Louis Marchand (1668 - 1732)

Louis Marchand (2 February 1669 – 17 February 1732) was a French Baroque organist, harpsichordist, and composer. Born into an organist's family, Marchand was a child prodigy and quickly established himself as one of the best known French virtuosi of his time. He worked as organist of numerous churches and, for a few years, at the French court. Marchand had a violent temperament and an arrogant personality, and his life was filled with scandals, publicized and widely discussed both during his lifetime and after his death. Despite his fame, few of his works survive to this day, and those that do almost all date from his early years. Nevertheless, a few pieces of his, such as the organ pieces Grand dialogue in C and Fond d'orgue in E minor, have been lauded as classic works of the French organ school.

Marchand was evidently not interested in publishing his music, and so, despite his popularity, comparatively few of his compositions survive. The losses are particularly substantial in his vocal music: only one cantata survives, Alcione, three Cantiques spirituelles, and a few airs, which were published in various French anthologies of the first half of the 18th century. The opera Pyrame et Thisbé, mentioned by Titon du Tillet, is lost. Marchand's harpsichord music was previously known only by two early suites, published in 1702, and La vénitienne, a short work published in a 1707 anthology. These compositions are generally considered worthy examples of the French harpsichord style, but, as early works, lacking depth. A third book of harpsichord pieces, comprising 14 suites (12 in C minor, 2 in C major), most attributed to Marchand, was discovered in France in 2003.
Twelve of Marchand's organ works were published posthumously, but some 40 more survive in manuscript copies. Yet again most of these works seem to date from Marchand's early years (and stylistically look back to the 17th century, rather than the new galante style), but they include some of his most important music: the massive Grand dialogue in C (1696), which is usually placed as highly as offertories by François Couperin and Nicolas de Grigny; the harmonically sophisticated Fond d'orgue in E minor, and the Quatuor—a rarely seen four-part contrapuntal French form.[1] Modern scholar Geoffrey Sharp divided Marchand's organ output into three distinct groups: pieces influenced by vocal genres, pieces influenced by instrumental genres, and vocal-instrumental hybrid works. He singles out Marchand's manualiter trios and non-contrapuntal works as the composer's most successful pieces. A six-voice Plein jeu from the pieces published posthumously is important historically as the first instance of double pedals in French organ literature. (Hide extended text) ... (Read all)
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