Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/249

 interest and artistic organization of detail and plan. In all this the influence of Lully was dominant, and radiated more or less into Germany and England.

It is to be remembered that Lully (d. 1687) first won recognition at Paris as a violinist about 1650 and that his works began soon after (see sec. 85). He was most successful with his overtures, which were usually laid out with a slow, massive first movement, then a lively fugal movement, then a melodious slow movement. Mention should also be made of Marin Marais (d. 1728), an extraordinary gambist, in the royal orchestra for 40 years from 1685, with much gamba and chamber music (from 1686), and Jean Rousseau, author on and composer for the gamba at Paris (1687). Nicolas à Kempis, organist at Brussels, put forth chamber-works as early as 1644.

In England the established national zeal for secular vocal music passed over more or less into a care for instrumental works, especially late in the century. Several composers experimented with concerted pieces even before the Commonwealth, resuming with zest after it. Early pieces were often called 'fancies,' which were somewhat contrapuntal fantasias, generally of slight value, but better suites of dances were common after 1660. No single composer of chamber music became historically eminent, but the diffused interest is to be noted as illustrating the tendency of musical thought.

Many writers elsewhere named (secs. 88, 89, 99) put forth chamber music, from O. Gibbons (d. 1625) and W. Lawes (d. 1645) to Rogers (d. 1698) and H. Purcell (d. 1695). Mention may also be made of Christopher Simpson (d. c. 1677), a good gambist, with several instruction-books (from 1659); John Jenkins (d. 1678), a lutist and violist, teaching before the Civil War and in the royal band after 1662, with much chamber music (from 1660), including sonatas, fancies and 'rants' (dance-tunes); John Banister, Sr. (d. 1679), called the first significant English violinist, who left the royal band because of friction with the French players in it, afterward a teacher and the leader of public concerts (perhaps the first in England); his son John Banister, Jr. (d. 1735), violinist from 1668 to Charles II., James II. and Queen Anne, and concertmaster at the opera (works from 1688); and Nicola Matteis, an Italian settled in London (works from 1687).

It should be added that the strong 16th-century interest in the lute and theorbo, both as solo instruments and as parts of concerted combinations, continued to some extent into the 17th, and that lute-books were still issued from time to time. But the developing family of viols steadily supplanted these older and feebler instruments.