Jean-Baptiste Lully: the Italian Frenchman

Wow! It's been a long time since I've posted, and I'm afraid I've rather forgotten the elaborate plan I had for conquering the Baroque period. Getting married will do that to you. So rather than go into great detail on the technical side of things, we'll look at the lives and works of three major Baroque composers from three different countries: the French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully; the master of the Italian baroque, Antonio Vivaldi; and likely the greatest genius of them all, the German Johann Sebastian Bach. Hopefully this will cover most of the ground needed to properly understand this pivotal period in music history.

Interestingly enough, while Lully is known for being a pioneer of the French baroque style, and especially of French opera, he was actually born Giovanni Battista Lulli, an undeniably Italian name, in the undeniably Italian city of Florence. As a child in a working class family, he picked up enough skill as a dancer and a violinist to earn extra cash as a street entertainer. When he was 14, he caught the eye of a passing French nobleman who had been instructed to visit Italy and bring back a companion for his royal niece, who needed practice with her Italian.

So it came to pass, that in 1646, the boy moved to Paris, and very quickly fell in love with the people and the culture of France. As a court entertainer, Lully had the opportunity to work with the best French composers of the day. It was not long before he began to develop a distaste for the practices and styles of the Italian music of his childhood.

When his employer moved away from the city, 20 year old Lully resigned in order to stay in Paris, making his living by writing and dancing in court ballets. It was one of these performances in which the young dancer impressed the 14 year old Louis XIV, who was to become Lully's lifelong patron. At this point, France was for all practical purposes ruled by the young king's guardian, which left Louis free to pursue entertainment. Ballet and music was one of his passions, and he took an instant liking Lully. It was not long before Lully replaced an older, and much more experienced, Italian composer as Louis XIV's personal music director.

Because the king's guardian was an Italian cardinal, there was considerable Italian influence in Paris at the time, including several productions of Italian opera. Many of the French noblemen did not appreciate this art form, and Lully whole-heartedly agreed. He took it upon himself to collaborate with various French poets and playwrights and create a whole new breed of opera.

These productions were in the French language and moved away from many of the Italian operatic practices. Instead, Lully mixed recitative and aria together, used more natural and predictable poetic forms, and scored his works for a variable ensemble.

In 1661, the year that Louis XIV took over the rule of France upon the death of his guardian, Lully
finally was granted full French citizenship. It was at this point that he changed the spelling of his name to reflect his love for his adopted country. For the next twenty years, Lully produced operas and ballets for the royal court and the people of Paris. He continued to hold considerable influence through his position in court, and was fairly proud of the fact. By 1681 he was signing his works: Monsieur de Lully, escuyer, conseiller, Secrétaire du Roy, Maison, Couronne de France & de ses Finances, & Sur-Intendant de la Musique de sa Majesté. (Don't ask me to translate all that!)

Unfortunately, in 1683 the king grew disenchanted with the entertainment that Lully provided. The new queen brought a much more puritanical air to the court, and Lully's liberal lifestyle choices were suddenly not nearly as acceptable as they had been previously. He retained his position at court but lost some of his friendship with the king.

Sadly, it was also his career that indirectly ended his life in 1687. As a baroque conductor, he did not use a baton but instead a staff which he thumped on the ground to keep the group together (similar to a middle school orchestra director banging his pen on the stand). Unfortunately, when Lully was conducting a piece in celebration of Louis XIV recovery from surgery, he impaled his own foot with the end of the staff. Whether this came about through carelessness or a little bit of pouting, it didn't end well... his foot developed gangrene and he died shortly afterwards from complications.

Despite his undignified exit from this world, Lully did much for the musical world of France during his life time. He brought liveliness and attitude to instrumental works, and made the whole genre of opera accessible to his country. He also introduced the French overture style, which carried over into much of baroque and classical music, French or otherwise. Even Beethoven used it to open his Pathetique sonata. This particular style was a slow, stately march in duple time, often used an an introduction or overture to a larger work. It is characterized by frequent dotted rhythms in the melody and thick, chordal accompaniment.

A classic example of Lully's French Overture style is the overture to his 1670 collaboration with  French playwright Moliere. La Bourgeois Gentilhomme is a comedie-ballet, or the French version of the ballad opera. The premier of this work boasted a start-studded cast, including both Moliere and Lully playing roles.

Baroque Beginnings

The last couple of weeks have been full of travelling (Adam), wedding planning (me) and other sundry life happenings that tend to sneak up behind you and trip you when you're not looking (also me). But I'm back for now, and have some interesting topics to get to work on.

In last couple posts in this series, we tied up the Renaissance period of music history, both in the secular and sacred genres. As we move into the Baroque, there is less distinction between the two, and they progress in basically the same direction, so you'll be hearing a lot less about the dichotomy between sacred and secular.

First off, let's examine the term "baroque." Today, it is simply used to describe various styles developed in the arts between 1600-1750(ish). However, it was originally applied to the time period as an epithet by 19th-century art critics, implying that one was wrinkling one's proper classical nose at the gaudy, overly ornamented style of visual art or music prevalent during this period in history. But, as I have been reminded three times in the past couple months by three different history professors, art history is not a linear progression: we are not moving from good to better to best. Each time period had its strengths and weaknesses, and those classical critics would have done well to remember that. Either way, "baroque" is no longer considered a derogatory term and you can use it safely without be arrested by the Politically Correct Police. (Such an organization exists, trust me. Especially on Facebook. They're kind of like the Grammar Nazis.)

If you recall, the Renaissance period finished with a bang, full of crazy dissonance, over-the-top dramatics, and elaborate text painting. Towards the end of the period, there was a group of intellectuals who called themselves the Florentine Camerata (Florence Club) that met regularly to discuss the state of the world, and more specifically that of the arts. One of them, Vincenzo Galilei (father of the more famous Galileo Galilei of gravity and heliocentrism), write a fairly complex treatise on the reasons why the popular music of the day was not as effective as the ancient musics. He also added his two-cents on how music should change for the betterment of society rather than its amusement.

He said a lot of things in this work, a lot of them not very complementary to the current state of the arts, but one of his main arguments was that music should be used to better the state of society rather that simply to amuse or please our senses. Galilei felt that the popular style of text painting was useless in that regard, as it only described what was occurring in the text and did nothing to incite an actual change of heart in the listener. He also argued that the thick polyphonic textures were so complex that they were a distraction from any single purpose. His solution to this problem was for composers and musicians to consider themselves actors or even lawyers, so to speak. Music could be used as language, to convince the listeners to take on a certain "affect" or, state of being.

This led, naturally, to a change in styles. Instead of focusing strongly on contrapuntal textures, Galilei argued for the use of monody, or compositions made up of one primary voice with harmonic accompaniment. This would bridge the gap between single line chants of the very ancient times and the multi-voiced polyphonic works of more recent styles.

Galilei's intellectual theories sparked a radical change in compositional practice, leading to the birth of the ubiquitous basso continuo line that persisted throughout the Baroque period and even somewhat into the Classical (Beethoven himself included a continuo line with figured bass in a few of his compositions). However, I've spent so much time talking about the theory that practice will have to wait till the next post. When that time comes, I'll start by defining the whole basso continuo idea, and then we'll move on to some of the seminal composers of the period.

Alessandro Scarlatti: Supreme Musical Innovator

Ok, folks, due to prepping for sophmore review, superjuries, end of semester projects, and exams, my brain is complete mush this weekend, and I really don't want to subject you to reading brain mush. So, in lieu of writing the next post in our music history series, I shall make a brief digression and instead present to you a portion of said end-of-semester project for my music history course. Please enjoy a condensed biography of the great Baroque composer Alessandro Scarlatti. 


Pietro Alessandro Gaspare Scarlatti is one of the most influential composers of the Italian Baroque period. Scarlatti wrote extensively for the musical theatres of his day: cantatas, serenatas, and of course dozens of full length operas, the genre in which his influence is most recognized. Church music also makes up a good portion of his works, in the form of oratorios and masses. Later in his life, Scarlatti touched on instrumental music, although little survives, and seems to be merely diversionary rather than a primary focus. He left this type of composition to his famous son Domenico. Spending his life rotating between several major Italian cities—Rome, Venice and Naples—and patronized by such kingpins as the Medici family, Scarlatti was able to spread his influence through many outlets and raise the bar for both opera specifically and general compositional practice for the rest of the world.

Scarlatti was born in 1660, in the heart of the Baroque period, to a family already primed to produce great musicians. His father Pietro was a singer, and four of his six siblings were also professional musicians. Scarlatti would go on to continue the tradition, with the composer Domenico Scarlatti as his most famous son, as well as two other children earning their own respect as performers. His family moved to Rome when he was 12, and he married into high society in 1678. Nothing is known of his early musical training, but such training obviously took place, for his first opera, Gli equivovi nel sembiante, was produced shortly before his 19^th birthday. There is some speculation that Scarlatti may have trained under Roman composer Carissimi, who passed away when Scarlatti was in his teens. This speculation is mostly based on the strong influence of Carissimi’s style seen in Scarlatti’s early work.

The success of this first opera threw Scarlatti into the notice of many of the aristocracy of Rome as well as the fairly international audience of Roman courts and ambassadors. Before long, he was appointed maestro di capella, or choirmaster, for the court of the mysterious Queen Christina of Sweden, a noblewoman estranged from her home country upon conversion to Catholicism. She supported Scarlatti in his work as he continued to write and produce operas. He was in some disfavor with the Church at this point for two reasons. First, opera was a controversial subject at the time, with edicts from as high up as the Vatican condemning it as indecent and liberal. There was also some outcry when Scarlatti’s secular musicians were brought in for church performances. The second reason was that Scarlatti’s sister Anna, a popular singer, was accused of inappropriate behavior with more than one church official. Despite these issues, at least two cardinals commissioned oratorios from Scarlatti for Lenten services.

Fame did not keep Scarlatti in Rome for very long, however. Shortly after he produced his wildly popular opera, Il Pompeo, he moved his family to Naples, the city which would become his favorite and eventually the home of his old age. The next 18 years were spent here, writing operas and oratorios, as well as sacred works and chamber cantatas for private performance. It was during this period that Scarlatti began to develop his own unique opera style which in turn would become the prescription for other composers of the genre to follow. Characteristics of Scarlatti’s operas include arias in ternary form, very little music independent of the texts, and the lowered importance of the chorus. Although operas such as La Rosaura and Pirro e Demetrio received most acclaim, some modern scholars feel that his chamber cantatas were the outlet for “the most profound of his musical ideas.”

It was also in Naples that Scarlatti received the patronage of Ferdinando de Medici, and celebrated the birth of several of his children, including Domenico. He even wrote and directed a serenata for the visit of King Phillip V of Spain, a celebration in which his rival, Corelli, also participated but received less than favorable reviews. The serenta, Venere, Adone, et Amore, was composed near the end of his time in Naples, in 1696. The occasion was an annual summertime festival in Naples with the guest of honor being a newly appointed Spanish viceroy, well known to be a patron of the arts. Scarlatti turned out at least two other popular serenatas this same year, working with the poet Francesco Paglia.

In 1702, he visited the Medici family in Florence, but did not find the success he was looking for, and returned to Rome. For the next 20 years, Scarlatti, along with his son Domenico, moved from city to city, searching for the elusive position which would provide both artistic satisfaction and financial stability. While this period was in general a very disappointing era of Scarlatti’s life, there were a few high points. In 1706, he was inducted into the Arcadian Academy, a sort of literary honor society originally formed by Scarlatti’s old patron, Queen Christina. The year after, Il Mitridate Eupatore, one of his most acclaimed operas, was performed in Venice.

In 1722, Scarlatti left Domenico, who was now earning respect as a composer in his own right, in Rome and retired to Naples to live in relative poverty until his death in 1725. Although his later years brought him fewer public accolades than his early successes, there were still those who appreciated his genius. One Neapolitan newspaper stated that “as [Scarlatti] increases in age, so all the more does he acquire new and sublime ideas in his compositions.” His tombstone, with an epitaph written by Cardinal Ottoboni, longtime collaborator with Scarlatti, sums it all up with the title of Musices Instaurator Maximus, or, Supreme Musical Innovator.