Sacred music Lully's grand motets were written for the royal chapel, usually for vespers or for the King's daily Low Mass. Lully did not invent the genre, he built upon it. Grand motets often were psalm settings, but for a time during the 1660s Lully used texts written by
Pierre Perrin, a neo-Latin poet. Lully's petit motets were probably composed for the nuns at the convent of the Assumption, rue Saint-Honoré. •
[6] Motets à deux chœurs pour la Chapelle du roi, published 1684 •
Miserere, at court, winter 1664 •
Plaude laetare, text 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, grand motet, 1687 •
Jubilate Deo, grand motet, 1660? •
Notus in Judea Deux, grand motet •
O lacrymae, grand motet, text by Perrin, at Versailles, 1664 •
Quare fremuerunt, grand motet, at Versailles, April 19, 1685 • Petits motets:
Anima Christi;
Ave coeli manus, text by 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 and composing for court ballets, the genre blossomed and markedly changed in character. At first, as composer of instrumental music for the King's chamber, Lully wrote overtures, dances, dance-like songs, descriptive instrumental pieces such as combats, and parody-like récits with Italian texts. He was so captivated by the French overture that he wrote four of them for the ''Ballet d'Alcidiane''. The development of his instrumental style can be discerned in his
chaconnes. He experimented with all types of compositional devices and found new solutions that he later exploited to the full in his operas. For example, the chaconne that ends the
Ballet de la Raillerie (1659) has 51 couplets plus an extra free part; in
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670) he added a vocal line to the chaconne for the
Scaramouches. The first menuets appear in the
Ballet de la Raillerie (1659) and the ''Ballet de l'Impatience'' (1661). In Lully's ballets one can also see the emergence of concert music, for example, pieces for voice and instruments that could be excerpted and performed alone and that prefigure his operatic airs: "Bois, ruisseau, aimable verdure" from the
Ballet des saisons (1661), the lament "Rochers, vous êtes sourds" and Orpheus's sarabande "Dieu des Enfers", from the
Ballet de la naissance de Vénus (1665). •
Ballet du Temps, text by Benserade, at Louvre, November 30, 1654 •
Ballet des plaisirs, text by Benserade, at Louvre, February 4, 1655 •
Le Grand Ballet des Bienvenus, text by Benserade, at Compiègne, May 30, 1655 •
Le Ballet de la Revente des habits, text by Benserade, at court, January 6, 1655 (or 1661?) • ''Ballet of Psyché ou de la puissance de l'Amour'', text by Benserade, at Louvre, January 16, 1656 •
La Galanterie du temps, mascarade, anonymous text, February 14, 1656 • ''L'Amour malade'', text by Buti, at 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 ballet
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'', text 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, February 7, 1662 •
Ballet des Arts, text by Benserade, at Palais-Royal, January 8, 1663 •
Les Noces du village, mascarade ridicule, text by Benserade, at Vincennes, October 3, 1663 •
Les Amours déguisés, text by Périgny, at Palais-Royal, February 13, 1664 • incidental music between the acts of
Oedipe, play by Pierre Corneille, Fontainebleau, August 3, 1664 • ''Mascarade du Capitaine ou l'Impromptu de Versailles'', anonymous text, at Palais-Royal, 1664 or February 1665 •
Ballet royal de la Naissance de Vénus, text by Benserade, at Palais-Royal, January 26, 1665 •
Ballet des Gardes ou des Délices de la campagne, anonymous text, 1665 •
Le Triomphe de Bacchus, mascarade, anonymous text, at court, January 9, 1666 •
Ballet des Muses, Benserade, at St-Germain-en-Laye, 1666 •
Le Carneval, mascarade, text by Benserade, at Louvre, January 18, 1668 •
Ballet royal de Flore, text by 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, text by Quinault, at Fontainebleau, October 20, 1685
Music for the theater (intermèdes) Intermèdes became part of a new genre, the
comédie-ballet, in 1661, when Molière described them as "ornaments which have been mixed with the comedy" in his preface to ''
. "Also, to avoid breaking the thread of the piece by these interludes, it was deemed advisable to weave the ballet in the best manner one could into the subject, and make but one thing of it and the play." The music for the premiere of Les Fâcheux
was composed by Pierre Beauchamp, but Lully later provided a sung courante for act 1, scene 3. With and La Princesse d'Élide'' (1664), intermèdes by Lully began to appear regularly in Molière's plays: for those performances there were six intermèdes, two at the beginning and two at the end, and one between each of the three acts. Lully's intermèdes reached their apogee in 1670–1671, with the elaborate incidental music he composed for
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and
Psyché. After his break with Molière, Lully turned to opera; but he collaborated with
Jean Racine for a fete at
Sceaux in 1685, and with
Campistron for an entertainment at
Anet in 1686. Most of Molière's plays were first performed for the royal court. •
Les Fâcheux, play by Molière, at Vaux-le-Vicomte, August 17, 1661 •
Le Mariage forcé, ballet, play by Molière, at Louvre, January 29, 1664 • ''
Les Plaisirs de l'Isle enchantée'', play by Molière, at Versailles, May 7–12, 1664 • ''
L'Amour médecin'',
comédie-ballet, play 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, February 14, 1667 •
Le Grand Divertissement royal de Versailles (
Georges Dandin), play by Molière, at Versailles, August 18, 1668 •
La Grotte de Versailles, eclogue in music, play by Quinault, April (?) 1668 •
Le Divertissement de Chambord (
Monsieur de Pourceaugnac), play by Molière, at Chambord, October 6, 1669 •
Le Divertissement royal (
Les Amants magnifiques), play by Molière, at St-Germain-en-Laye, February 7, 1670 •
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, comédie-ballet, play by Molière, at Chambord, October 14, 1670 •
Idylle sur la Paix, text by Racine, at Sceaux, July 16, 1685
Operas With five exceptions, each of Lully's operas was described as a
tragédie mise en musique, or tragedy set to music. The exceptions were:
Bellérophon,
Cadmus et Hermione, and
Psyché, each called simply a
tragédie; and ''Les fêtes de l'Amour et de Bacchus
, described as a pastorale
, and Acis et Galathée
, which is a pastorale héroïque
. (The term tragédie lyrique'' came later.) With Lully, the point of departure was always a verse libretto, in most cases by the verse dramatist
Philippe Quinault. For the dance pieces, Lully would hammer out rough chords and a melody on the keyboard, and Quinault would invent words. For the recitative, Lully imitated the speech melodies and dramatic emphasis used by the best actors in the spoken theater. His attentiveness to transferring theatrical recitation to sung music shaped French 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 the focus was on drama, expressed by a variety of vocal forms: monologs, airs for two or three voices,
rondeaux and French-style
da capo airs where the chorus alternates with singers, sung dances, and
vaudeville songs for a few secondary characters. In like manner the chorus performed in several combinations: the entire chorus, the chorus singing as duos, trios or quartets, the dramatic chorus, the dancing chorus. The intrigue of the plot culminated in a vast tableau, for example, the sleep scene in
Atys, the village wedding in
Roland, or the funeral in
Alceste. Soloists, chorus and dancers participated in this display, producing astonishing effects thanks to machinery. In contrast to Italian opera, the various instrumental genres were present to enrich the overall effect: French overture, dance airs,
rondeaux, marches, "
simphonies" that painted pictures, preludes,
ritournelles. Collected into instrumental suites or transformed into trios, these pieces had enormous influence and affected instrumental music across Europe. The earliest operas were performed at the indoor Bel Air tennis court (on the grounds of the
Luxembourg Palace) that Lully had converted into a theater. The first performance of later operas either took place at court, or in the
theater at the Palais-Royal, which had been made available to Lully's Academy. Once premiered at court, operas were performed for the public at the Palais-Royal. •
Psyché, tragi-comedy, Molière, play by
Pierre Corneille and Quinault, at the
Théâtre des Tuileries, January 17, 1671 • ''Les Fêtes de l'Amour et de Bacchus
, pastoral, text by Quinault, Molière and Périgny, at the Salle du Bel-Air, a converted tennis court (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 by Quinault, at tennis court (jeu de paume'') of Bel-Air, January 19, 1674 •
Thésée, tragedy by Quinault, at St-Germain-en-Laye, January 11, 1675 •
Atys, tragedy by Quinault, at St-Germain-en-Laye, January 10, 1676 •
Isis, tragedy by Quinault ornamented by ballet
entrées, at St-Germain-en-Laye, January 5, 1677 •
Psyché, tragedy by Quinault, Thomas Corneille and Fontanelle, at Palais-Royal, April 19, 1678 •
Bellérophon, tragedy by Thomas Corneille, Fontenelle and Boileau, at Palais-Royal, January 31, 1679 •
Proserpine, tragedy by Quinault ornamented with ballet
entrées, at St-Germain-en-Laye, February 3, 1680 •
Persée, tragedy by Quinault, at Palais-Royal, April 18, 1682 •
Phaëton, tragedy by Quinault, at Versailles, January 6, 1683 •
Amadis, tragedy by Quinault, at Palais-Royal, January 18, 1684 •
Roland, tragedy by Quinault, at Versailles (Grande Écurie), January 8, 1685 •
Armide, tragedy by Quinault, 1686 •
Acis et Galatée,
pastorale héroïque, text by
Campistron, chateau of Anet, September 6, 1686 •
Achille et Polyxène, tragedy by Campistron, completed by
Colasse, at Palais-Royal, November 7 (or 23), 1687 ==Depictions in fiction==