Jean-Marie Leclair l'aîné (Jean-Marie Leclair the Elder) (10 May 1697 – 22 October 1764)[1] was a French
Baroqueviolinist and
composer. He is considered to have founded the French violin school. His brothers, the lesser-known
Jean-Marie Leclair the younger (1703–77) as well as Pierre Leclair (1709–84) and Jean-Benoît Leclair (1714–after 1759), were also musicians.
Biography
Leclair was born in
Lyon, but left to study
dance and the
violin in
Turin. In 1716, he married Marie-Rose Casthanie, a dancer, who died about 1728. Leclair had returned to
Paris in 1723, where he played at the
Concert Spirituel, the main semi-public music series. His works included several sonatas for
flute and
basso continuo.
In 1730, Leclair married for the second time. His new wife was the
engraver Louise Roussel, who prepared for printing all his works from Opus 2 onward. He was named ordinaire de la musique (Director of Music of the Chapel and the Apartments) by
Louis XV in 1733, Leclair dedicated his third book of violin sonatas to the king.[2] Leclair resigned in 1736 after a clash with
Jean-Pierre Guignon over control of the musique du Roi.[2]
Leclair was then engaged by
the Princess of Orange – a fine
harpsichordist and former student of
Handel – and from 1738 until 1743, served three months annually at her court in Leeuwarden, working in
The Hague as a private maestro di cappella for the remainder of the year. He returned to
Paris in 1743. His only opera Scylla et Glaucus was first performed in 1746 and has been revived in modern times. From 1740 until his death in Paris, he served the Duke of Gramont, in whose private theatre at
Puteaux were staged works to which Leclair is known to have contributed. They included, in particular, a lengthy divertissement for the comedy Les dangers des épreuves (1749) and one complete entrée, Apollon et Climène, for the
opéra-ballet by various authors, Les amusemens lyriques (1750).[3]
Leclair was renowned as a violinist and as a composer. He successfully drew upon all of Europe's national styles. Many suites, sonatas, and concertos survive along with his opera, while some vocal works, ballets, and other stage music are lost.
In 1758, after the break-up of his second marriage, Leclair purchased a small house in a dangerous Parisian neighborhood in the northern part of
Le Marais near the old
Temple, where he was found stabbed to death on October 23, 1764.[4] Although the
murder remains a mystery, there is a possibility that his ex-wife may have been behind it—her motive being financial gain—although suspicion also rests on his nephew, Guillaume-François Vial.[5]
Pougin, Arthur, Le violon: Les violonistes et la musique de violon du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, Fishbacher, 1924 (accessible online at
Gallica BNF)