A term used by François Couperin (Troisième livre de pièces de clavecin, 1722) and revived by modern writers to designate a harpsichord piece in which two parts, one for each hand, cross and re-cross one another in the same range, often sounding the same note simultaneously. Such pieces must be performed on a two-manual harpsichord with independent unison registers, one for each manual. The first such instruments seem to have been made in France in the 1640s, and two pièces croisées are included among the surviving works of Louis Couperin (d 1661).
EDWIN M. RIPIN