Sheet music by Michel Lambert

Lambert received his musical education as an altar boy at the Chapel of Gaston d’Orléans. He studied also with Pierre de Nyert in Paris. Since 1636, he was known as a singing teacher. In 1641, he married singer Gabrielle Dupuis who died suddenly a year later. Their daughter Madeleine became a wife of Jean-Baptiste Lully (in 1662). In 1651, he appears as a ballet dancer at the court of Louis XIV. Beginning in 1656, his reputation as a composer was established and his compositions were regularly printed by Ballard. They consist mainly of airs on the poems of Benserade and Quinault. He was the most prolific composer of tunes in the second half of the seventeenth century. In 1661, he succeeded Jean de Cambefort as a maître de musique de la chambre du roi and kept this position until his death. In 1670, he became Kapellmeister.