Les Moissonneurs

Les Moissonneurs by François Couperin, catalogued as Pièces de clavecin Ordre 5, is a work for solo piano in C major. Composed during the Baroque era, it forms part of the composer's enduring contribution to the keyboard repertoire and is freely available in the public domain through archives such as IMSLP.

François Couperin's four books of Pièces de clavecin contain more than two hundred ordres of harpsichord pieces — character sketches, dances, and tableaux that define the French Baroque keyboard tradition.

The work is suited to intermediate-level pianists. As with all repertoire from this period, study editions vary; the public-domain engravings linked here are based on the most widely-circulated nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century editions and are sufficient for serious study, recital preparation, and recording.

About François Couperin

François Couperin's four books of Pièces de clavecin contain more than two hundred ordres of harpsichord pieces — character sketches, dances, and tableaux that define the French Baroque keyboard tradition.

Key character — C major

Bright, plain, and rhetorical. The native key of the keyboard. Bach uses it for his First Prelude in the Well-Tempered Clavier; Beethoven for the heroic Waldstein Sonata.

The Baroque Era

The Baroque era brought the keyboard from the harpsichord and clavichord to its expressive zenith. Counterpoint, dance suites, fugues, and ornamentation define the music of Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, and Couperin. Pieces from this period reward careful voice-leading and articulate fingerwork.

About the Character Piece form

A short, self-contained Romantic miniature with a distinct mood or programmatic suggestion — the genre that includes Schumann's Albumblätter, Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, and Grieg's Lyric Pieces.