This accounts in part for what we may call the tenderness of Couperin’s music, a quality which makes itself felt no matter how elusive it may be. He marked most of his pieces to be played with a special expressiveness, and frequently used the word _tendrement_. This, he admitted in one of his prefaces, was likely to surprise those who were aware of the limitations of the clavecin. He knew that the ‘clavecin was perfect as regards scope and brilliance, but that one could not increase or diminish the tone on it.’ His thanks would be forthcoming to one who through taste and skill would be able to improve its expression in this respect. He was not above all else a virtuoso. ‛_J’ayme beaucoup mieux ce qui me touche que ce qui me surprend_,’ he wrote in 1713. There is no doubt that he desired the greatest refinement of touch and shading in the expression of his music, and that he suffered under the limitations of the instrument for which he wrote. For the texture of his music is soft and delicate, its loveliness has a secret quality, hardly more than suggested by the shadowy inner voices. We cannot but be reminded of Chopin, in whose music alone the spirits of music whispered again so softly together. Among the contemporaries of Couperin, Marchand, Claude Daquin (1694-1772), and J. P. Rameau (1683-1764) are best known, at least by name, today. Marchand is remembered chiefly by reason of the episode with Bach in Dresden. Daquin enjoyed a brilliant reputation as an organist in his day. One of his pieces for clavecin--‘The Cuckoo’--is still heard today. J. B. Weckerlin quoted an amusing bird-story[19] about Daquin, the burden of which is that one Christmas eve Daquin imitated the song of a nightingale so perfectly on the organ in church that the treasurer of the parish dispatched beadles throughout the edifice in search of a live songster. Rameau is a greater figure in the general history of music than Couperin himself; yet, though his harpsichord pieces are, perhaps therefore, better known than those of the somewhat earlier man, they lack the most unusual charm and perfection of Couperin’s. There are fifty-three of these in all. Ten were published in 1706, of which a gavotte in rondo form in A minor is best known. A second set of twenty-one pieces appeared in 1724, containing the still famous _Rappel des oiseaux_, the _Tambourin_, _Les niais de Sologne_, _La poule_, the Gavotte with variations, in A minor, and many others. Sixteen more followed, written between 1727 and 1731. In 1747 a single piece--_La Dauphine_--was published. Besides these, all written originally for harpsichord, he published five arrangements of his _Pièces de concert_, written in the first place for a group of three or more instruments.