Born at
Großengottern, which was then in the
Electorate of Saxony, he attended school in
Langensalza and
Eisenach. He studied law at
Giesen, then
viola da gamba in
Darmstadt. In 1692, aged 16, he performed for the Landgrave
Ernst Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt, who engaged him for his court. The landgrave then sent him for further study in
Paris, under the two leading composer-performers of the day,
Marin Marais and
Antoine Forqueray. But Marais and Forqueray were bitter rivals, and Hesse could not study under both – at least, not under the same name. So, he called himself by his real name Hesse for one of the teachers, and "Sachs" for the other. The plan foundered when the two rival teachers chose to show off their star pupils in a public competition, not realising they were the same pupil. Hesse was able to please both masters by playing in their styles in turn, and this led to a rapprochement between them. He returned to Darmstadt, where he died in 1762, aged 86. Most of his compositions (operas, sonatas, church music) are lost, but an opera and some gamba pieces are extant, and there are some recordings of his music. == Family ==