Jacques Paisible also known as James Peasable or James Paisible, was a French baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

 composer and recorder

Recorder

The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes—whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple...

 virtuoso who lived and worked in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 for about forty years.

Paisible arrived in London from France in September 1673, one of the four oboists

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

 among the musicians accompanying Robert Cambert

Robert Cambert

Robert Cambert was a French composer principally of opera. His opera Pomone was the first actual opera in French.Born in Paris in 1628, he studied music under Chambonnières, His first position was as organist at the church of St. Honor in Paris...

. He married Moll Davis

Moll Davis

Mary "Moll" Davis was a seventeenth-century entertainer and courtesan, singer and actress who became one of the many mistresses of King Charles II of England.- Early life, theatre career:...

, singer and mistress of Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

, in 1682. He made his living playing the bass violin

Bass violin

Bass violin is the generic modern term used to denote various 16th- and 17th-century forms of bass instruments of the violin family. They were the direct ancestor of the modern cello. Bass violins were usually somewhat larger than the modern cello, but tuned the same or sometimes just one step...

 and composing theater music. He developed a reputation as a first-rate performer on the recorder. Most of his surviving compositions use the recorder in various combinations. His music has been characterized as "craftsmanlike and idiomatic, with no virtuoso pretensions."http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=2700

Paisible was a contemporary of Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...

(1659–1695), one of England's great composers, and long outlived him in years, if not in reputation.

Works (selection)

• „Rare en tout“, Comédie-Ballet (1677)
• „The Humor of Sir Falstaff“ (1700)
• „King Edward III.“ (ca 1700)
• „Love Stratagen“ (1701)
• „She Wou'd & She Wou'd not“
• „The Complete Flute-Master'“' (1695)
• Six Sonata for flute Op.1 (1702)
• „Mr. Isaak's New Dances Master for her Majesty's Birthday“ (1704)
• „Six Setts of Aires“ for 2 flues and B.c. Op.2 (1720)

External links