Sébastien Le Camus

Sébastien Le Camus (* around 1610 ; † in March 1677 in Paris ) was a French composer , gambist and theorbo player .

Live and act

Sébastien Le Camus was a musician at the court of Louis XIII from the beginning of the 1640s . From 1648 he was " Intendant de musique " in the service of the Duke of Orléans , a brother of the king. In 1660, after Louis XIV married Maria Teresa of Spain , he became maitre de la musique of the young queen. In 1661, after the death of Louis Couperin , he and the viol player Nicolas Hotman received the title of Ordinaire de la musique de la chambre du roi . As a member of the Grande Bande , he took part in numerous representative performances under Jean-Baptiste Lully .

Until his death in 1677 he led a prosperous life, collecting books, paintings and musical instruments. He lived with his lover Marthe Haincque de Saint-Jean, a singer for whom he left his wife and child, in a large apartment in the Grand Arsenal.

Le Camus was one of the court's most prominent composers; some of his 30 or so Air de cour and Air à boire appeared between 1656 and 1703 in anthologies published by the Ballard publishing house . He himself did not publish anything in his lifetime. It was not until his son Charles Le Camus published a collection of 32 airs à deux et trois parties on poems by Philippe Quinault a year after his father's death . The art of Le Camus shows great freedom in dealing with the melody in the voice, which often runs independently of the figured bass line.

Charles Le Camus inherited his father's jobs, which he sold three years later.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michèle Guénault-Blanquie: Où se trouvent les portraits de Sébastien Le Camus, compositeur de Louis XIV.
2. ↑ CV on Hoasm.org