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Robert de Visée
1655 - 1732
composed during the Baroque period
Biography
Like many composers of the Baroque era, Robert de Visée was better known as a performer than as a composer. While he played a variety of instruments that included the theorbo, lute, and viola da gamba, it was the guitar with which he is most closely identified and on which he appears to have exhibited his greatest talent. A musician in the French Court of Louis XIV, Visée composed mostly for the guitar, theorbo, and lute, and is arguably the most important French composer of Baroque guitar music.

Robert de Visée was born in France around 1655. Little is known about his early years, but it is likely he came from a well-to-do family who provided him excellent instruction in music. At around the age of 25 he was taken on as a Court musician by the King. In 1682 Visée's first book of guitar works was published in Paris; the second followed in 1686. Together the two volumes contained 12 suites, each of them consisting of sequences of dances popular in Baroque suites of the day, such as courante, allemande, minuet, and bourrée.

By the time that 1686 volume appeared Visée had become one of the King's favorite musicians, performing regularly for the monarch in the private royal chambers. Visée would also become recognized for his musicianship in Versailles around this time.