- It is likely that Locke composed this piece for the 24 Violins, an ensemble of 24 string players (not literally just violins) which Charles II created in imitation of the French King Louis XIV’s Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi.1
- Charles II spent most of his life in France before the British monarchy was restored in 1660. Charles II’s mother was a French princess, and during the English Civil War and the Protectorate, she fled to France with her younger children, including Charles.2
- The individual six movements of this suite are Alman, Corant, Firk, Alman, Corant, Firk. The Allemande and Courante are court dances frequently used in Baroque dance suites, but it seems that Locke invented the term “firk.” He used “firk” to describe jig-like pieces, based on the verb to firk, which means “to be lively” or “to be frisky”3
Sources
- Peter Holman, liner notes to Four and Twenty Fiddlers: Music for the Restoration Court Band, The Parley of Instruments, Peter Holman, Hyperion 66667, CD, 1993.
- Anita Hardeman, “The French Connection: French Influences on English Music in Restoration England,” paper presented at Western Illinois University, March 18, 2013, rev. May 22, 2013, WIU Libraries, accessed November 7, 2019, http://www.wiu.edu/libraries/music_library/Hardeman.pdf.
- Peter Holman, liner notes to Four and Twenty Fiddlers: Music for the Restoration Court Band, The Parley of Instruments, Peter Holman, Hyperion 66667, CD, 1993.
Cut IDs
48263