Offertoire (en Sol Mineur)

Gervais-François Couperin was the last member of the Couperin Family to hold the post of organist of Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais, a post first held by his great-grand uncle Louis Couperin from 1653. He left a number of organ works that exemplify the French Postclassical style of organ music, much like that of the Beauvarlet-Charpentiers, Balbastre, Nicolas Séjan and etc. These works went unpublished during his lifetime, which due to the much abbreviated and sometimes unfinished notation, were probably never intended to publish. He died in 1826, and his daughter Céleste-Thérèse Couperin, also an organist, died childless and in poverty in 1860, putting a definite end to the Couperin Dynasty.

This Offertoire comes from a collection of manuscripts once held by Jean-Nicolas Marrigues, the successor of Couperin, and Paul Brunold, both organists at St-Gervais-St-Protais