François Couperin's La Voluptueuse is a short rondeau in D minor from the first book (2nd Ordre) of the Pièces de clavecin (1713), consisting of a refrain and three couplets (see Example 1). The performance indication tendrement is apt; like many Couperin rondeaus, it is suffused with an elegant freshness, intimacy, and charm. Because it very beautiful and, in addition, I have played it often, I decided to look at it more closely, and also convinced the Charles Burkhart to look at it with me. It proved to be more difficult than either of us had anticipated.

As our readings evolved, I began to notice a recurrent difference between them: Burkhart tended to read higher registral structural top lines, whereas I tended to read lower ones. This difference begins to emerge in the refrain, which has an interrupted structure and an overall F-E//F-E-D top line. In mm. 2 and 6, the line jumps up to D5, embellished by the lower neighbor C#, then jumps back down. I read this as a brief cover tone (see Example 2). But Charles reads it as the endpoint of a rising F-A-D arpeggio (see Example 3). In the consequent phrase, D5 is sustained past the end of the refrain and connects to C5 in Couplet 1 (m.10). This difference in interpretation leads to different readings of Couplet 1, which I will not go into in this proposal.

Couplet 3 provides a good example of the different top lines and their analytical effects. In my reading (see Example 4a and 4b), the couplet begins by repeating a “signature” motive A-Bb-C (highlighted at the beginning of all three couplets), oscillating forwards and backwards twice over V/IV, which resolves to IV via an auxiliary cadence in m.29. In the second and third phrases (mm.29-33) the A-Bb-C third is transposed down a step to G-A-Bb, then F-G-A, to close on E in the half cadence in m.33. I read the top line so far as A-G-F-E. However, the half cadence in m.33 is too weak to end the couplet, so a more emphatic third phrase (mm. 33-37) is added, beginning with a rather startling C/C# cross relation, and descending via B to A in a much more conclusive full dominant cadence. V is prolonged from m.33 to 37. In a longer-range connection, treble E/V in m.33 connects all the way back to the refrain's Kopfton F/I, and is retained in the inner voice to the end of the couplet.

Burkhart, however (see Example 5), starting in the refrain, delineates a descending line D-C-Bb-A (at the half-cadence in m.33). As in my reading, A/V is prolonged through the third phrase to the end of the couplet. Inner-voice E still ultimately connects all the way back to Kopfton A from the beginning of the refrain.

This talk will present an overall analysis of the rondeau, but organized around the analytic effects of the registrally different top lines.