Antoine Forqueray (1672-1745)

Harpsichord Suites Nos. 2 and 4

Antoine Forqueray won a reputation as one of the foremost players of the viola da gamba of his time. The son of the dancing-master and violinist Michel Forqueray, he was heir to a long family musical tradition. By remoter ancestry the Forquerays were allegedly descendants of Scots who had accompanied Mary Queen of Scots to France on her marriage to the Dauphin, the eldest son of Henri II and Catherine de’Medici, in 1548. At the age of five, Antoine Forqueray played the cello for Louis XIV, the beginning of royal patronage that led, in 1689, to his appointment as musicien ordinaire de la chambre du roy, in succession to the composer and viol player Gabriel Expilly, who resigned in that yea