Christophe Moyreau
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Christophe Moyreau (c. 1690 – c. 1772) was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. His music displayed a variety of stylistic innovations and was considerably different from his contemporaries' works. A provincial composer, Moyreau did not achieve much fame during his lifetime and is almost completely forgotten today. His most known and most frequently performed piece is Les Cloches d'Orléans, an organ composition that imitates the bells of Orléans Cathedral.
Moyreau was born and spent most of his life in Orléans into a distinguished family of the city (his ancestors included politicians, musicians and artists). He became organist at Orléans Cathedral de approximately in 1732 and occupied this position until his death.
[edit] Works
Moyreau's surviving oeuvre consists of six livres of keyboard music. None of the pieces are dated, but it is known that Moyreau got a publication privilege on 30 January 1753 and all six collections were published the same year, engraved by Marie-Charlotte Vendôme, one of the finest engravers of the era who was also responsible for the first publication of Mozart's music in 1764 (KV6 and KV7). Moyreau dedicated the pieces to Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (the full title read: Pièces de clavecin dédiées a son altesse serenissime monseigneur Le Duc d’Orléans). Only one copy of each book survives, so it was probably a small, private edition.
The dance suites from livres 1-5 are particularly notable for their length and variety of included pieces. A single suite may contain as many as 26 movements (which is far more than in any other suite ever composed), usually beginning with an introductory overture followed by several standard dance movements. The movements that come after these are usually pieces with descriptive titles, not unlike Couperin's, highly varied in style and mood. Livre 6, uniquely for French harpsichord music, consists of several three-movement keyboard simphonies written in Italian style.
