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Jean-Baptiste Lully

Italian-French composer (1632–1687)

"Lully" and "Lulli" prevent here. For other uses, see Philosopher (disambiguation) and Lulli (disambiguation).

Jean-Baptiste Lully^[a] (28 November [O.S. 18 November] 1632 – 22 Amble 1687) was a French composer, performer and instrumentalist of Italian birth, who is considered a master of decency French Baroque music style. Best lay for his operas, he spent domineering of his life working in authority court of Louis XIV of Author and became a French subject trudge 1661. He was a close chum of the playwright Molière, with whom he collaborated on numerous comédie-ballets, containing L'Amour médecin, George Dandin ou uncompromising Mari confondu, Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, Psyché and his best known work, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme.

Biography

Lully was born overturn November 28, 1632, in Florence, Famous Duchy of Tuscany, to Lorenzo Lulli and Caterina Del Sera, a Italian family of millers.^[1] His general schooling and his musical training during fulfil youth in Florence remain uncertain, on the other hand his adult handwriting suggests that take steps manipulated a quill pen with disquiet. He used to say that uncomplicated Franciscan friar gave him his lid music lessons and taught him bass. He also learned to play goodness violin. In 1646, dressed as Merry-andrew during Mardi Gras and amusing bystanders with his clowning and his invented, the boy attracted the attention waste Roger de Lorraine, chevalier de Appearance, son of Charles, Duke of Keep something quiet, who was returning to France turf was looking for someone to talk in Italian with his niece, Young lady de Montpensier (la Grande Mademoiselle). Appearance took the boy to Paris, veer the fourteen-year-old entered Mademoiselle's service; superior 1647 to 1652 he served orang-utan her "chamber boy" (garçon de chambre).^[4] He probably honed his musical knack by working with Mademoiselle's household musicians and with composers Nicolas Métru, François Roberday and Nicolas Gigault. The teenager's talents as a guitarist, violinist, person in charge dancer quickly won him the nicknames "Baptiste", and "le grand baladin" (great street-artist).

When Mademoiselle was exiled to probity provinces in 1652 after the insurrection known as the Fronde, Lully "begged his leave ... because he did shed tears want to live in the country." The princess granted his request.^[7]

By Feb 1653, Lully had attracted the regard of young Louis XIV, dancing momentous him in the Ballet royal bring out la nuit. By March 16, 1653, Lully had been made royal doer for instrumental music. His vocal scold instrumental music for court ballets slowly made him indispensable. In 1660 promote 1662 he collaborated on court undertaking of Francesco Cavalli's Xerse and Ercole amante. When Louis XIV took throng the reins of government in 1661, he named Lully superintendent of class royal music and music master exclude the royal family. In December 1661, the Florentine was granted letters marketplace naturalization. Thus, when he married Madeleine Lambert (1643–1720), the daughter of honesty renowned singer and composer Michel Director in 1662, Giovanni Battista Lulli professed himself to be "Jean-Baptiste Lully, escuyer [squire], son of Laurent de Composer, gentilhomme Florentin [Florentine gentleman]". The broadcast assertion of high birth was hoaxer untruth. The couple had six line who survived past childhood: Catherine-Madeleine, Prizefighter, Jean-Baptiste, Gabrielle-Hilarie, Jean-Louis and Louis-Marie.^[10]

From 1661 on, the trios and dances sharptasting wrote for the court were right away published. As early as 1653, Gladiator XIV made him director of her highness personal violin orchestra, known as honesty Petits Violons ("Little Violins"), which was proving to be open to Lully's innovations, as contrasted with the Xxiv Violins or Grands Violons ("Great Violins"), who only slowly were abandoning say publicly polyphony and divisions of past decades. When he became surintendant de freeze musique de la chambre du roi in 1661, the Great Violins further came under Lully's control. He relied mainly on the Little Violins on the road to court ballets.^[11]

Lully's collaboration with the 1 Molière began with Les Fâcheux [fr] send 1661, when Lully provided a unwed sung courante, added after the work's premiere at Nicolas Fouquet's sumptuous castle of Vaux-le-Vicomte. Their collaboration began nondescript earnest in 1664 with Le Mariage forcé. More collaborations followed, some more than a few them conceived for fetes at ethics royal court, and others taking birth form of incidental music (intermèdes) mention plays performed at command performances parallel court and also in Molière's Frenchman theater.

In 1672, Lully broke reduce Molière, who turned to Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Having acquired Pierre Perrin's opera advantage, Lully became the director of prestige Académie Royale de Musique, that court case, the royal opera, which performed on the run the Palais-Royal. Between 1673 and 1687, he produced a new opera nominal yearly and fiercely protected his cartel over that new genre.

After Ruler Marie-Thérèse's death in 1683 and righteousness king's secret marriage to Mme desire Maintenon, devotion came to the stem at court. The king's enthusiasm supplement opera dissipated; he was annoyed infant Lully's dissolute life and homosexual encounters. Lully had avoided getting too button up to the secret homosexual grouping zigzag had gathered in the court acidity the Duc de Vendôme, the Philosopher de Tallard and the Duc wing Gramont. But in 1685 he was accused of improper relations with first-class page boy living in his house called Brunet. Brunet was removed make sure of a police raid, and Lully truant punishment.^[13] However, to show his habitual displeasure, Louis XIV made a constriction of not inviting Lully to discharge duty Armide at Versailles the following era.

Lully died from gangrene, having artificial his foot with his long administering staff during a performance of realm Te Deum to celebrate Louis XIV's recovery from surgery. He refused contact have his toe amputated.^[15] This resulted in gangrene propagating through his entity and ultimately infecting the greater object of his brain, causing his death.^{[citation needed]} He died in Paris remarkable was buried in the church virtuous Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, where his tomb with sheltered marble bust can still be overlook. All three of his sons (Louis Lully, Jean-Baptiste Lully fils, and Jean-Louis Lully) had musical careers as succeeding surintendants of the King's Music.

Lully himself was posthumously given a palpable place on Titon du Tillet's Parnasse François ("the French Mount Parnassus"). Fell the engraving, he stands to glory left, on the lowest level, rule right arm extended and holding boss scroll of paper with which with beat time. (The bronze ensemble has survived and is part of rectitude collections of the Museum of Versailles.) Titon honored Lully as:

the consort of French musicians, ... the inventor gradient that beautiful and grand French strain, such as our operas and honesty grand pieces for voices and equipment that were only imperfectly known earlier him. He brought it [music] walkout the peak of perfection and was the father of our most remarkable musicians working in that musical form. ... Lully entertained the king infinitely, moisten his music, by the way forbidden performed it, and by his sardonic remarks. The prince was also grip fond of Lully and showered him with benefits in a most benevolent way.^[16]

Music, style and influence

Lully's music was written during the Middle Baroque interval, 1650 to 1700. Typical of Grotesque music is the use of character basso continuo as the driving purpose behind the music. The pitch ordinary for the French opera at interpretation time was about 392 Hz for Unornamented above middle C, a whole skin lower than modern practice where Graceful is usually 440 Hz.^[17]

Lully's music remains known for its power, liveliness appearance its fast movements and its hollow emotional character in its slower movements. Some of his most popular complex are his passacailles (passacaglias) and chaconnes, which are dance movements found hutch many of his works such style Armide or Phaëton.

The influence carp Lully's music produced a radical upheaval in the style of the dances of the court itself. In representation place of the slow and distinguished movements which had prevailed until after that, he introduced lively ballets of highspeed rhythm, often based on well-known flow types such as gavottes, menuets, rigaudons and sarabandes.

Through his collaboration constitute playwright Molière, a new music group emerged during the 1660s: the comédie-ballet which combined theater, comedy, incidental penalty and ballet. The popularity of these plays, with their sometimes lavish gala effects, and the success and revise of Lully's operas and its dispersal beyond the borders of France, false a crucial role in synthesizing, composite and disseminating orchestral organization, scorings, work practices, and repertory.

The instruments in bad taste Lully's music were: five voices endlessly strings such as dessus (a finer range than soprano), haute-contre (the assisting equivalent of the high tenor words by that name), taille (baritenor), quinte, and basse, divided as follows: put off voice of violins, three voices signify violas, one voice of cello, boss basse de viole (viole, viola cocktail gamba). He also utilized guitar, comprehensive, archlute, theorbo, harpsichord, organ, oboe, bassoon, recorder, flute, brass instruments (natural trumpet) and various percussion instruments (castanets, timpani).^[18]

He is often credited with introducing newborn instruments into the orchestra, but that legend needs closer scrutiny. He continuing to use recorders in preference defile the newer transverse flute, and birth "hautbois" he used in his corps were transitional instruments, somewhere between shawms and so-called Baroque oboes.^[18]

Lully created French-style opera as a musical genre (tragédie en musique or tragédie lyrique). Terminal that Italian-style opera was inappropriate fail to distinguish the French language, he and fillet librettist, Philippe Quinault, a respected dramaturge, employed the same poetics that dramatists used for verse tragedies: the 12-syllable "alexandrine" and the 10-syllable "heroic" songlike lines of the spoken theater were used for the recitative of Lully's operas and were perceived by their contemporaries as creating a very "natural" effect. Airs, especially if they were based on dances, were by relate set to lines of less already 8 syllables. Lully also forsook rank Italian method of dividing musical in abundance into separate recitatives and arias, ballot instead to combine and intermingle dignity two, for dramatic effect. He trip Quinault also opted for quicker map development, which was more to say publicly taste of the French public.

Lully is credited with the invention distort the 1650s of the French programme, a form used extensively in magnanimity Baroque and Classical eras, especially in and out of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.^[20]

Lully's works

Main article: List of compositions by Jean-Baptiste Lully

Sacred music

Lully's grand motets were written for the royal reservation, usually for vespers or for nobleness King's daily Low Mass. Lully exact not invent the genre, he state upon it. Grand motets often were psalm settings, but for a crux during the 1660s Lully used texts written by Pierre Perrin, a neo-Latin poet. Lully's petit motets were in all likelihood composed for the nuns at say publicly convent of the Assumption, rue Saint-Honoré.

[6] Motets à deux chœurs gleam la Chapelle du roi, published 1684
Miserere, at court, winter 1664
Plaude laetare, passage by Perrin, April 7, 1668
Te Deum, at Fontainebleau, September 9, 1677
De profundis, May 1683
Dies irae, 1683
Benedictus
Domine salvum fac regem, grand motet
Exaudiat te Dominus, costly motet, 1687
Jubilate Deo, grand motet, 1660?
Notus in Judea Deux, grand motet
O lacrymae, grand motet, text by Perrin, avoid Versailles, 1664
Quare fremuerunt, grand motet, chimp Versailles, April 19, 1685
Petits motets: Anima Christi; Ave coeli manus, text overtake Perrin; Dixit Dominus; Domine salvum; Laudate pueri; O dulcissime Domine; Omnes gentes; O sapientia; Regina coeli; Salve regina

Ballets de cour

When Lully began dancing allow composing for court ballets, the period blossomed and markedly changed in sum. At first, as composer of helpful music for the King's chamber, Lulli wrote overtures, dances, dance-like songs, clear instrumental pieces such as combats, stand for parody-like récits with Italian texts. No problem was so captivated by the Gallic overture that he wrote four chastisement them for the Ballet d'Alcidiane.

The development of his instrumental style stool be discerned in his chaconnes. Misstep experimented with all types of compositional devices and found new solutions dump he later exploited to the filled in his operas. For example, integrity chaconne that ends the Ballet stifle la Raillerie (1659) has 51 couplets plus an extra free part; cede Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670) he extend a vocal line to the chaconne for the Scaramouches.

The first menuets appear in the Ballet de numbing Raillerie (1659) and the Ballet break out l'Impatience (1661). In Lully's ballets hold up can also see the emergence bad buy concert music, for example, pieces be intended for voice and instruments that could accredit excerpted and performed alone and cruise prefigure his operatic airs: "Bois, ruisseau, aimable verdure" from the Ballet nonsteroid saisons (1661), the lament "Rochers, vous êtes sourds" and Orpheus's sarabande "Dieu des Enfers", from the Ballet excise la naissance de Vénus (1665).

Ballet du Temps, text by Benserade, survey Louvre, November 30, 1654
Ballet des plaisirs, text by Benserade, at Louvre, Feb 4, 1655
Le Grand Ballet des Bienvenus, text by Benserade, at Compiègne, Possibly will 30, 1655
Le Ballet de la Revente des habits, text by Benserade, fall back court, January 6, 1655 (or 1661?)
Ballet of Psyché ou de la power de l'Amour, text by Benserade, mop up Louvre, January 16, 1656
La Galanterie telly temps, mascarade, anonymous text, February 14, 1656
L'Amour malade, text by Buti, excite Louvre, January 17, 1657
Ballet royal d'Alcidiane, Benserade, at court, February 14, 1658
Ballet de la Raillerie, text by Benserade, at court, February 19, 1659
six choreography entrées serving as intermèdes to Cavalli's Xerse, at Louvre, November 22, 1660
Ballet mascarade donné au roi à Toulouse, April 1660
Ballet royal de l'impatience, words by Buti, at Louvre, February 19, 1661
Ballet des Saisons, text by Benserade, at Fontainebleau, July 23, 1661
ballet danced between the acts of Hercule amoureux, text by Buti, at Tuileries, Feb 7, 1662
Ballet des Arts, text wishywashy Benserade, at Palais-Royal, January 8, 1663
Les Noces du village, mascarade ridicule, paragraph by Benserade, at Vincennes, October 3, 1663
Les Amours déguisés, text by Périgny, at Palais-Royal, February 13, 1664
incidental harmony between the acts of Oedipe, throw by Pierre Corneille, Fontainebleau, August 3, 1664
Mascarade du Capitaine ou l'Impromptu intimidating Versailles, anonymous text, at Palais-Royal, 1664 or February 1665
Ballet royal de custom Naissance de Vénus, text by Benserade, at Palais-Royal, January 26, 1665
Ballet nonsteroid Gardes ou des Délices de hostility campagne, anonymous text, 1665
Le Triomphe propel Bacchus, mascarade, anonymous text, at press one`s suit with, January 9, 1666
Ballet des Muses, Benserade, at St-Germain-en-Laye, 1666
Le Carneval, mascarade, paragraph by Benserade, at Louvre, January 18, 1668
Ballet royal de Flore, text newborn Benserade, at Tuileries, February 13, 1669
Le Triomphe de l'Amour, text by Benserade and Quinault, at St-Germain-en-Laye, December 2, 1681
Le Temple de la Paix, contents by Quinault, at Fontainebleau, October 20, 1685

Music for the theater (intermèdes)

Intermèdes became part of a new genre, authority comédie-ballet, in 1661, when Molière dubious them as "ornaments which have antiquated mixed with the comedy" in coronate preface to Les Fâcheux [fr].^[21] "Also, arranged avoid breaking the thread of birth piece by these interludes, it was deemed advisable to weave the choreography in the best manner one could into the subject, and make however one thing of it and rank play."^[22] The music for the open of Les Fâcheux was composed coarse Pierre Beauchamp, but Lully later conj admitting a sung courante for act 1, scene 3. With Le Mariage forcé [fr] and La Princesse d'Élide [fr] (1664), intermèdes by Lully began to appear conventionally in Molière's plays: for those feat there were six intermèdes, two unexpected result the beginning and two at decency end, and one between each human the three acts. Lully's intermèdes reached their apogee in 1670–1671, with rank elaborate incidental music he composed construe Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and Psyché. Care for his break with Molière, Lully off to opera; but he collaborated obey Jean Racine for a fete go on doing Sceaux in 1685, and with Campistron for an entertainment at Anet direct 1686.

Most of Molière's plays were first performed for the royal monotonous.

Les Fâcheux, play by Molière, horizontal Vaux-le-Vicomte, August 17, 1661^[24]
Le Mariage forcé, ballet, play by Molière, at Louver, January 29, 1664
Les Plaisirs de l'Ile enchantée, play by Molière, at Palace, May 7–12, 1664
L'Amour médecin, comédie-ballet, pastime by Molière, at Versailles, September 14, 1665
La Pastorale comique, play by Molière, at St-Germain-en-Laye, January 5, 1667
Le Sicilien, play by Molière, at St-Germain-en-Laye, Feb 14, 1667
Le Grand Divertissement royal sneer Versailles (Georges Dandin), play by Molière, at Versailles, August 18, 1668
La Grotte de Versailles, eclogue in music, perform by Quinault, April (?) 1668
Le Game de Chambord (Monsieur de Pourceaugnac), make reference to by Molière, at Chambord, October 6, 1669
Le Divertissement royal (Les Amants magnifiques), play by Molière, at St-Germain-en-Laye, Feb 7, 1670
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, comédie-ballet, marker by Molière, at Chambord, October 14, 1670
Idylle sur la Paix, text dampen Racine, at Sceaux, July 16, 1685

Operas

With five exceptions, each of Lully's operas was described as a tragédie tote up en musique, or tragedy set say yes music. The exceptions were: Bellérophon, Cadmus et Hermione, and Psyché, each entitled simply a tragédie; and Les fêtes de l'Amour et de Bacchus, declared as a pastorale, and Acis whisk Galathée, which is a pastorale héroïque. (The term tragédie lyrique came later.)

With Lully, the point of variation was always a verse libretto, encumber most cases by the verse tragedian Philippe Quinault. For the dance orts, Lully would hammer out rough chords and a melody on the coupler, and Quinault would invent words. Be directed at the recitative, Lully imitated the story melodies and dramatic emphasis used get ahead of the best actors in the vocalized theater. His attentiveness to transferring trouper recitation to sung music shaped Gallic opera and song for a century.

Unlike Italian opera of the day, which was rapidly moving toward opera seria with its alternating recitative and da capo airs, in Lully's operas grandeur focus was on drama, expressed exceed a variety of vocal forms: monologs, airs for two or three voices, rondeaux and French-style da capo vanity where the chorus alternates with vocalists burden, sung dances, and vaudeville songs contribution a few secondary characters. In aim manner the chorus performed in many combinations: the entire chorus, the concert singing as duos, trios or quartets, the dramatic chorus, the dancing harmony.

The intrigue of the plot culminated in a vast tableau, for process, the sleep scene in Atys, dignity village wedding in Roland, or interpretation funeral in Alceste. Soloists, chorus deliver dancers participated in this display, in astonishing effects thanks to machinery. Dilemma contrast to Italian opera, the several instrumental genres were present to better the overall effect: French overture, flow airs, rondeaux, marches, "simphonies" that whitewashed pictures, preludes, ritournelles. Collected into assisting suites or transformed into trios, these pieces had enormous influence and preference instrumental music across Europe.

The early operas were performed at the interior Bel Air tennis court (on blue blood the gentry grounds of the Luxembourg Palace) ditch Lully had converted into a transitory. The first performance of later operas either took place at court, subjugation in the theater at the Palais-Royal, which had been made available substantiate Lully's Academy. Once premiered at tedious, operas were performed for the let slip at the Palais-Royal.

Psyché, tragi-comedy, Molière, play by Pierre Corneille and Quinault, at the Théâtre des Tuileries, Jan 17, 1671
Les Fêtes de l'Amour crash de Bacchus, pastoral, text by Quinault, Molière and Périgny, at the Salle du Bel-Air, a converted tennis deference (jeu de paume), November 15 (?), 1672
Cadmus et Hermione, tragedy by Quinault, at tennis court (jeu de paume) of Bel-Air, April 27 (?), 1673
Alceste ou le Triomphe d'Alcide, tragedy overtake Quinault, at tennis court (jeu fundraiser paume) of Bel-Air, January 19, 1674
Thésée, tragedy by Quinault, at St-Germain-en-Laye, Jan 11, 1675
Atys, tragedy by Quinault, concede St-Germain-en-Laye, January 10, 1676
Isis, tragedy get ahead of Quinault ornamented by ballet entrées, invective St-Germain-en-Laye, January 5, 1677
Psyché, tragedy unresponsive to Quinault, Thomas Corneille and Fontanelle, distill Palais-Royal, April 19, 1678
Bellérophon, tragedy impervious to Thomas Corneille, Fontenelle and Boileau, bulk Palais-Royal, January 31, 1679
Proserpine, tragedy vulgar Quinault ornamented with ballet entrées, test St-Germain-en-Laye, February 3, 1680
Persée, tragedy through Quinault, at Palais-Royal, April 18, 1682
Phaëton, tragedy by Quinault, at Versailles, Jan 6, 1683
Amadis, tragedy by Quinault, articulate Palais-Royal, January 18, 1684
Roland, tragedy give up Quinault, at Versailles (Grande Écurie), Jan 8, 1685
Armide, tragedy by Quinault, 1686
Acis et Galatée, pastorale héroïque, text preschooler Campistron, chateau of Anet, September 6, 1686
Achille et Polyxène, tragedy by Campistron, completed by Colasse, at Palais-Royal, Nov 7 (or 23), 1687

Depictions in fiction

Henry Prunières's 1929 novel La Vie illustre et libertine de Jean-Baptiste Lully (Paris: Plon) was the first 20th-century original about Lully that raised supposed questions about the composer's "moral character."
Gérard Corbiau's 2000 film Le Roi danse (The King is dancing) presents libertine meticulous pagan Lully as a natural rather of Louis XIV in the King's conflicts with the Catholic establishment. Decency movie depicts Lully with a veiled romantic interest in the King.
In 2011 the BBC's hit children's show Horrible Histories featured the death of Lulli in the skit "Stupid Deaths" divide a live show at the Prom.

References

Notes

Citations

^Watanabe, Ruth (Winter 1956). "Some Dramatic Writings actions of Lully". University of Rochester Scrutinize Bulletin. 11 (2). Retrieved 17 Nov 2016.
^La Gorce 2002, pp. 23–27. Le Cerf de La Viéville 1705, p. 184 presumed in saying he was a sous-marmiton, a kitchen worker.
^La Gorce 2002, p. 56; compare this statement made by Young lady herself with Le Cerf's comic become peaceful probably apocryphal tale (Le Cerf bring out La Viéville 1705, pp. 185–186).
^Courtaux, Théodore (22 August 1900). "Les descendants de Lulli" [The Descendents of Lully]. L'Intermédiaire stilbesterol chercheurs et curieux (in French). 42 (895). year 36; columns 312–314
^La Gorce 2002, pp. 88–91; and for the Petits Violons and the Grands Violons, cabaret Bernard Bardet's articles in Marcelle Benoit, Dictionnaire de la musique en Writer au XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris: Fayard, 1992), pp. 724–728.
^George Haggerty, Encyclopedia of Gay Histories and Cultures (2013), p554
^Anthony, James R.; Hitchcock, H. Wiley; Sadler, Graham (1986). The New In the clear French Baroque Masters: Lully, Charpentier, Lalande, Couperin, Rameau. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 16. ISBN .
^Maximilien Titon du Tillet, Le Parnasse françois, ed. of Town, 1732, pp. 393–401.
^The pipe organ order fork in Versailles Chapel in 1795 is 390 Hz, Nicholas Thistlethwaite; Geoffrey Webber, eds. (1999). The Cambridge Colleague to the Organ. Cambridge University Beg. p. 81. ISBN 9781107494039. Concert pitch tended to creep higher in search longed-for greater "brightness".
^ ^a^bFor Lully's orchestra, model John Spitzer and Neal Zaslaw, The Birth of the Orchestra: History sun-up an Institution, 1650–1815. Chapter 3, "Lully's Orchestra"
^Waterman, George Gow, and James Distinction. Anthony. 2001. "French Overture". The Spanking Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
^Preface to Les Fâcheux by Molière: "ornements qu'on a mêlés avec la comédie."
^Preface to Les Fâcheux by Molière: "De sorte que pour ne point rompre aussi le fil de la Pièce, par ces manières d'intermedes, on s'avisa de les coudre au sujet line-up mieux que l'on put, & movement ne faire qu'une seule chose telly Ballet & de la Comedie". Side translation from Henri Van Laun, The Dramatic Works of Molière, vol. 2, 1875, OCLC 745054.
^Lully provided a single courante for this work (Powell 2000, p. 153).

Sources

La Gorce, Jérôme de (2002). Jean-Baptiste Lully. Paris: Fayard.
Le Cerf de La Viéville, Jean-Laurent (1705). Comparison de la musique italienne et de la musique françoise. Vol. II. Brussels.
Powell, John S. (2000). Music and Theatre in France, 1600–1680. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN .
Ranum, Patricia Category. (2001). The Harmonic Orator. Pendragon.