pieces de caractere

Character pieces - keyboard works with descriptive titles evoking a mood, scene, person, or animal. Rameau popularised the form alongside Couperin, and many of his most celebrated harpsichord works (La Poule, Les Cyclopes, L'Enharmonique) belong to this tradition.

The title guides affect and touch, not a programme to illustrate literally. Rameau himself said titles sometimes came after the music was written. Identify the central quality - rhythmic drive, tenderness, wildness - and sustain it throughout without caricature.