Nicolas Chédeville (1705-1782) was a French composer in the late period of Baroque, as well as being a craft maker and brilliant player of musette and oboe. Most of his works which are accompanied by basso continuo, were mainly composed for his favorite musette, and, of course, they could be played on other instruments such as hurdy-gurdy, oboe, recorder (flûte), violin , and so forth.

Antonio Vivaldi’s six sonatas collection, Il Pasto Fido (The Faithful Shepherd,) was published in 1737, but 250 years later, i.e.1990, Philippe Lescat (1955-2002), a French musicologist, revealed the fact that the true composer of Il Pastor Fido was Nicolas Chédeville and proved it through a “Declaration” document by a notary public. Thus, the work is finally attributed to Chédeville. No matter by what reasons (for better sales, for purposely promoting the Musette, or both) he was motivated, the works is still deeply regarded as a high level music composition in creativity.

The second sonata in C major of the Il Pastor Fido is selected as the main subject for a further study. The content of this thesis is divided into five parts. Studying motive, purpose and strategies are in chapter one. How Baroque atmosphere influences Chédeville’s life in his creativity, motive of publishing the forgery, comparing French music styles with Italy’s, and chosing what instruments can be to used are included in chapter two. In chapter three, an analysis is detailed according to the mutual relationships among the musical format, structure, tonality, and Basso Continuo. In chapter four, more words about how to interpret individual sections, what decorations should be adopted, and how the performers to wield their techniques to show different musical emotions while playing recorder are put into discussions. Finally, conclusions, personal insight and discovery about this study are all drawn into chapter five.