Couperin: L'Art de toucher le Clavecin: Piano Book

This is the source material itself. Rather than learning about French Baroque ornamentation through modern analysis or edited arrangements, your students encounter Couperin's actual voice explaining his own technique and style. The eight preludes function as both musical instruction and repertoire, each one designed to demonstrate a specific principle. For intermediate to early advanced pianists, this book offers the rare opportunity to learn at the composer's elbow.

Elegant and precise, with a formality that never tips into stiffness. The preludes move with the grace of spoken language, using silence and ornament as naturally as breath. There's an intimacy to the writing, as if Couperin is speaking directly to your hands about how to shape sound.

Intermediate to early advanced pianists ready to engage with source documents and willing to slow down for technique work. Teachers preparing students for historically informed performance or those building a curriculum around Baroque keyboard style will find this invaluable. Advanced amateurs and serious students benefit equally from direct access to 18th-century pedagogical thinking.

• Study Halford's introduction on French ornamentation before touching the keys. The ornaments aren't decorative flourishes but essential structural elements; understanding their function changes how you voice them.
• Treat the fingerings as part of the pedagogy, not obstacles. Couperin's suggested fingerings guide the hand toward the articulation and phrasing he intended; following them reveals the logic beneath the surface.
• Shape the preludes with harmonic breathing rather than phrase-mark pushes. The music breathes through voice leading and ornamentation, so listen across larger spans instead of treating each measure as a unit.
• Balance the right hand melody with subtle voicing of the inner voices. French Baroque keyboard writing distributes interest across the texture; a student focused only on the top line will miss half the music.

Assign the preludes as study pieces rather than performance repertoire, or program one or two in a recital as a bridge between Bach and the Classical era. The eight pieces can anchor a unit on Baroque keyboard technique within a piano class or private lesson sequence. Use the instruction manual itself in seminar settings where students are learning period style and performance practice.

• Reading and executing French Baroque ornaments (trills, mordents, turns, agrements) from primary sources
• Applying historical fingering patterns to develop articulation and hand position appropriate to the era
• Understanding voice leading and implied counterpoint in keyboard music
• Developing sensitivity to phrasing through ornamental structure rather than modern phrasing conventions
• Analyzing the relationship between keyboard technique and compositional design