Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer

Royer’s time for composition was limited by the many important official positions in Parisian musical life and at the court of Louis XV, multitasking as harpsichordist, organist, musical administrator and composer. Born in Turin around 1705, he rapidly made a name for himself in Paris for the sensitivity and virtuosity of his keyboard playing. His tenure (1748 until his death in 1755) as director of Paris’ main concert-giving society, the Concert-Spirituel, was brilliantly successful, with bold initiatives to perform the best new music from abroad: Vivaldi, Pergolesi and the novel symphony pioneered by J.W.A. Stamitz. Of his few stage works, Zaïde was performed at several royal weddings between 1739 and 1770 and long remained popular. Royer arranged some of its most colourful scenes for harpsichord, including La Marche des Scythes which, with its rapid-fire scales, dazzling arpeggios and hand-crossings, is one of the virtuoso pinnacles of French harpsichord music. It was published in his only book of harpsichord pieces in 1746.