Baroque · 1600–1750
Jean-Baptiste Lully
“The Sun King's Composer”
The Italian-born dancer who became the all-powerful music master of Louis XIV's Versailles — and invented French opera.
The Baroque era (1600–1750): Ornate, dramatic music of courts and churches — fugues, concertos and opera are born.
Amazing facts
- Born Giovanni Battista Lulli in Florence, he came to France as a boy to help a princess practise her Italian — and rose to command all the music at the Sun King's court.
- He was a superb dancer and performed in court ballets right alongside the young King Louis XIV himself.
- He teamed up with the playwright Molière to invent the 'comédie-ballet' — comedy plays woven together with music and dance.
- He kept time by pounding a tall staff on the floor — and one day struck his own foot; the wound turned bad and killed him. It is music's strangest death.
- He created the grand 'French overture', a stately slow-then-fast opening that composers copied for the next hundred years.
A few pieces to start with
Armide
1686
Opera
His last great opera — a sorceress torn between love and revenge, set to some of the most expressive French music of its age.
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme
1670
Comédie-ballet
A riotous comedy with Molière, including a pompous, strutting 'Turkish ceremony' that pokes fun at a man desperate to seem grand.
Te Deum
1677
Sacred music
A blazing celebration for choir, trumpets and drums — and, sadly, the piece during which Lully struck the foot that would kill him.
Life & times — what was happening in the world
1632Born in Florence, the son of a miller.
1643Louis XIV becomes King of France, aged just four.
1646Taken to France as a boy to be an Italian-conversation companion for a royal duchess.
1653Dances in a court ballet beside the young King Louis XIV and wins his favour.
1661Appointed superintendent of the King's music — master of everything performed at court.
1666The Great Fire of London destroys much of the city.
1672Takes control of the Royal Academy of Music and rules French opera with an iron grip.
1682Louis XIV moves his court into the vast new palace of Versailles.
1687Dies in Paris of a wound to his own foot, struck with his conducting staff.
1687Isaac Newton publishes his laws of motion and gravity.