François d'Agincourt

His name is spelt in several ways: d’Agincourt, Dagincourt, or d’Agincour, the form he himself used on the title page and in the dedication of his Pièces de clavecin, as Charles Bouvet noted in 1919. He received his first musical training in Rouen from Jacques Boyvin, organist of the cathedral; the German Wikipedia article and Musicologie.org present this teacher as probable. He then went to Paris, where he worked with Nicolas Lebègue, organist of Saint-Merry and of the Chapelle Royale: the English article says “probably”, Musicologie.org “certainly”.

On 6 December 1701, according to the German article, he was appointed after a competition organist of the church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine-en-la-Cité. He remained there until September 1706. The competition held to replace him, “in place of Sieur d’Agincourt, who is leaving”, has remained famous: Jean-Philippe Rameau, judged the most skilful, declined the post because the rules forbade the new organist to keep other organ lofts, and Louis-Antoine Dornel was appointed instead.

Boyvin died on 30 June 1706. On 25 August following, according to the German article, d’Agincourt was appointed, again after a competition, organist of Rouen Cathedral. There he found the four-manual organ that Robert Clicquot had built between 1686 and 1689 under Boyvin’s supervision, after the previous instrument had been destroyed by a storm in 1683. He kept this post until his death fifty-two years later.

He held other posts in Rouen as well: the abbey church of Saint-Ouen, a royal abbey whose title of organist Bouvet gives him alongside those of the king’s chapel and the cathedral, and, according to the English article and Musicologie.org, Saint-Herbland and Saint-Jean. Jacques Duphly, Boyvin’s grandson according to the French article on Boyvin, studied with him around 1730–1731; the English article observes that his works show little trace of his teacher’s style.

In October 1714 d’Agincourt became one of the four organists of the Chapelle Royale; the German article describes him as Louis Marchand’s successor. The French article adds that he was preferred to Louis-Claude Daquin, who was younger.

A competition for the organ of the Chapelle, held before 1730, also set him against Antoine Calvière. Titon du Tillet, in the second supplement to his Parnasse françois (1755), quoted by Bouvet, relates that François Couperin was the judge, that the two talents “did not seem to yield to one another”, and that only “the greater age of M. Dagincour” led to his being preferred. Fétis, in the 19th century, saw in this choice an injustice owing to the goodwill d’Agincourt enjoyed; Bouvet countered with Titon’s account, which he considered better informed.

His organ music was not printed in his lifetime. It is known from a copy made by Father Alexandre Guy Pingré, priest and scientist, which the French article and Musicologie.org place in the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, the English article in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It contains forty-six liturgical pieces (forty-eight according to the German article), arranged by tone in six suites, as was customary in France; for unknown reasons d’Agincourt omits the third tone, and the suites in the first three tones represented, the first, second and fourth, are less developed than the others.

The English article considers these pieces more progressive than Couperin’s, with frequent elements of the galant style. The collection was published in 1956, with a preface by Ludovic Panel, and in 1992 by Nicolas Gorenstein in the series “Organa Gallica”. The Suite du deuxième ton gives a fair idea of it, with its plein jeu, récit de nasard, duo, concert de flûtes, trio and grand jeu.

In 1733, the year of Couperin’s death, he published in Paris his Pièces de clavecin, dedicated to the queen: forty-three pieces divided into four “ordres”, Couperin’s term, in which portraits and character pieces prevail over dances. The preface states: “I have changed nothing in the ornaments or in the manner of playing from that which Monsieur Couperin has so well described and characterised”. Bouvet saw in the allemande La Couperin, which reproduces an entire bar of Couperin’s allemande of the same name, a tribute to the master rather than to his daughter. A second book, announced in the preface, never appeared.

Three airs for solo voice and continuo are also known, published by Ballard in the collections of airs sérieux et à boire of 1713 and 1716. He died in Rouen on 30 April 1758; Bouvet, in 1919, gave 1757.