Charles Racquet

He also served as musician to Marie de' Medici (a post that his father Balthazar occupied earlier)[1] and to Anne d'Autriche, the Queen Mother.

[2] Racquet was very highly regarded by his contemporaries: his pupils included the famous lutenist Denis Gaultier (who wrote a tombeau on his teacher's death), Jesuit scholar Marin Mersenne was a close friend of his.

"[1] Of Racquet's music only a single organ Fantaisie and Douze versets de psaume en duo sur les douze modes (12 duos on psalm verses) survive, in Mersenne's Traité de l'harmonie universelle (1636).

It is inspired by Dutch music, particularly that of Sweelinck: a single theme is developed through several sections, most of them imitative.

The layout is as follows:[3] Racquet's Fantaisie is a unique piece in the entire French keyboard repertory; nothing like it was ever written again in France.