This set of suites composed for the French court of Louis XIV between 1714 and 1715, (hence the qualifier "royal"), at the time chamber music

Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

 concerts were in vogue. They are intended for listening more than dancing. They were published by François Couperin

François Couperin

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.-Life:Couperin was born in Paris...

 in 1722 without indication of instrumentation. The same piece can therefore be played by a solo harpsichord

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

; or by an ensemble with a bass instrument, a violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

, a viol

Viol

The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...

, and an oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

 or a flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

. The freedom left for instrumentation is also found in certain works of Marin Marais

Marin Marais

Marin Marais was a French composer and viol player. He studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, often conducting his operas, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe for 6 months. He was hired as a musician in 1676 to the royal court of Versailles...

 and Gaspard Le Roux

Gaspard Le Roux

Gaspard Le Roux was a French harpsichordist active in Paris at the beginning of the 18th century. Little is known of his life; only by one quotation in a list of professors considered in Paris, and a single collection of suites for one and two harpsichords which appeared in 1705: it is one of the...

. This collection was supplemented in 1724 by a set of "Nouveaux Concerts" with the subtitle les Goûts réunis, or the "reunited tastes" of French and Italian styles.

Each concert is composed of a prelude and a succession of dances in the traditional order (allemande, sarabande or courante, followed by other dances.)

• Premier concert
  • Prélude
  • Allemande
  • Sarabande
  • Gavotte
  • Gigue
  • Menuet en trio

• Deuxième concert
  • Prélude
  • Allemande fuguée
  • Air tendre
  • Air contrefugué
  • Echos

• Troisième concert
  • Prélude
  • Allemande
  • Courante
  • Sarabande grave
  • Gavotte
  • Muzette
  • Chaconne légère

• Quatrième concert
  • Prélude
  • Allemande
  • Courante françoise
  • Courante à l'italiéne
  • Sarabande
  • Rigaudon
  • Forlane

External links

• The original version, as published by François Couperin at the end of Troisième Livre de Clavecin (1722): :http://icking-music-archive.org/ByComposer/Couperin.php