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Les Barricades Mystérieuses

Les Barricades Mystérieuses (The Mysterious Barricades) 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 (Pièces de Clavecin).[1][2] It is emblematic of the style brisé characteristic of French Baroque keyboard music.[3]

Music

The work is in rondeau form, employing a variant of the traditional romanesca in the bass in quadruple time rather than the usual triple time.[2] In the view of Tom Service,

"The four parts create an ever-changing tapestry of melody and harmony, interacting and overlapping with different rhythmic schemes and melodies. The effect is shimmering, kaleidoscopic and seductive, a sonic trompe l'oeil that seem to have presaged images of fractal mathematics, centuries before they existed."[4]

\version "2.18.2" \header {tagline = ##f} Pralldcr = { \tag #'print { d8\prall } \tag #'midi { d32 ees d16 } } Mordbescr = { \tag #'print { bes8\mordent\fermata } \tag #'midi { bes32 a bes16 } } upper = \relative c'' { \clef treble \key bes \major \time 2/2 \override Staff.TimeSignature.style = #'single-digit \tempo 4 = 180 \tempo "Vivement" \set Staff.midiInstrument = #"harpsichord" \mergeDifferentlyDottedOn \clef bass << { r8^\markup{\italic "Vivement"} bes,8 d4~ d8 c~ < c f~ >4 f8 bes, d4~ d8 c~ < c f~ >4 | f8 } \\ { s8 bes,4 bes8~ bes4. a8~ a8 bes4 bes8~ bes4. a8~ | a8 } >> << { a8 bes2 bes8 a | g8 bes ees4. ees8 \Pralldcr c8 | d8 } \\ { a4 g8~ g f~ f4 | g4. g8 a8 r8 r4 | r8 } >> << { bes8 d4~ d8 c~ < c f~ >4 f8 bes, d4~ d8 c~ < c f~ >4 | f8 } \\ { bes,4 bes8~ bes4. a8~ a8 bes4 bes8~ bes4. a8~ | a8 } >> << { a8 bes2 bes8 a | g8 a bes2 bes8 \tempo 4 = 120 a \tempo 4 = 70 \Mordbescr \tempo 4 = 160 bes8 \tempo 4 = 180 d4~ d8 c8~ < f c >4 } \\ { a,4 g8~ g f~ f4 | g4. f8~ f f~ f4~ f8 bes4 bes8~ bes4. f8~ \hideNotes f8 } >> } lower = \relative c { \clef bass \key bes \major \time 2/2 \override Staff.TimeSignature.style = #'single-digit << { r4^\markup{Rondeau} s4 f2~ } \\ { s4 bes,4( f' f,) } >> \bar ".|:" % mes 5 << { f'4 f2 ees4~ ees d2 d4~ d c2 f4~ f f2 f4~ f f2 ees4~ ees d2 d4~ d c2~ < ees c >4 r4\fermata f2 f4~ \bar ":|." \hideNotes f8 } \\ { bes,2\( f g d\) ees2\( f bes f\) bes2( f) g( d) ees( f) < d' bes >( f,) } >> } thePianoStaff = \new PianoStaff << \set PianoStaff.instrumentName = #"Clav." \new Staff = "upper" \upper \new Staff = "lower" \lower >> \score { \keepWithTag #'print \thePianoStaff \layout { \context { \Score \remove "Metronome_mark_engraver" } } } \score { \keepWithTag #'midi \thePianoStaff \midi { } }
Opening bars of Les Barricades Mystérieuses

Title

Les Barricades Mystérieuses was originally published with the spelling 'Les Baricades Mistérieuses' ["single r" in the first word, and "i" rather than "y" in the second word]. All four possible spelling combinations have since been used with "double r" and a "y" being the most common. The intended meaning of the phrase has remained an enigma (an example of how musical allusions can remain hidden over time).[5]

There has been much speculation on the meaning of the phrase "mysterious barricades", but no direct evidence appears to be available.[6] The harpsichordist Pascal Tufféry has suggested that, in keeping with the bucolic character of other pieces in Couperin's Ordre 6ème de clavecin, the pounding rhythm may represent the stamping of grapes in winemaking (given that the French word barrique means 'barrel', and barriquade was a designation adopted by viticulturalists of the day in France).[6] In this view, the "mysterious" epithet could allude to the significance of wine in the Mysteries of Bacchus (as well as in the sacrament of the Eucharist[7]).[6] Some of the less likely interpretations of the "mysterious barricades" proposed over the years – sometimes in relation to the salonnières of the 17th century - include women’s eyelashes, underwear and even chastity belts.[6]

A plausible attempt to link the title to features of the music itself has been provided by the harpsichordist Luke Arnason:[6]

"The title Les Barricades Mystérieuses is probably meant to be evocative rather than a reference to a specific object, musical or otherwise. Scott Ross, in a master class filmed and distributed by Harmonia Mundi, likens the piece to a train. This clearly cannot have been the precise image Couperin was trying to convey, but it is easy to hear in Les Barricades the image of a heavy but fast-moving object that picks up momentum. In that sense, the mysterious barricades are perhaps those which cause the "train" to slow down and sometimes stop... This hypothesis seems to fit in with the pedagogical aims of Couperin's music, since the composer presents himself as something of a specialist in building sound through legato, style luthé playing...Moreover, it seems to form a set with the following piece, Les Bergeries. This latter piece, though more melodic than Les Barricades, set in a higher register and more bucolic in feeling, is also an exercise in using a repetitive motif (in this case a left hand ostinato evocative of the musette) to build sound without seeming mechanical or repetitive. Both Les Barricades Mystérieuses and Les Bergeries, then, are exercises in building (and relaxing) sound and momentum elegantly."[6]

While the title reflects the musical structure, there may be more at play. The suggestion of barricades is "a double entendre referring simultaneously to feminine virginity and the suspensions [of] harmonic [progressions] of the music, [whose] lute figurations [from the style brisé] are imitated to produce an enigmatic stalemate", as Judith Robison Kipnis explained the work's title and its interpretation by her husband Igor Kipnis.[8]

Jean-Honoré Fragonard
The Love Letter (1770)

Other suggested intended meanings for the title include:

Legacy

Claude Debussy, who considered François Couperin to be the "most poetic of our [French] harpsichordists" and an influence on his own piano études, expressed particular admiration for Les Barricades Mystérieuses.[11] In 1903, Debussy wrote:

"We should think about the example Couperin's harpsichord works set us: they are marvelous models of grace and innocence long past. Nothing could ever make us forget the subtly voluptuous perfume, so delicately perverse, that so innocently hovers over the Barricades Mystérieuses."[12]

Homages and references in other works

The piece has been used as a source of inspiration across different artistic fields including music, visual arts and literature.[6]

Music

Visual arts

[1] [2]

Film

Literature

[3] [4] [5]

References

  1. ^ Baumont, Olivier (January 1998). Couperin: Le musicien des rois (Couperin: The musician of kings). Découvertes Gallimard (in French). Vol. 339. Paris: Gallimard. p. 74. ISBN 2070533123.
  2. ^ a b Tunley, David (2004). François Couperin and the perfection of music. Aldershot, England: Ashgate. pp. 113, 115. ISBN 0754609286.
  3. ^ Bond, Ann (1997). A guide to the harpsichord (1 ed.). Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press. p. 155. ISBN 1574670638.
  4. ^ Service, Tom (January 14, 2010). "Solving François Couperin's Les Barricades Mystérieuses". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 October 2012.
  5. ^ Cyr M (2014). "Mysterious Titles, Hidden Meaning". Early Music America. 20 (3): 32–36. Archived from the original on 14 May 2022.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Evnine, Simon J. "The Mysterious Barricades: The Piece and its Title". Archived from the original on 7 March 2021.
  7. ^ Tuffery P (2020). "Les Barricades Mystérieuses". www.clavecin-en-france.org (in French). Archived from the original on 27 March 2022.
  8. ^ Igor Kipnis, French Baroque Music for Harpsichord, EPIC LP cat.no. BC1289, 1964, Library of Congress r64001444 Permalink http://lccn.loc.gov/r64001443, also http://catalog2.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=207082&recCount=25&recPointer=3&bibId=9856129
  9. ^ The mirror of human life': Reflections on François Couperin's Pièces de Clavecin by Jane Clark and Derek Connon (Redcroft, King's Music, 2002), cited in Evnine.
  10. ^ (François Couperin and the French Classical Tradition, new version, London, Faber and Faber, 1987, pp. 400–2). Cited in Evnine.
  11. ^ Wheeldon M (2009). Debussy's Late Style. Indiana University Press. pp. 67–68. ISBN 978-0-253-35239-2.
  12. ^ Cited in: Wheeldon (2009), p. 68; translation by Richard Langham Smith in: Lesure F; Smith RL, eds. (1977). Debussy on Music: The Critical Writings of the Great French Composer Claude Debussy. A. A. Knopf. p. 275.
  13. ^ The Mysterious Barricades, arranged by Alma Deutscher, retrieved 2021-11-30

External links