Le Sieur de Machy

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Le Sieur de Machy, active around 1655–1700, was a French viol player, composer, and teacher. He is best known for Pièces de Violle en Musique et en Tablature (1685), which provides important details about how the viol was played in his time.

Machy’s detailed prologue sparked a heated debate about the “true” way to play the viol. Jean Rousseau replied in 1688 with Réponce de Monsieur Rousseau, beginning a wider discussion that modern scholars have studied.

Machy studied with Nicolas Hotman and lived in Paris from at least 1692. He claimed to be the first composer to publish viola da gamba works, but that isn’t strictly true, since Nicolas Métru had published Fantaisies pour les violles in 1642. Those earlier pieces were duets for treble and bass viol, while Machy’s Pièces de violle (1685) offered polyphonic solo gamba music in the tradition of Hotman, André Maugars, and Jean de Sainte-Colombe.

Eight surviving suites by Machy remain, printed half in standard notation and half in tablature. The collection opens with a technical introduction listing the main ornaments and how to play them, making it a valuable guide to performance practice of the time.