Frank Fogliati wrote of great early composers:

>...plus Ste. Colombe and his brilliant pupil Marin Marais...

I can't overstate the beauty of Marais' music.  Ste. Colombe also wrote
beautiful music but Marais' music appeals to me a great deal more.  I rank
him as one of the greatest French composers with F.  Couperin and certainly
one of the greatest composers of the Baroque.  If anyone has read any of my
posts they probably know of my fondness for Bach and Purcell.  I would like
to place Marais in his own class right up along with these masters.  For
me, there may not be any music with the sense of intimacy Marais' music
conveys.  Marais could never be number one for me, however, because the
amazing variety of styles and textures one finds in Bach's music (or
Purcell's for that matter) is just not there.  What lies in the works of
Marin Marais is music of incredible beauty and tenderness which is summed
up by the term tendrement; a term used in many of "Le Grande" Couperin's
works.  I urge everyone to give Marais' Pieces De Viole a try.  I have the
5-cd set on the Astree label.  It has books one through five with none
other than Jordi Savall performing with the likes of Ton Koopman, Hopkinson
Smith, Christophe Coin and Anne Gallet.  The recordings are not DDD but the
sound is very good (IMO).

One final word:

This is my last post to this list.  I really need to spend less time
reading email and more time writing music for my classes.  I appreciate
the responses to my postings and the fact that such a list exists for
music-lovers.  Thanks Dave and thanks to everyone.  Now let's just make
2001 a great year!

Wes Crone ([log in to unmask]) That's my little reference to Bach's Art of
Fugue (BWV 1080) in case you hadn't already guessed!