Lully, Jean-Baptiste (redirected from Giovanni Battista Lulli)

Lully, Jean-Baptiste

 orig. Giovanni Battista Lulli

(born Nov. 29, 1632, Florence—died March 22, 1687, Paris, France) Italian-born French composer. He was made a ward of the court after his mother died and was sent to a noble French household at age 13 as valet. There he learned guitar, organ, violin, and dancing and came to know the composer Michel Lambert (1610–96), who introduced him to society and later became his father-in-law. Lully became a dancer and musician for the king and at age 30 was put in charge of all royal music. In the 1660s he composed the incidental music for Molière's plays as well as those of France's great tragedians. In the early 1670s he obtained the sole patent to present opera and produced the series of “lyric tragedies”—most with librettos by Philippe Quinault (1635–88)—for which he is known, including Alceste (1674), Atys (1676), and Armide (1686). The orchestra he developed was an important forerunner of the modern orchestra. A self-inflicted injury to his toe with his heavy conducting stick led to his death. His style of composition was imitated throughout Europe.

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Lully, Jean-Baptiste 

(Italian, Giovanni Battista Lulli), Born Nov. 28, 1632, in Florence; died Mar. 22, 1687, in Paris. French composer and the founder of French opera.

The son of an Italian miller, Lully lived in Paris from the age of 14. He studied music under French organists, played the violin in the court orchestra, and composed arias. In 1653, he became court composer. He composed many ballets, collaborating with Moliere in such comédie-ballets as Le Mariage Forcé and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. In 1672 he became head of the Paris opera house (Royal Academy of Music) and acquired exclusive rights to produce operas in France. He created the classical lyrical tragedy, a large-scale musical play based on subjects from classical mythology. Among his best operas are Alceste, ou Le Triomphe d’Alcide (1674), Thésée (1675), Atys (1676), and Armide (1686). He also established the form of the French overture.

Publication of the complete works of Lully, edited by H. Prunières, was undertaken in 1930, and by 1939 ten volumes had appeared.

REFERENCES

Asaf’ev, B. V. “Liulli i ego delo.” In the collection De Musica, issue 2. Leningrad, 1926.
Rolland, R. “Zametki o Liulli.” Sobr. soch., vol. 16. Leningrad, 1935
Borrel, E. J.-B. Lully. Paris, 1949.