Between 1680 and 1728, Marin Marais brought the pièce de viole to the peak of perfection. An ‘unremitting’ teacher, he was also the publisher of his own music and invented special signs to notate certain ornaments for the viol. In the course of his research at the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Italian gambist Vittorio Ghielmi studied these manuscript codes, in the hand of Marais himself or his direct students. ‘This led me to a new vision of French Baroque music, which applies not only to the viola da gamba, but also to vocal and orchestral music. These signs reveal the technique of playing in action.
Between 1680 and 1728, Marin Marais brought the pièce de viole to the peak of perfection. An unremitting’ teacher, he was also the publisher of his own music and invented special signs to notate certain ornaments for the viol. In the course of his research at the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Italian gambist Vittorio Ghielmi studied these manuscript codes, in the hand of Marais himself or his direct students. ‘This led me to a new vision of French Baroque music, which applies not only to the viola da gamba, but also to vocal and orchestral music. These signs reveal the technique of playing in action. Contrary to the static descriptions of the treatises of the time, one has the impression of seeing didactic “videos”.’
Nothing or next to nothing was known about Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe – not even his first name – and the mystery surrounding his person only intensified the mystery of his music: the Concerts à deux violes, which are the only pieces that have come down to us. He was known to violists as the inventor of the seventh string that was added to the bass viol of the Baroque era in France. It was gathered that he had two daughters because he was known to have given concerts with them. And Titon du Tillet had recounted the pleasing story of Marin Marais coming to listen to his master in secret, hidden under the hut in a mulberry tree where the latter “played the viol more peacefully and more delectably”.