Quick Facts
Biography
Pierre Février (1696–1760) was a French baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist.
Born at Abbeville on 21 March 1696, he arrived in Paris in 1720 and served as titular organist of two churches on Saint-Honoré street: the Jacobins' church (destroyed at the Revolution) and Saint-Roch (still standing). Claude-Bénigne Balbastre, who moved to Paris in 1750, was among his pupils and eventually succeeded Février at Saint-Roch. Pierre Février died in Paris on 5 November 1760.
Two volumes of his harpsichord pieces are extant. The first one is dated 1734 and contains five suites:
Suite in A major
Allemande la Magnanime
Le Concert des Dieux - Double du concert
La Délectable
Le Berceau
La Boufonne ou la Paysanne
Suite in D minor
Fugue
Courante
Les Plaisirs des Sens
Le Labyrinthe
Ariette et doubles
Suite in B minor
Fugue
L'Intrépide
La Grotesque
Suite in D major
Gavotte et doubles
Le Brinborion
Le Tendre Language
Tambourin
Suite (Festes de Campagne) in C major
Entrée
Musette
2 Menuets
Le Gros Colas et la Grosse Jeanne
Les Petites Bergères
The second volume, composed after 1734 and before 1737, was discovered in the late 1990s in a private collection in Belgium (Arenberg). It contains two harpsichord suites that follow a similar pattern, mixing dances and descriptive pièces de caractère in the typical late Baroque French tradition:
1st Suite in G Minor
Les Liens Harmoniques - Rondeau
La Caressante - Rondeau
La Fertillante
La petite Coquette
Tambourin - Rondeau
2nd Suite in C Minor
Allemande
Les Tendres Tourterelles - Rondeau
Les Croisades - Rondeau
Menuet