Michel Pignolet de Montéclair

By the age of twenty Monteclair had studied the bass violin and the double bass and was playing the latter in the orchestra of the Paris Opera. Regarded highly as a teacher, Monteclair was a successful composer in many different genres. He wrote numerous works for the stage that later influenced Rameau and also composed a nunber of cantatas with operatic elements. Monteclair also composed airs, sacred music and instrumental works. "Principes de musique" is now a major historical source of French vocal embellishments from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. ~ Keith Johnson