Jean-Baptiste Lully: Complete Works

Excerpted from Wikipedia
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 February1665
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)
The intermède was a new genre in 1661, when Molière described them as the “ornaments that [he and Lully] had intermingled with the comedy”, Les Fâcheux. They must not, he insisted, “break the thread of the play”, and they were careful to “stitch them to the plot as best they could, and make the ballet and the play a single unit.” With Le Mariage forcé 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’Ile enchantée, play by Molière, at Versailles, May 7-12, 1664
L’Amour médecin, comedy, play by Molière, at Versailles, September 14, 1667
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 (M. de Pourceaugnac), play by Molière, at Chambord, October 6, 1669
Le Divertissement royal (Les Amants magifiques), play by Molière, at St-Germain-en-Laye, February 7, 1670
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, comedy ballet, play by Molière, at Chambord, October 14, 1670
Psyché, tragi-comedy, Molière, play by Pierre Corneille and Quinault, at the Tuileries, January 17, 1671
Les Fêtes de l’Amour et de Bacchus, pastoral, text by Quinault, Molière and Périgny, at the tennis court (jeu de paume) of Bel-Air, November 15 (?), 1672
Idylle sur la Paix, text by Racine, at Sceaux, July 16, 1685
Acis et Galatée, pastoral, text by Campistron, chateau of Anet, September 6, 1686

Operas (tragedies in music)
Lully’s operas were described as “tragedies in music” (tragédies en musique). The point of departure was 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.^[14]

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 in an indoor tennis court at Bel-Air 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.

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, 1675
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
Phaéton, 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 Écurei), Janauary 8, 1685
Armide, tragedy by Quinault, 1686
Achille et Polixène, tragedy by Campistron, completed by Colasse, at Palais-Royal, November 7 (or 23), 1687