# Jean-Baptiste Lully



## Taggart

Jean-Baptiste Lully (28 November 1632 - 22 March 1687) was a Florentine-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France.

In the early 1660s his position at the heart of the royal musical establishment as a composer of music both secular and sacred was cemented by his appointment as surintendant.

In 1672 he obtained a royal monopoly for the composition and performance of opera in French, and thus empowered he kept a ruthless check on his rivals, creating for himself a clear field at a formative period in French opera.

The manner of his death was bizarre; in January 1687 he was directing a performance of his Te Deum by beating time on the ground with a cane, when he accidentally struck his toe. Refusing treatment for the injury, he contracted gangrene and died two months later.


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## Ingélou

Thank you, Taggart - Jean-Baptiste is my favourite composer. S-o-o-o-o elegant.

Here is a YouTube clip of music from 'Xerxes' with some fabulous pictures to put you in the right frame of mind...






Amusez-vous bien!


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## Manxfeeder

I like his sacred music; it's fun to hear. One movement elides into another, and you move effortlessly from one emotion to another.


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## Norse

This one is full of catchy stuff.


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## Flamme

Very smooth and ''above''...


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## Cheyenne

"However, gentlemen, we should not deprecate certain pieces of Lully. I defy anyone to improve on the scene '_Ah! j'attendrai_' without changing the words."


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## Novelette

Thank goodness for William Christie's devotion to Baroque French Opera.

Lully's Atys is my favorite among Lully's output. The great debate that erupted with the premier of Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie is a macrocosmic example of a similar debate raging in my own head. While I largely prefer Rameau's work to Lully's, both are worthy masters.

Still, Lully, in my opinion, was the undisputed master of the gavotte and sarabande among all of the French Baroque composers.


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## tdc

One of the most naturally gifted, innovative, and unique of the Baroque era composers, I find Lully attains such a nice balance in his music, between serious and joyful. I find his harmonic language quite distinct and memorable. He is certainly among my favorite composers. (Though I enjoy many later French Baroque composers I tend to prefer the "weightier" sounds common in the early Baroque, compared to some of the late Baroque composers such as Rameau who pointed towards the lighter and leaner sounds of the Classical era.)


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## Il_Penseroso

Read Romain Rolland's writing on Lully's operas in his book Musiciens d'autrefois (Musicians of the Past). Very informative.


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## Il_Penseroso

March for the Turkish Ceremony from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme after Moliere, one of the most beautiful pieces ever written:

Jordi Savall's Version:






Skip Sempe's Version:


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## Norse

This is one of my favorites of the simple 'dance numbers'. I wonder how much of the 'groove' is artistic license on Savall's part and how much is based on historical sources.


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## Ingélou

Norse said:


> This is one of my favorites of the simple 'dance numbers'. I wonder how much of the 'groove' is artistic license on Savall's part and how much is based on historical sources.


I love this piece. It's one of the pieces I can play on my violin & I wrote this lyric for it:

When chere Madame goes riding on her steed of grey,
With handsome cavaliers & grooms in bright array,
The fair Parisian ladies sigh with cheeks aflame:
To see such heavenly beauty puts their hearts to shame.
No nobler company exists in all the land
Than chere Madame out riding with her gallant band.
Twould be as if an angel blessed me from the sky
If chere Madame on me once deigned to turn her eye!

The second Air des Espagnols is even more ravishing, btw...

PS Re rhythm: Lully's music works according to the 'notes inegales' method, which is a bit like jazz, so my baroque-specialist violin teacher tells me.


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## Norse

What I meant by groove in this case wasn't the French Baroque 'swing eights' (which I don't think is very pronounced in this recording), but the percussion and guitar(?) accompaniment, which is not notated in any score. The question is wether the addition of this sort of 'rhythm section' is based in contemporary descriptions/manuals etc. And if they are, do we know anything about _how_ they would actually play..


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## Ingélou

Norse said:


> What I meant by groove in this case wasn't the French Baroque 'swing eights' (which I don't think is very pronounced in this recording), but the percussion and guitar(?) accompaniment, which is not notated in any score. The question is wether the addition of this sort of 'rhythm section' is based in contemporary descriptions/manuals etc. And if they are, do we know anything about _how_ they would actually play..


Apologise; I misunderstood; I am very new to this game! But my teacher is a baroque specialist & I'll ask him...


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## PetrB

Lully: Cadmus et Hermione - Chaconne from Act 1





[though I greatly prefer -- far more than Bach, Lully, Couperin, Vivaldi, etc. -- the music of Jean-Philippe Rameau.]


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## Norse

Ingenue said:


> Apologise; I misunderstood; I am very new to this game! But my teacher is a baroque specialist & I'll ask him...


Nothing to apologize for, I wasn't being very clear in the first place. But it will be interesting to hear what your teacher says. I guess I _could_ look into it myself.  My guess is that there probably is some evidence that such things could be added to the 'skeleton' of the written score in such pieces, (in the same way that improvisation undoubtedly was) but that the performance is otherwise 'freely conceived' without any more detailed instructions than that. Not sure, though.


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## Ingélou

I asked my teacher, and he said that both percussion & the (baroque) guitar were used in Lully's day; also that music was improvised & played from memory a lot, as music copies were expensive & laborious, and that 'there was more flexibility in arrangements than is generally conceived'. So I'm sure you're right - the Air is interpreted by a modern arranger but in the spirit of baroque practice. As for the rhythm, I've noticed that my teacher plays my Lully practice pieces for me with the same sort of 'lilt', something that I find really difficult myself. Probably we need a time machine to be sure, though!


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## Taggart

See also this chat on Baroque Exchange.


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## Ingélou

Another lovely basket of ballet music:


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## joen_cph

Recently got the *3 Naxos CDs of Niquet *conducting Lully´s _Grand Motets_, a very fine set.

I´ve also got _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme _in the *Leonhardt DHM recording*, likewise very good.

Overall, I feel that the Lully selection is pretty OK now, but am open to recommendations of further works/recordings.


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## JSBach85

*Lully - Te Deum LWV 55 (1677)*

Te Deum LWV 55 in D major for soloists, chorus and orchestra is a composition by Jean-Baptiste Lully composed in Versailles in 1677 and represented that same year on September 9, at the castle of Fontainebleau, on the occasion of the birthday of Louis XIV. It was written for the birth of his son, still an event for celebration, especially when the child's godfather is the King of France, but perhaps less grand than usual. The composition is part of the Grand Motéts but the Te Deum is a particular composition in itself. Lully obtained this commission directly from the king who had at the same time granted him the musical education of his son. The trumpet, not prescribed in the sacred music of the time, presents a real rarity introduced by Lully.

LWV 55 is one of my favourite Te Deum. Among my Lully collection I have the following recordings:

Lully: Grands Motets, Vol 1 Te Deum; Miserere; Plaude laetare Gallia Niquet / Le Concert Spirituel









Niquet is a stylish director whose fluency in the French baroque idiom is well attested by his performances and recordings of Charpentier and Rameau. His recording has vigour, his conducting is sometimes incisive. However, despite the good vocal cast: Isabelle Desrochers, Richard Durguay, Peter Harvey, conducting needs more contrast and brightness. However the three volumes of Grand Motets recorded in Naxos are still a good reference.






Marc-Antoine Charpentier Te Deum, H.146 - Jean-Baptiste Lully Te Deum, LWV.55 - Le Poème Harmonique/Vincent Dumestre / Capella Cracoviensis









The performances here are excellent, with no minimalist budget-cutting involved. Best of all is the sound, captured at the royal chapel of the new palace of Versailles that reflected the spirit embodied in this music as well. The conducting achieves an impressive mixture of brightness and definition, and it's hard to imagine a more appropriate sound environment. Joyous, rich music, wonderfully performed, highly recommended.






Another live recording but not available on CD is William Christie / Les Arts Florissants, my favourite conductor for baroque french sacred works because of his detailed conducting, contrasted and rich in textures.


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## JSBach85

Today I ordered this book:

The Wars of Louis XIV 1667-1714. John A. Lynn.









This book bring me to one of my latest purchases of Lully's tragédie lyrique:

*Lully - Isis (1677)*
Lully - Isis. La Simphonie du Marais/Hugo Reyne









Tragédie en musique, in a prologue and five acts with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully and a libretto by Philippe Quinault, based on Ovid's Metamorphose.

This is the most remarkable chorus in a Lully prologue: "Publions en tous lieux...C'est lui dont les Dieux ont fait choix"





A year ago I had been searching for information about this great chorus. The book "The Triumph of Pleasure: Louis XIV and the Politics of Spectacle" by Georgia Cowart brings a complete description about it:

_Praise of the King in the prologue to Isis (1677) begins with a particularly spectacular chorus (LWV 54/2). The curtain opens onto the palace and the throne of Fame, where this deity, accompained by her retinue and a crowd of followers, is seated with her trumpet. A throng of allegorical Rumors and Noises, all likewise holding trumpets, arrive from the corners of the earth and join the retinue of Fame. All these forces join together to form a large chorus, introduced and punctuated by a military fanfare for strings, five trumpets, and continuo.

Its march-like rhythm and meter, diatonic C-major harmony, and syllabic homophony, along with an easily retained melody, illustrate this text: "Declare everywhere / The triumphant valor of the greatest of heroes; / Let the earth and the heavens / Resound with the sound of his magnificence". This passage recalls the fanfares and marches that Lully, Philidor, and others had composed for Louis XIV's military campaigns and also for the victory celebrations that marked their successful conclusion.
As Robert Isherwood has shown, given the frequency of war during Louis XIV's reign, these military celebrations were the most numerous and pompous of all ceremonies; even when the fortunes of France were on wane, they redirected attention to the glory and grandeur of the king. Lully was one of several composers contributing martial airs for the king's wind band and trumpet calls and drum signals for military maneuvers. These were frequently recycled among the battlefield and various royal parades and ceremonies.

Such a ceremony, staged by officers and musicians of the Ecurie, had marked the conquest and occupation of France-Comte three years earlier, in 1674. Under a triumphal arch in the Place du Palais-Royal, the allegorical figure of Victory had crowned a statue of the king._

"Publions en tous lieux
Du plus grand des héros la valeur triomphante.
Que la Terre et les cieux 
Retentissent du bruit de sa gloire éclatante."

"Declare everywhere / The triumphant valor of the greatest of heroes; / Let the earth and the heavens / Resound with the sound of his magnificence"

This is without any question the most inspired text I have ever seen in an opera libretto.


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