1670–1742 · France · Baroque
Henry Eccles was an English violinist and composer of the Baroque era, born in London and died in Paris. He published collections of sonatas for violin and for viola da gamba. The site offers the Sonata in G minor from the collection of 1720.
Henry Eccles was born in London into the family of the church composer Solomon Eccles. His father's works have not survived: after Solomon became a Quaker, he destroyed all of his compositions.
Very little is known about Henry Eccles's youth. The first event of his life with detailed, documented records is a charity concert on 2 January 1705. That same year some of his pieces were included in the collection "Preludes & Voluntaries" for violin. The canzona "No more let Damon's eyes" was then issued in a collection of comic songs (1706), and the song "Wit and Mirth" in February 1707.
Eccles joined the circle around the Duke d'Aumont, the French ambassador to England. When the ambassador returned home, the violinist went along, in the early 1710s. Later Eccles was back in his homeland: on 15 May 1717 he gave a concert at Stationers' Company hall in honour of the Duke d'Aumont.
In 1720 Twelve Sonatas for violin and basso continuo were published in Paris in two volumes. The collection is dedicated to the Chevalier Gage, an Englishman who was then engaged in financial speculation in Paris. It includes borrowings from the works of Giuseppe Valentini: sonatas 1, 4, 8 and 9, for example, were assembled from material in his Opus 8.
The second book of twelve violin sonatas appeared in 1723. In 1732 Eccles published Twelve Sonatas for viola da gamba and basso continuo; the A minor sonata is the most notable among them. Henry Eccles died in Paris.
His sonatas for violin and basso continuo, published in 1720 and 1723, and his sonatas for viola da gamba and basso continuo, published in 1732, are known. The 1720 collection contains borrowings from Valentini and from Francesco Antonio Bonporti, while the sonatas of 1723 and 1732 were written under strong influence of Valentini.
The best-known sonata of the 1720 collection is No. 11 in G minor. It is largely Eccles's own work, but its second movement, the Corrente, comes from Bonporti's Opus 10. On the site this sonata is available in an edition for solo violin, at an intermediate level. The Sonata in A minor from the viola da gamba collection is known in an arrangement for double bass and piano: modern double bass players perform it, and it is used in teaching.