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.
