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Of all the highly talented minor composers active in 18th-century France, Jean-Baptiste Quentin (c.1690–c.1760) is perhaps the most skilful and productive not yet to have won substantial recognition. Precisely 123 compositions by him survive, all of them published in a series of nineteen collections that appeared between 1724 and c.1750. Thirty-six are sonatas for violin plus continuo, and the remainder are all trios for two violins or flutes plus continuo, except for seven later works that add a middle part for viola or bass viol. Quentin was primarily a violinist in the orchestra of the Paris opera, being in fact one of its most distinguished names, but from 1738 served there as a viola player. He left the orchestra towards 1750, and his last years were spent in obscurity.
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