Derived from lute and theorbo music, they often featured preludes sans mesures, and virtuosic bowed trills, whilst remaining French in their dance rhythms and melodies.
The pièces were typically written in dance forms like the Allemande, Gavotte, Sarabande, and Gigue, augmented by a Prélude or a Fantaisie and with additional character pieces like Plaintes and Tombeaux.
The French pièce de viole is also recognizable by the trend, brought to perfection by Marais, of the composer including detailed directions for performance in the score.
Ornaments, bowings, dynamics, and incredibly specific fingerings make this repertoire a veritable time capsule for modern performers to explore.
This particular repertoire is one of the first to have such consistent attention paid to giving directions for technical execution, in contrast to the vast majority of contemporaneous compositional practices.