Unmeasured Prelude - Unmeasured Preludes For Harpsichord

Unmeasured Preludes For Harpsichord

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.

Unmeasured harpsichord prelude became a typical French genre, used by many famous composers including Jean-Philippe Rameau, Jean-Henri d'Anglebert, Louis Marchand and Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. Unmeasured preludes were also present in the works of German composers who were influenced by French style. Of these, Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer was one of the first to use unmeasured preludes in harpsichord suites.

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.