Charles Racquet

Charles Racquet (1597–1664) was a French organist and composer, best known for his monumental organ Fantaisie.

He came from a large family of Parisian organists and himself was appointed organist of Notre-Dame de Paris at an early age, in 1618. He held the post until shortly before his death and was succeeded by another member of the Racquet family. He also served as musician to Marie de' Medici (a post that his father Balthazar occupied earlier) and to Anne d'Autriche, the Queen Mother. 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. In the 18th century writer Jean-Benjamin La Borde named Racquet "the best organist of his time." .The layout is as follows: Section 1: traditional imitative counterpoint with several countersubjects Section 2: imitative counterpoint on an ornamented version of the subject, with faster counterpoints Section 3: subject in augmentation, stated once in each voice Section 4: a bicinium duplici contrapuncto, a two-voice section in which the subject in its original form is combined with sixteenth-note figures in the other voice Section 5: a toccata above a pedal point Racquet’s Fantaisie is a unique piece in the entire French keyboard repertory, with few, if any, comparable works written in France.