The New Grove French Baroque Masters

Download or read book The New Grove French Baroque Masters written by James Anthony and published by W. W. Norton. This book was released on 1997-06-01 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Giovanni Battista Lulli, a young Florentine who settled in Paris, intrigued his way into all the major musical appointments at the court of Louis XIV and--as Jean-Baptiste Lully--created the essentials of what we recognize as French music of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. No one dared to rival Lully as a composer of operas or ballet. But in the chapels, the two most gifted French choral composers of the age, Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Michel-Richard de Lalande, brought French sacred music to a new peak of excellence. The leading instrumental composer around Louis XIV's court was Francois Couperin-le-Grand, master of the keyboard miniature. All these traditions were drawn together in the next generation by Jean-Philippe Rameau, theorist, 'philosophe,' and supreme master of the lyric tragedy. Book jacket.