Music at the Court of Louis XIV

In the age of Louis XIV France reached a cultural highpoint in literature, theatre, music and art. Jean-Baptiste Lully made a significant contribution to this in various genres of musical theatre - ballet de cour, comédie-ballet, tragédie en musique, pastorale.

The tragédie en musique was rich in instrumental movements (overtures, symphonies, preludes, dances, airs de vitesse, chaconne and passacaille, marches, rondeaus, descriptive passages – e.g. scenes of battle, the Furies or slumber, and those representing specific psychological situations).

In Lully’s time these pieces were already being put together to form orchestral or trio suites, circulating widely in Europe, and they form the basis of the overture suite, the French counterpart to the Italian concerto grosso.

The suites remain attractive today for concert performances, also for students, and for the general public, and have the potential to inspire interest in representations of Lully’s dramatic works.