Le Sieur de Machy

Machy, known as Le Sieur de Machy was a French viol player, composer, and teacher remembered principally for his Pièces de Violle en Musique et en Tablature (1685), a valuable source of information on the performance practices of his time. "The publication of the Pièces de Violle (..) unleashed a veritable polemic or querelle with Jean Rousseau concerning the “true manner of playing the viol”, which had been described by Machy with a wealth of details in the prologue to his work (..)". As a reply to Machy's 1685 prologue, Rousseau in 1688 published Réponce de Monsieur Rousseau. This polemic and a general discussion of Machy was treated by Ng in 2008.