Trio Sonata in D major

Born into a musical family, Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet is notable as the first French woman both to write an opera, her Céphale et Procris,
and to publish harpsichord sonatas. Her elegant trio sonatas are
amongst the first French examples of the genre and reflect an
assimilation of Italian elements within a French style of writing. She
was educated at Versailles and lived there from her teenage
years until her marriage to organist Marin de la Guerre. Although
widowed early, and suffering the death of her ten-year-old son, de la
Guerre continued to play, teach and compose. She published a second set
of harpsichord works in 1707, together with the set of violin sonatas
from which this work comes. At this time, de la Guerre had also taken to
giving highly popular concerts in her home, which might have been a
platform for these trio sonatas.

De
la Guerre’s own relationships are difficult to question – as an
adolescent prodigy in the Versailles Court, through her marriage to de
la Guerre, and her long career in her widowhood. However, she owed much
of the ups and downs of her careers to the sexual politics of the French
court – as a protegée in Versailles she came under the protection of
the Marquise de Montespan, Louis XIV’s mistress, until Montespan’s
displacement by Madame de Monteclair. Perhaps partly due to this
side-step from the favour of the court, Élisabeth’s marriage to de la
Guerre placed her outside of Versailles and back in the artisan’s world
bringing together two strong dynasties of professional musicians in the
city of Paris