La Bourrasque Concert by Comet Musicke - Camp de Base Festival

Name: La Bourrasque Concert by Comet Musicke - Camp de Base Festival
Start: 2026-07-22T00:00:00+0000
End: 2026-07-22T00:00:00+0000
Location: Church of Notre-Dame de l'Assomption

Aussois

Recital for two violas da gamba and one voice, inspired by Monsieur de Sainte Colombe (see the film *Tous les matins du monde*), featuring Francisco Mañalich, tenor and viola da gamba, and Aude-Marie Piloz on viola da gamba.

Description

Around Sainte-Colombe

Very few details of Jean de Sainte-Colombe's life are known to us. Yet he is one of the most eminent violists of all time, and his contribution to the evolution of the viola da gamba and its repertoire has been considerable. We can be sure that, without him, the viol would not be what it is today: one of the leading instruments of early music, with an extraordinary repertoire. We owe him the use of spun strings (replacing bare gut) for the lower strings, and the addition of the seventh string, which gives the instrument its depth and that characteristic low, resonant tone.
Sainte-Colombe spent his life far from the glitz and glamour of the court, but his influence in Parisian musical circles was great: he gave regular concerts at home, notably in the company of his two daughters, Françoise and Brigide, also violists. He was also a renowned pedagogue, whose pupils included Pierre Méliton, Jean Desfontaines, Jean Rousseau, and the great Marin Marais.
He is also known to have frequented the luthier Nicolas Collichon, on rue de la Harpe, where Demachy and Dubuisson, other famous violinists, lived. It was Michel Collichon, son of Nicolas, who made the first seven-string bass viol in 1683 (now on display at the Cité de la Musique museum in Paris).
Sainte-Colombe also knew how to shroud himself in mystery: when he decided that Marais no longer needed him, he refused to continue teaching him, and Marais had no choice but to hide under the shed where the master worked, in an attempt to discover his secrets!
Comet Musicke invites you to follow in the footsteps of Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe in seventeenth-century Paris, when his music interacted with that of his contemporaries.

Works by Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe and Sébastien Le Camus.