My doctoral research is centred on the great musician Robert de Visée (c.1660 after 1732), lutenist, theorbist, guitarist, gambist, (singer?), composer and teacher at Versailles and the Parisian salons during the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV. De Visée is an interesting musical figure, from both an historical and a contemporary point of view. Considered a great musician in his day, he exemplified the final flowering of the great Parisian lute school that had so strongly influenced French musical life - and that of a great part of Europe - from the sixteenth century on. As an innovator of style de Visée draws a fine parallel with the figure of Couperin le Grand, for de Visée too melded diverse Italianate elements into what had largely been a pure French style, creating a very personalised music that seems at once the result of great talent and learning on the one hand, and yet also the inevitable synthesis of the artistic innovations and aesthetic dialogue that had been hard at work in France for the greater part of the seventeenth century, transforming the musical landscape.
In addition to my doctoral studies at Oxford, I am currently in the process of preparing a critical edition of de Visée's complete extant lute works, which at present exist only in manuscript form. This edition is to be published by Ruxbury Publications, under the auspices of Britain's National Early Music Association (NEMA). It should be stated that, despite the quality and quantity of de Visée's lute works, this aspect of his oeuvre has been entirely ignored due to their current state of relative inaccessibility. (Most attention has been given to his guitar works, which were published with royal privilege in 1682 and 1686 respectively). Furthermore, the transcription of de Visée's lute works into modern notation could help bring the music of this important baroque master to modern musicologists and historical performers.
Post scriptum: It is my privilege to announce that I shall henceforth be preparing my doctoral research under the omniscient eye of Dr Timothy Crawford, the world's leading lute scholar, due to the fortuitous co-operation between the University of Oxford and Goldsmith's College, University of London. I would also like to thank Dr Crawford himself for the generosity he has shown with his own time, without which this arrangement could not have been possible.
