Born in Abbeville in 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.[2] Pierre Février died in Paris on 5 November 1760.
Works
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:
^Randel, Don Michael (1996). The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music. Harvard University Press. p. 44. ISBN978-0-674-37299-3. Balbastre, Claude-Bénigne (b. Dijon, 22 Jan. 1727; d. Paris, 9 May 1799). Composer and organist ... In 1750 he went to Paris, where he continued study of the organ with Pierre Février and began instruction in composition under Jean-Philippe Rameau.
La Sala del Cembalo del caro Sassone Pièces de clavecin, Premier livre, 1734. The World Premiere Recording of the first book, as recorded by the harpsichordist Fernando De Luca (Rome, December 2008), is freely available in streaming on this non-profit website devoted to the ancient music and harpsichord baroque music.
