Marais - Suite in C Major - Mov. 1/8

MARIN MARAIS (1656-1728)

Suite in C Major from "Pieces en trio pur les flutes, violons et dessus de viole"

1. Prelude

Performed by the Purcell Quartet

**Marin Marais was a French composer and viol player. He studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, often conducting his operas, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe for 6 months. He was hired as a musician in 1676 to the royal court of Versailles. He did quite well as court musician, and in 1679 was appointed "ordinaire de la chambre du roy pour la viole", a title he kept until 1725.

He was a master of the basse de viol, and the leading French composer of music for the instrument. He wrote five books of Pièces de viole (1686-1725) for the instrument, generally suites with basso continuo. These were quite popular in the court, and for these he was remembered in later years as he who "founded and firmly established the empire of the viol" (Hubert Le Blanc, 1740). His other works include a book of Pièces en trio (1692) and four operas (1693-1709), Alcyone (1706) being noted for its tempest scene.

As with Sainte-Colombe, little of Marin Marais' personal life is known after he reached adulthood. Marin Marais married a Parisian, Catherine d'Amicourt, on 21 September 1676. They had 19 children together.

Marais and his music were featured in the film Tous les matins du monde (1991), an atmospheric, meticulously imagined life of Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe. Marais' music figured prominently in that film, including his longer work Sonnerie de Ste-Geneviève du Mont-de-Paris (1723). A recording of the Sonnerie performed on a Fairlight synthesizer was used in the cult classic film Liquid Sky.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• bach
• handel
• mozart
• beethoven
• concerto
• harpsichord
• historically
• informed
• performance
• corelli
• classical
• canon
• baroque

[smithsherman]

Dear Harmonico,I love your site and the beautiful art you post with you videos,but this still goes on my LOUIS XIII and XIV AS A DISCOTHEQUE FOR ELEGANT CADAVERS

[HARMONICO101]

Hah. Alright. lol.

[smithsherman]

I award you 5 Lullys for being a good sport.

[HARMONICO101]

Well, ah, thank you! Hope you find some more of my videos that are more attuned to your taste!

[LUDWIGfreeOFidolatry]

True...but not just the era and music...but the performers.These performers are from the brainwahed 20th century Universal-Arte-Deco Baroque.They've accepted as dogma...

unvaryingly beautiful tone played to a danceably metronomic rhyhm as correct.

But of course...there is no correct.And as I'm not dancing while listening to this...it's vapid.

[HARMONICO101]

Depends on the era, and the music itself. Bach's orchestral suites were for dancing, but obviously his unaccompanied cello suites are not.

You can tell from the structure and sound of these pieces that they were mean't to be danced to. They were also written during the reign of Louis XIV which was a time where dance was very popular in France.

[GALANTERIEasaCHARM]

DearHarmonico...Yes...An dance suite in name only for instrumental recitation...not dancing.

[HARMONICO101]

This is from a dance suite. Most secular french baroque music was centred around dance.

[GALANTERIEasaCHARM]

Caro Harmonico,This wasn't written for dancing

[HARMONICO101]

Recall though, that this is a dance suite written specifically for dancing and enjoying elegant company. It is for people is it not? Recall too, that this is music of the age of absolutism, so despite the extravagance of the time, things were still bound by strict rules. I feel that this performance displays both the elegance of the time and yet the certain restraint of a repressed society. It's elegant, aristocratic, and but never eccentric.