1632 - November 28 - born in Florence, Italy
1646 - Moved to France at the request of Roger de Lorraine to tutor
his niece, Mlle de Montpensier, in Italian
c. 1652 - Began studying composition and harpsichord (Lully was by
this time already an accomplished dancer, violinist, and guitarist)
1652 - Left Mlle de Montpensier's court after she was exiled from Paris,
returned to Paris in December
1653 - February 23 - Danced with 14 year old King Louis in the same
ballet, Ballet de la nuit ---March 16 - appointed Compositeur
de la musique instrumentale du roi (responsible for all instrumental
ensembles)
1656 - Organizes and conducts the Pétit violons
1661 - May 16 - Appointed Surintendent de la musique et compositeur
de la musique de la chambre (responsible for all court chamber
ensembles and personally entertaining Louis)
1662 - July 16 - Appointed Maître de la musique de la famille
royale (responsible for all music in the court)--- July 24 - Married
Madeleine Lambert, daughter of composer Michel Lambert
1664 - First important collaboration with Molière - comedie-ballet
Le mariage forcé
1669 - Rallied against Pierre Perrin's effort to establish Académies
d'Opéra
1672 - Bought privelege of controlling the Académies d'Opéra
from the penniless Perrin --- August 13 - Official royal patent gives Lully
sole right to establish the Académie Royale de Musique
1673 - April 28 - After Moliere's death Louis XIV grants rights to
the theater in the Palais Royale to Lully --- Began writing
tragédie-lyriques - One each year for the next 14 years (except
1681)
1681 - December 29 - Received as Secrétaire du Roi at
Louis XIV's court
1687 - January 8 - At a performance of his Te Deum in celebration
of the King's recovery from an illness, Lully injures foot with his conducting
staff --- March 22 - Dies of complications of gangrene from infected foot
Jean-Baptiste
Lully was the principal architect of what became known as the French Baroque
style in the Baroque period. He dominated the French music scene
in an almost monopolistic fashion during the seventeenth century.
The King loved his music, and the French people loved his music, too.
Ironically,
this quintessential French composer was born an Italian in Florence on
November 28, 1632. Lully remained in Italy studying dance and music
until the age of eleven. By this point he was already learning violin
and guitar. In March 1646 the young Jean-Baptiste moved to the court
of Mlle de Montpensier in order to tutor her in Italian. It was during
his tenure at this French court at the Tuileries that Lully began studying
composition and harpsichord. Lully once said of himself that he had
"never learnt more about music than he had known at the age of 17 but that
he had worked all of his life to perfect this knowledge" (Anthony 1980,
314). At Montpensier’s court, he had the opportunity to greatly expand
his musical knowledge. He frequently heard the King’s grande bande
perform and witnessed many balls where the best in French dance music
was heard. Lully worked hard at making the necessary connections
to assure success during this period in his life. When in 1652 Mlle
de Montpensier was exile from Paris for her involvement in the Frondist
movement, Lully had already attracted the attention of the young King Louis
XIV.
In
February
of 1653, Lully and Louis danced in the same ballet together for the first
time. Coincidentally, it was in this ballet, Ballet de la nuit,
that Louis XIV gained his nickname the "Sun King" from the role of the
same name that he played so successfully (Harman and Milner 1959, 171).
It was less than a month later that King Louis appointed Lully his compositeur
de la musique instrumentale de Roi. This appointment began a
lifelong relationship between the King and Lully.
In less than
ten years, Lully gained total control over all of the royal family’s court
music. During this time, Lully accomplished many feats. Around
1656, he received permission to conduct the petits violons, a small ensemble
of extremely talented string players. Lully quickly advanced this
group beyond the achievements of the 24 violons du Roi, began experimenting
with new methods of performance practices and changes in basic stylistic
features in orchestral music. The success of the new style and expressiveness
brought Lully, now conductor of both ensembles, and the ensembles themselves
international fame.
Lully’s
early career in court music was focused on the genre of ballet. Here,
he could combine his two favorite expressions of art, dance and music.
During Louis XIV’s reign, dance music shaped what was to be later known
as French music. The success and influence of music for dance and
ballet is mostly thanks to the work of Lully. Between 1658 and 1671
Lully wrote thirty ballets. For over half of these he collaborated
with Isaac de Benserade. In these early works, Lully brought to fame
some of the most basic of dances of today, such as the minuet, gavotte,
and the bourée. In 1664, Lully first combined with French
literary great Jean-Baptiste Molière. Together they
staged
comédies-ballets
. In his staged works, Lully
insisted on literary distinction and dramatic unity. This new focus
within dramatic musical works proved very popular in France where Lully’s
finest works coincided with a peak in the French literary world.
However,
Lully did not think that the French language was appropriate to use in
large works. The stories and themes were fine for setting ballets,
but Lully thought the idea of an opera was absurd. Only after Perrin’s
Pomone was a resounding success did Lully change his mind.
With Perrin ending up in prison over a family dispute involving indebtness,
Lully took advantage of the situation and bought out the patent from Perrin.
In 1672, with complete control of French operatic performances, Lully aided
in establishing the Académie Royale de la Musique in Paris.
After Molière’s death in April of 1673, King Louis granted the patent
for the Royal theater to Lully also. This year Lully began his run
of composing and performing one opera each year for the next 14 years,
except 1681.
His style of
opera grew out of his popular ballets. He retained items like the
overture, entry music for dancers, atmosphere and action
symphonies ,
and some dances themselves. These parts worked around vocale recitatives
and airs that followed a specific plot. This form of opera became
known as tragédies lyriques.
Lully collaborated
with librettist Quinault on all but two of his thirteen complete operas.
Probably the most famous work from this period is Le Triomphe de l’Amour,
first performed on May 10, 1681. In this opera, Lully first used
recitative with orchestral accompaniment. It is also the first performance
to include professional female dancers (Newman 1979, 54). It fits
rather appropriately with the themes on the conflicts of sumptuous love.
Changes were occurring rapidly in the ways opera was received -- but only
within the musical drama of the monopolistic Lully.
Through the
patents that Lully acquired he restricted theaters from employing more
than a handful of musician, and for a company to perform an opera it must
have permission from Lully himself. This exclusive control of French
music by Lully stunted the natural progress of music. Lully wrote
the kind of music he liked, and luckily for him his taste in music was
very similar to Louis XIV’s. Even more importantly, the French people
liked what Lully wrote. His musical genius matched his lust for power
and his dictatorial methods, though. Lully once had the King personally
stop the production of an opera written by a contemporary that had not
received Lully’s permission to perform it.
Lully’s career
never slowed down. He continued writing music until he suffered a
fatal injury while conducting his Te Deum in 1687. Ironically the
performance was in celebration of the King’s recovery from an illness.
The wound Lully suffered to his foot while conducting later developed into
gangrene. Three months later, on March 22, Jean-Baptiste Lully died.
His
music did not die that day, though. Lully’s stylistic monopoly stayed
in place for decades after his death. People were criticized and
rejected for writing in different and progressive styles. Lully’s
exclusive hold on the writing of opera during his lifetime led to one hundred
years of French opera in his style. Lully also greatly influence
music in England. Charles I sent his own musicians to France to learn
how to emulate the style that was so typical of the four decade long career
of one of the greatest French composers ever. The advancements that
Lully made with the use of orchestra and the development of ballet and
tragedie lyrique as respectable genres drastically influenced western music
for centuries following his career.
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