Charles Racquet (1597–1664) was a French

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...

and composer, best known for his monumental organ ''Fantaisie''. He came from a large family of Parisian organists and himself was appointed organist of

Notre-Dame de Paris Notre-Dame de Paris ( ; meaning "Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris"), often referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a Medieval architecture, medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité (an island in the River Seine), in the 4th arrondissemen ...

at an early age, in 1618. He held the post until shortly before his death and was succeeded by another member of the Racquet family. He also served as musician to

Marie de' Medici Marie de' Medici (; ; 26 April 1575 – 3 July 1642) was Queen of France and Navarre as the second wife of King Henry IV. Marie served as regent of France between 1610 and 1617 during the minority of her son Louis XIII. Her mandate as rege ...

(a post that his father Balthazar occupied earlier)Higginbottom, Grove. and to Anne d'Autriche, the Queen Mother.Oleksiuk 2019, 107. Racquet was very highly regarded by his contemporaries: his pupils included the famous lutenist

Denis Gaultier Denis Gaultier (''Gautier'', ''Gaulthier''; also known as Gaultier le jeune and Gaultier de Paris) (1597 or 1602/3 – 1672) was a French lutenist and composer. He was a cousin of Ennemond Gaultier. Life Gaultier was born in Paris; two conflict ...

(who wrote a

tombeau A tombeau (plural tombeaux) is a musical composition (earlier, in the early 16th century, a poem) commemorating the death of a notable individual. The term derives from the French word for "tomb" or "tombstone". The vast majority of tombeaux date f ...

on his teacher's death),

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

scholar

Marin Mersenne Marin Mersenne, OM (also known as Marinus Mersennus or ''le Père'' Mersenne; ; 8 September 1588 – 1 September 1648) was a French polymath whose works touched a wide variety of fields. He is perhaps best known today among mathematicians for ...

was a close friend of his. In the 18th century writer Jean-Benjamin La Borde named Racquet "the best organist of his time." RacquetFantasie1636

Of Racquet's music only a single organ ''Fantaisie'' and ''Douze versets de psaume en duo sur les douze modes'' (12 duos on psalm verses) survive, in Mersenne's ''Traité de l'harmonie universelle'' (1636). The fantasia, written upon Mersenne's request to "show what could be done at the organ", is one of the most famous pieces of the

French organ school The French organ school formed in the first half of the 17th century. It progressed from the strict polyphonic music of Jean Titelouze (c. 1563–1633) to a unique, richly ornamented style with its own characteristic forms that made full use of ...

. It is inspired by Dutch music, particularly that of Sweelinck: a single theme is developed through several sections, most of them imitative. The layout is as follows:See Apel 1972, 504. * Section 1: traditional imitative counterpoint with several countersubjects * Section 2: imitative counterpoint on an ornamented version of the subject, with faster counterpoints * Section 3: subject in augmentation, stated once in each voice * Section 4: a ''bicinium duplici contrapuncto'', a two-voice section in which the subject in its original form is combined with sixteenth-note figures in the other voice * Section 5: a

toccata Toccata (from Italian ''toccare'', literally, "to touch", with "toccata" being the action of touching) is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virt ...

above a

pedal point In music, a pedal point (also pedal note, organ point, pedal tone, or pedal) is a sustained Musical note, tone, typically in the bass note, bass, during which at least one foreign (i.e. consonance and dissonance, dissonant) harmony is sounded in ...

Racquet's ''Fantaisie'' is a unique piece in the entire French keyboard repertory; nothing like it was ever written again in France.

Notes

References

* Apel, Willi. 1972. ''The History of Keyboard Music to 1700''. Translated by Hans Tischler. Indiana University Press. . Originally published as ''Geschichte der Orgel- und Klaviermusik bis 1700'' by Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel. *Oleksiuk, Olga (ed.). 2019. ''Individual Spirituality in Post-Nonclassical Arts Education.'' Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. . *

External links

Listen to the ''Fantaisie'' by Racquet
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Gallica
''12 Versets de psaume'', pp. 284–289 {{DEFAULTSORT:Racquet, Charles French Baroque composers French male classical composers French classical organists 1597 births 1664 deaths Musicians from Paris 17th-century French classical composers 17th-century French male musicians French male classical organists