Jean-Baptiste Lully

[micrologus]

Jean-Baptiste Lully
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Jean-Baptiste Lully.
Jean-Baptiste de Lully (Giovanni Battista di Lulli) (November 28, 1632 – March 22, 1687), was a French composer of Italian birth, who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He became a French subject in 1661.


Music

Lully's music is known for its power, liveliness in its fast movements and its deep emotional character in its sad movements. Some of his most popular works are his passacaille (passacaglia) and chaconne which are dance movements found in many of his works such as Armide or Phaëton. His Miserere, written for the funeral of the minister Seguier, is considered a work of genius.
Equally acclaimed are his minor sacred compositions.
The influence of Lully's music produced a radical revolution in the style of the dances of the court itself. Instead of the slow and stately movements which had prevailed until then, he introduced lively ballets of rapid rhythm. He affected important improvements in the composition of the orchestra, into which he introduced several new instruments, and Lully enjoyed the friendship of Molière, with whom he created a new music form, the comédie-ballet which combined theater, comedy, and ballet.
The instruments in his music were: five voices of strings (dessus, haute-contre, taille, quinte, basse), divided as follows: one voice of violins, three voices of violas, one voice of cello, and basse de viole (viole, viola da gamba). He also utilized guitar, lute, archlute, theorbo, harpsichord, organ, oboe, bassoon, recorder, flute, brass instruments and various percussion instruments.
Lully founded French opera (tragédie en musique or tragédie lyrique), having found Italian-style opera inappropriate for the French language. Having found a congenial poet and librettist in Philippe Quinault, Lully composed many operas and other works, which were received enthusiastically. Lully can be considered the founder of French opera, having forsaken the Italian method of dividing musical numbers into separate recitatives and arias, choosing instead to combine the two for dramatic effect. Lully also opted for quicker story development as was more to the taste of the French public.


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCf79gtMqqU&feature=related"]YouTube - Jean Baptiste Lully: Te Deum (Symphony)[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNx-i4oL6Fs&feature=related"]YouTube - Lully: Chaconne in G Major[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81bxIH9uvhk"]YouTube - Lully: Marche Pour la Ceremonie des Turcs[/ame]

[Philidor]

A recent email on an early flute mailing list (follow the links):

Hi Earlyfluters
My last concert with "Concert Spirituel" is online.
I hope recorder-flute players will appreciate.
The nice thing is that we played Persée abstracts in the "Manège de la Grande Ecurie, Versailles", in the same place Lully gave it for the first time in 1682.
the link : http://www.arte.tv/fr/accueil/2256858.html
or
http://www.arte.tv/fr/accueil/Videos...C=2266782.html
Best
Philippe Allain-Dupré
http://perso.club-internet.fr/allaindu/discographie/
http://perso.club-internet.fr/allain...terenaissance/

[periodinstrumentfan]

Le Poème Harmonique's version of Lully and Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme ... there's a 'unique' trill on the B flat that i've never heard in other orchestras... luv it !!!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGkCSHBGAyg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGkCSHBGAyg[/ame]

[The Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Philidor

A recent email on an early flute mailing list (follow the links):



Attachment 776

Attachment 774

Attachment 775

Attachment 777

Oh crap would I love to hear that orchestra! Cool. Natural horns, recorders by the zillions - wow.

[Philidor]

Originally Posted by spotty

Oh crap would I love to hear that orchestra! Cool. Natural horns, recorders by the zillions - wow.

Is the vid blocked in Canada?

p.s. Thanks PIF.

[periodinstrumentfan]

Ur welcome Phili !!!

...btw, if i'm not mistaken, in the clip Le Poème Harmonique plays on the mellow French Baroque Pitch A=392 Hz ...

[Philidor]

Originally Posted by periodinstrumentfan

Ur welcome Phili !!!

...btw, if i'm not mistaken, in the clip Le Poème Harmonique plays on the mellow French Baroque Pitch A=392 Hz ...

Sounds like it! They're monsters!




Flute by Roderick Cameron after instruments stamped "Hotteterre" made in Paris, circa 1700. Boxwood and ivory with a silver key. A=392

http://lepoemeharmonique.fr/

[The Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Philidor

Is the vid blocked in Canada?

I mean I wann be there in person!!

[stephen w]

Originally Posted by micrologus

Jean-Baptiste Lully
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Jean-Baptiste Lully.
Jean-Baptiste de Lully (Giovanni Battista di Lulli) (November 28, 1632 – March 22, 1687), was a French composer of Italian birth, who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He became a French subject in 1661.


Music

Lully's music is known for its power, liveliness in its fast movements and its deep emotional character in its sad movements. Some of his most popular works are his passacaille (passacaglia) and chaconne which are dance movements found in many of his works such as Armide or Phaëton. His Miserere, written for the funeral of the minister Seguier, is considered a work of genius.
Equally acclaimed are his minor sacred compositions.
The influence of Lully's music produced a radical revolution in the style of the dances of the court itself. Instead of the slow and stately movements which had prevailed until then, he introduced lively ballets of rapid rhythm. He affected important improvements in the composition of the orchestra, into which he introduced several new instruments, and Lully enjoyed the friendship of Molière, with whom he created a new music form, the comédie-ballet which combined theater, comedy, and ballet.
The instruments in his music were: five voices of strings (dessus, haute-contre, taille, quinte, basse), divided as follows: one voice of violins, three voices of violas, one voice of cello, and basse de viole (viole, viola da gamba). He also utilized guitar, lute, archlute, theorbo, harpsichord, organ, oboe, bassoon, recorder, flute, brass instruments and various percussion instruments.
Lully founded French opera (tragédie en musique or tragédie lyrique), having found Italian-style opera inappropriate for the French language. Having found a congenial poet and librettist in Philippe Quinault, Lully composed many operas and other works, which were received enthusiastically. Lully can be considered the founder of French opera, having forsaken the Italian method of dividing musical numbers into separate recitatives and arias, choosing instead to combine the two for dramatic effect. Lully also opted for quicker story development as was more to the taste of the French public.

Richard Taruskin comments in his Oxford History of Western Music:

'His rise to supreme power was steady and unstoppable, for Lulli was a veritable musical Mazarin, an Italian-born French manipulator of genius. Shortly after the founding in 1669 of the Académie Royale de Musique, Louis XIV's opera establishment, Jean-Baptiste Lully, who like Mazarin had been naturalized and Gallicized his name, managed to finagle the rights to manage it from its originally designated patent holder. From then on he was a musical Sun King, the absolute autocrat of French music, which he re-created in his own image.

. . .

'... Lully's famous skills as autocratic disciplinarian, with unprecedented authority stemming directly from his patron the king, were necessary ones to the success of his undertaking – as the anonymous letter writer confirms in a delightfully written, somewhat cynical passage that conjures up a vivid sense of something new in music: haughty, easily offended authorial pride.

'Lully is ranting at everybody. Everyone wants to shine in Atys, and there is no way to shine in this work of Lully's. Everything is fashioned, calculated, measured so that the action of the drama progresses without ever slackening. This singer takes it upon himself to add ornaments, slowing down the beat; and in order to remain on stage longer and arouse a little more applause, drags out an air that Lully intended to be simple, short and natural. That dancer begs for a futile repetition; the violins want to play when Lully asks for flutes......Everybody seeks his own reflection in Atys.Lully has to defend his work.'

R. Taruskin, Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, History of Western Music Vol. 2, 2005 (paperback 2009)





'

[nahatsu]

Thank you for your wonderful introduction to this magnificent music! Most exquisit and delightful excellence!
Bravo!