Hubert Le Blanc

Who is Hubert Le Blanc?

Hubert Le Blanc was a French viol player, doctor of law and abbé. Strongly regretting that viol playing was falling out of fashion, he wrote the treatise Défense de la basse de viole contre les enterprises du violon et les prétentions du violoncelle, which was published in Amsterdam by Pierre Mortier in 1740.

Those who have written about him are unanimous in considering him an eccentric: his German translator called him "a somewhat sarcastic old gentleman"; his English translator said he had a "colorful and eccentric personality"; his only biographer tells us that when he learned that his treatise was to be published in Amsterdam, he was so transported with joy that he set off immediately, attired as he was when he received the news, in bathrobe, slippers, and nightcap. Despite his reputation for eccentricity and his purple prose, larded with mythological allusions, he provides a wealth of eyewitness information about eighteenth-century musical life. The treatise is divided into three parts.