Les Barricades mystérieuses, by Couperin
Every score here is public domain, free to read, print and keep. Open it in the browser and it plays, at whatever tempo you can read it.
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How to learn Les Barricades mystérieuses
- Hear it through at Slow (60 bpm). Open it in the reader, choose Slow, and follow the page with your eyes without playing. As it plays, count 2 to the bar.
- Learn the right hand of bars 1 to 8 on its own, in B♭ major. Say the note names out loud the first time through, then play it three times without stopping.
- Learn the left hand of the same bars on its own. Keep it quiet and even: it is the floor the tune stands on.
- Put hands together at Slow, 60 bpm. Bars 1 to 8 only. Stop after every wrong note and play that bar again before moving on.
- Move up to Steady (90 bpm) once Slow feels easy three times in a row. Then learn the next 8 bars the same way: right hand, left hand, together.
- Play the whole piece (about 3 minutes) from the start, at whatever speed keeps it going. A steady run with a few slips beats a fast one that stops.
About this piece
Couperin's famous harpsichord rondeau from 1717 weaves four overlapping voices into one shimmering texture, its refrain returning between three couplets.
How to play it
Hold each note just as long as written so the voices overlap without blurring, keep the pulse steady and play it legato, with very little pedal.
Reading it, and printing it
The score opens in Artform's reader, which shows the music as engraved notation and plays it back so you can hear the line before you try it. You can slow the tempo down, loop a passage that is not working yet, and print the page when you would rather have paper on the stand.
The file itself is MusicXML, which MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale and Dorico all open, so the notes are yours to keep whatever you read them in.
More free Couperin sheet music
Who Couperin was
French harpsichordist known in his own time as Couperin le Grand, court musician to Louis XIV at Versailles, and the composer who taught France how to play the keyboard: his treatise on fingering is where much of modern technique starts, and Bach studied it. His pieces come in ordres rather than suites, with titles like The Mysterious Barricades and The Little Windmills, describing moods and people rather than dances. Nobody has ever satisfactorily explained what the barricades are.
Learn the music behind it
Reading a piece and understanding it are different skills. If you want the harmony under this one, the chord trainer teaches chords the way songs use them, and the scale pages cover the fingering for every key, including B♭ major.