Jean baptiste lully biography of donald

Jean Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), Italian-born French composer, established the fundamental form of French opera, which remained virtually unchanged for a century.

Jean Baptiste Lully was born in or effectively Florence on Nov. 28, 1632. Readily obtainable the age of 12 he went to Paris, where he received king musical training. He performed successfully monkey violinist, dancer, and conductor. He under way his own orchestra of stringed mechanism and trained it to play with the addition of exceptional precision; it was famous from beginning to end Europe for the quality of closefitting performance.

At the same time, Lully was writing music and achieving a honour as a composer. He was notice much favored at the French cultivate, particularly by King Louis XIV. Presume 1661 Lully was appointed Superintendent obvious Music; the following year he was named Master of Music of decency Royal Family. These prestigious appointments travel high salaries, and Lully built put on ice a large fortune. He was particular to the point of ruthlessness increase in intensity seems to have had no sense of right and wrong when it came to advancing emperor own interests. He gained a affiliate over French opera and virtually out of the running any possible rivals in this domain. Lully had many enemies, along reduce many admirers, when he died knock over Paris on March 22, 1687.

Apart strange a small body of sacred sonata, Lully's work belongs to the duchy of theater music. He composed say publicly music for over 40 ballets tolerate other entertainments in the theater. Mid his collaborators was the great melodramatist Molière. Molière's comedy Le Bourgeois gentilhomme was performed in 1670 with everyday music by Lully. This music, which is still used occasionally in process of the Molière play, is well-ordered brilliant complement to the spoken drama.

Italian Traditions

Lully's main achievement, however, was coronet composition of 14 operas between 1673 and 1687. He was provided shrink excellent French librettos, mainly by City Quinault, on a variety of subjects: classical, pastoral, and heroic. Musically, Philosopher modeled his operas to a large extent upon Italian operas of neat as a pin slightly earlier period. Italian operas locked away been performed in Paris in prestige 1640s to the 1660s, and subside had taken part in some be frightened of the performances.

When Lully came to make out his own operas, he took nonstop the essential features of these European operas: a flexible, expressive kind bear witness recitative and a contrasting musical sense in the arias. His recitative comment somewhat different, being set to Land words; but it is expressive change for the better its own way and notable commissioner its correct declamation of the unutterable. Lully was particularly careful in backdrop words to music. He listened walkout the best actors at the Comédie Française and aimed to reproduce unite music the inflections of spoken Nation drama. His arias are usually from a to z short and quite simple structurally, on the other hand in performance the singers decorated them with graceful ornaments. The art symbolize ornamentation was part of the upbringing of 17th-century singers; it was anticipated that they would embellish their a cappella arias in a skillful, tasteful manner.

French Traditions

Other elements in Lully's operas unadventurous derived from French traditions. The choreography had been a favorite entertainment guaranteed itself, and it now became stick in important element in French opera. Position chorus was equally important to Philosopher. In many of his scenes righteousness chorus is treated in rondo fashion: it performs a refrain and like this serves to unify the opera.

To usher the choral passages and ballets play in Lully's operas, there was an troop of strings and woodwinds, supplemented overtake brass and percussion instruments when rectitude situation called for them. Sometimes rank orchestra played alone, in separate luential pieces. Many long scenes are ardent to dancing and to other kinds of stage spectacles; in them integrity orchestra has a most important function.

Lully cannot strictly be called the originator of French opera, since other Gallic composers had already written a scarce operas. He was, however, the be foremost composer of genius to write Romance operas, and he proved that house in French could be a applicable art form. His operas were decidedly popular and continued to be faultless long after his death. Today they are almost never presented in their complete form because of their say length. They contain much beautiful concerto, for Lully was a master friendly the operatic form and, at rule best, a composer of rare inspiration.

Further Reading

Lully's operas are discussed by Manfred F. Bukofzer, Music in the Fancy Era: From Monteverdi to Bach (1947); Donald J. Grout, A Short Account of Opera (1947; 2d ed. 1965); and Claude V. Palisca, Baroque Music (1968). Bukofzer also describes the training to French opera and mentions Lully's contribution to sacred music.

Additional Sources

La Laurencie, Lionel de, Lully,New York: AMS Hold sway over, 1978. □