Christophe Moyreau

Christophe Moyreau (4 April 1700 – 11 May 1774) was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. Biography Moyreau was born and spent most of his life in Orléans into an old family of the city. He became organist at Orléans Collégiale Saint-Aignan in February 1719 and at Orléans Cathedral in January 1738 and occupied this position until around 1772. 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. Works Moyreau’s surviving oeuvre consists of 6 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 that 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,