorrect. Hardouin mistook the name Gaspard Roux as Gaspard Leroux: Roux has been traced as far back as 1 February 1694; subsequent entries describe him as le sr Roux and bourgeois de Paris, suggesting the subject Hardouin mistook as Gaspard Le Roux was someone other, possibly a rentier who lived off annuities from the town of Paris.]
Style brisé is a general term for irregular arpeggiated texture in instrumental music of the Baroque period. It is commonly used in discussion of music for lute, keyboard instruments, or the viol.
L'art de toucher le clavecin is a didactic treatise by the French composer François Couperin. It was first published in 1716, and was followed by a revised edition in 1717.
Pièces de viole were collections of suites for bass viol and usually continuo written by several French Baroque composers, most notably Marin Marais, whose five Livres form a core of the viol repertoire. Early pièces did not include continuo parts; examples of these may be found in the oeuvres of Sieur de Sainte-Colombe and Nicolas Hotman. Derived from lute and theorbo music, they often featured preludes sans mesures, and virtuosic bowed trills, whilst remaining French in their dance rhythms and melodies. Formally they also mirrored the pièces de clavecin being written by virtuoso harpsichordists. Marais and his contemporaries further established a uniquely French tradition of virtuosic pieces for viol and continuo. The pièces were typically written in dance forms like the Allemande, Gavotte, Sarabande, and Gigue, augmented by a Prélude or a Fantaisie and with additional character pieces like Plaintes and Tombeaux.
Blandine Verlet was a French harpsichordist and a harpsichord teacher, who is known internationally for her recordings of works by François Couperin.
Les Barricades Mystérieuses is a piece of music that François Couperin composed for harpsichord in 1717. It is the fifth piece in his "Ordre 6ème de clavecin" in B-flat major, from his second book of collected harpsichord pieces. It is emblematic of the style brisé characteristic of French Baroque keyboard music.
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