Thomas Brewer was also a celebrated performer on the gamba, who was born in 1611. He was admitted to Christ’s Hospital at three years of age, and learnt the viol from his music master. He composed various fantasias for his favourite instrument, besides airs, catches, rounds, as well as Pavins, Courantes, &c., for which kind of composition he seems to have been noted.
The English gambists of the first half of the seventeenth century must then have had some considerable reputation abroad, for the Frenchman, André Maugars, already mentioned, went about 1620 to London, lived there for nearly four years, and perfected himself after the models of the best gamba players. He does not seem to have had pupils. But his compatriot and rival Hottmann[27] (or Hotteman) not only taught, but distinguished himself especially by some charming compositions. One of his most noted pupils was Marais (Marin), born in Paris on the 31st of March, 1656. At first a choirboy in the Sainte Chapelle, he educated himself further under the direction of Hotteman, and then under Sainte-Colombe, another excellent Parisian gamba player at that time. Lully gave him instructions in composition. In 1685 Marais became solo gambist at the Court Chamber Music Concerts, which position he held until 1725. He died August 15, 1728.
Besides Sainte-Colombe there were at that time two able French gamba players—namely, Desmarets and Baisson. Marais, however, excelled them in artistic execution. He added to the six strings of the instrument tuned in the accepted manner—
also a seventh, the A of the “contra octave.”[28] This enabled him to surpass in harmonised playing all his predecessors and contemporaries. He was the first who caused the lowest strings of the gamba to be cased in metal wire so as to give them greater tension and resonance, a step in advance which was soon adopted for the two lower strings of the violoncello. Besides some operas, Marais was the author of a considerable number of gamba compositions which appeared in five parts. The fifth of them, for one and two gambas with a bass, was printed in 1705.
Out of his nineteen children, three sons and a daughter devoted themselves to the study of the gamba. Amongst them the most distinguished for his performances was
Roland Marais. In the year 1725 he succeeded his father as solo gambist at the Royal Chamber Music Concerts, the prospect of which had been assured to him some years previously. Quantz, who heard him in 1726, reported him as a very skilful player. He published, in 1711, a “Nouvelle méthode de musique,” and in the years 1735 and 1738 two volumes of gamba pieces with figured bass.
The Sainte-Colombe mentioned above had, besides Marais, two noteworthy pupils, Rousseau and Hervelois. Jean Rousseau perfected himself as a distinguished gamba player, and was actively engaged in Paris during the second half of the seventeenth century. He also made himself more widely known by the production of two “livres de pièces de viole,” as well as a gamba school, “Traité de la viole.” The latter work appeared in Paris in 1687.
Caix de Hervelois, born about 1670, became, under the direction of Sainte-Colombe, an excellent player, and after further study entered the service of the Duke of Orleans. In Amsterdam he had two books of his compositions published: “Pièces pour la basse viole avec la basse continue.”
Another French gambist of distinction in the seventeenth century was Antoine Forqueray. He was born in 1671 in Paris, and was one of the performers at the chamber music Concerts of Louis XIV. Forqueray received instruction from his father. At the age of five years he already excited the astonishment of the king by his performances, who called him “his little wonder.” In the year 1745, on June 28, he died at Nantes, whither he had retired upon his pension.