Jean-Baptiste Barrière

Jean-Baptiste Barrière (2 May 1707 – 6 June 1747) was a French cellist and composer. He was born in Bordeaux, Gascony and died in Paris, at 40 years of age. Musical career Barrière first studied the viol, and published a set of viol sonatas. In due course however he became a skilled cellist during a period when the cello was gaining popularity over the viol in France, and later came to completely replace it, as indeed had already happened in Italy some 40 years prior. He became one of the best known virtuoso cellists of his time. In 1731 he went to Paris, and entered the Académie Royale de Musique (also known as the Opera), with an annual salary of 445 livres. He was accorded special privileges by King Louis XV at Fontainebleau, on 22 October 1733 for six years, to compose and publish several sonatas and other instrumental works. One of his most famous pupils was the Count of Guergorlay, Seigneur of Trousily. After his first book Livre I - Sonates pour violoncelle et basse continue was a success, in November 1733, he published a second edition of it in 1740. His second book, Livre II, was published around 1735. He went to Italy in 1736 to study with the well-known Italian cellist F