Louis Marchand (1669-1732) had an extremely colorful and unpredictable personality. While he was lavishly praised for his prodigious keyboard talents and skills, his reputation was not founded on musical abilities alone. In one famous, and documented instance, soon after his

The Belligerent Virtuoso Our birthday boy this month is Louis Marchand (1669-1732), born 350 years ago in Lyons on 2 February 1669. By all accounts, he was a rather strange and disturbed character. Described as restless, cumbersome, self-conceited, and ambitious

We would be entirely wrong to assume that musical duels were in the exclusive domain of the 19th Century. Far from it, throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries, musicians busily battled in musical contests that measured technical facility and improvisational