Saint-Colombe, Jean de (EN)

Saint-Colombe, Sainte Coulombe, Jean de, Sieur de, *1st half 17th century (?), †between 1691 and 1701 (?), French gambist and composer, pupil of N. Hotman. Sometimes confused with Augustin Dandricourt de Saint-Colombe from Lyon. He belonged to the poor nobility, probably from the Paris area, did not hold any musical positions, but gave concerts on his estate together with his two daughters and son. From the 1950s, his name appears in Parisian documents. He was a highly regarded virtuoso and teacher of the viola da gamba, and his students included Le Sieur Danoville, J. Rousseau, and M. Marais. Rousseau dedicated his Traité de la viole from 1687 to him and credited him with adding a seventh string to the bass viola and using silver-wound strings. In his Livre de pièces de viole from 1701, M. Marais included Tombeau de Monsieur de Saint-Colombe.

One hundred and eighty works by Saint-Colombe for solo viola da gamba have been preserved in manuscripts at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh and the Bibliothèque Municipale in Tournus, and 67 Concerts à deux violes égales in a manuscript at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (ed. P. Hooreman, «Publications de la Société Française de Musicologie», series I, iss. 20, Paris 1973). In these works, the composer sets high performance requirements in terms of technique for both hands. The concertos for two violas da gamba were probably intended for teaching purposes, with one part performed by the student and the other by the teacher; these are suites preceded by elaborate preludes. Saint-Colombe’s son, known as Messieur Saint-Colombe le fils, worked in England in the early 18th century as a viola da gamba teacher. His solo suites for viola da gamba are kept in the archives of Durham Cathedral.

Literature: A. Otterstedt Le Sieur de Sainte Colombe: Ein Stück Pädagogik aus dem 17. Jahrhundert, “Musica: Zweimonatsschrift”, XLVI, 1992; J. Dunford Saint-Colombe, “Early music review”, XXV, 1997; J. Dunford, N. Sarre The Sainte Colombe enigma: Current state of research in: A viola da gamba miscellany, ed. Ch. Coin, S. Orlando, Limoges 2005.