The force, the skill, for which they’re fam’d, I praise;—yet one great fault I see: Of harmony Professors nam’d, How comes it that they can’t agree?
Let us now proceed to consider the principal French violinists in their order—commencing with Lully, who, though not a Frenchman, but rather (as Burney styles him) a Frenchified Tuscan, belonged entirely to France, both by his education, and the results of it. It has been already observed that Baltazarini, the Italian (who became, Gallicè, Monsieur de Beaujoyeux, and who flourished about eighty years earlier than Lully), was the first who introduced the violin to Court favour and fashion in France; where, however, till the time of Lully, it appears to have had no higher province than that which it enjoyed in association with the dance and the ballet—a condition which may, perhaps, be termed “frivolous and vexatious,” but which must be allowed to have coincided pretty exactly with the national taste, at the time.
Jean Baptiste de Lully was born of obscure parents at Florence, in 1633 or 34. The bias towards music which he shewed, while yet a child, induced a worthy Cordelier, from no other consideration than the hope of his some time becoming eminent in the art, to undertake his tuition on the guitar—an instrument which, in the sequel, he was always fond of singing to. The Chevalier de Guise, a French gentleman, who had been travelling, brought Lully into France, in 1646, as a present to his sister, according to Dr. Burney’s phrase and statement, or, in the more qualified language of another account, to serve as a page to Mademoiselle de Montpensier, a niece of Louis XIV, who had commissioned the Chevalier to find her out some pretty little Italian boy for this latter purpose. If such were the lady’s instructions, the countenance of the youth did not answer to them; but his vivacity and ready wit, in addition to his skill on the guitar, determined the Chevalier, as it appears, to engage him. On his arrival and presentation to the lady, he found her so dissatisfied with his looks, as to induce a change in her intentions—and, instead of her page, he was made to fill the office of her under-scullion!
Neither the disappointment he experienced, however, nor the employment to which he was destined, affected the spirits of Lully. In the moments of his leisure from the kitchen, he used to scrape upon a wretched fiddle, which he had contrived to procure. That fiddle it was which caused him to emerge from his obscurity! A person employed about the Court, happening one day to hear him, informed the Princess that the youth had an excellent taste for music. She directed that a master should be employed to teach him the violin; and, in the course of a few months, he became so great a proficient, that he was elevated to the rank of Court Musician. In consequence of an unlucky accident, he was dismissed from this situation; he afterwards, however, found means to get admitted into the King’s band of violins, and applied himself so closely to the study of music, that, in a little time, he began to compose. Some of his airs having been noticed by the King, Louis XIV, the author was sent for, and his performance of them was thought so excellent, that a new band was formed, called “Les petits Violons,” and he was placed at the head of it. Under his direction, they soon surpassed the famous band of twenty-four, which had previously enjoyed an extent of reputation attributable rather to the low state of musical taste and knowledge among the French, at that period, than to the skill of the performers; for they were incompetent (according to De la Borde) to play any thing they had not made a special study of, and gotten by heart. This was about the year 1660, at which time the favorite diversion of the French Court was a species of ballet, that consisted of dancing, intermixed with dramatic action, and musical recitative. The agency of Lully’s musical talent in these entertainments soon procured him the favor of le Grand Monarque, who liked music in so far as it conduced to dancing, and had a taste which found its satisfaction in airs de rigueur, containing a stated number of bars, accented with the utmost reference to saltatory convenience.[45]
In the soul of Louis, vanity supplied the place of musical ardour, and led him to consider the establishment of an Opera necessary to the splendour of his Court. Lully became, after that event, the great dramatic musician of France. Of his importance in that relation, however, and of his fortunate league with the lyrical genius of Quinault, &c. it is not within my purpose to treat. Possessing, now, the situation of Composer and joint Director to the French Opera, he relinquished the connection with his former Band, and instituted one of his own. On becoming appointed superintendent of the King’s private music, he neglected almost entirely the practice of the violin; yet, whenever he could be prevailed on to play, his excellence astonished all who heard him. The Maréchal de Grammont had a valet named Lalande, who afterwards attained some distinction as a violin-player. One day, after dinner, the Maréchal desired Lully to hear Lalande, and to bestow on him a few directions. Lalande accordingly played; but Lully, whenever he did not please him, snatched the instrument out of his hand, made use of it himself preceptively, and, at length, became warmed into such excitement, through the train of ideas produced by his own playing, that he did not lay down the violin for three hours.[46]
In the year 1686, the King was seized with an indisposition that threatened his life; and on his recovering from it, Lully was required to compose a Te Deum, in grateful celebration of the deliverance. Accordingly he wrote one, which was not more remarkable for its excellence, than for the unhappy accident with which its performance was attended. Nothing had been neglected in the preparations for the execution of it, and, the more to demonstrate his zeal, Lully himself beat the time. With the cane that he used for this purpose, in the heat of action (from the difficulty of keeping the band together), he struck his foot; this caused a blister to arise, which increasing, his physician advised him immediately to have a toe taken off, and, after a delay of some days, his foot, and at length the whole limb. At this dreadful juncture, an empiric offered to perform a cure without amputation. Two thousand pistoles were promised him, if he should accomplish it; but all his efforts were in vain. Lully died on the 22nd of March, 1687, and was interred at Paris, where an elegant monument was erected to his memory.
A strange story is extant, in relation to the closing scene of Lully’s life. His confessor prescribed to him, as the condition of his absolution, that he should commit to the flames his latest opera. Lully, after many excuses, at length acquiesced, and, pointing to a drawer in which the rough draught of Achille et Polixène was deposited, it was taken out and burnt, and the confessor went away satisfied. Lully grew better, and was thought out of danger, when one of the young Princes came to visit him. “What, Baptiste,” says he to him, “have you thrown your opera into the fire? You were a fool for thus giving credit to a gloomy Jansenist, and burning good music.”—“Hush, hush!” answered Lully, in a whisper, “I knew well what I was about—I have another copy of it!” Unhappily, this ill-timed pleasantry was followed by a relapse; and the prospect of inevitable death threw him into such pangs of remorse, that he submitted to be laid on a heap of ashes, with a cord round his neck; and, in this situation, he expressed a deep sense of his late transgression. On being replaced in his bed, he became more composed, and (as the relation goes) he expired singing, to one of his own airs, the emphatic words, “Il faut mourir, pécheur, il faut mourir!”
The high estimation which the once sous-marmiton, and afterwards regenerator of the music of France, had enjoyed, enabled him to amass considerable money. In natural disposition, he was gay and cheerful; and, although he was rather thick and short in person, somewhat rude in speech, and little able to shape his manners to the formal refinements of the French Court, he was not without a certain dignity, which intellect succeeds in conferring.
The musical style of Lully was characterized by vivacity and originality; by virtue of which qualities, his compositions, chiefly operas, and other dramatic entertainments, kept possession of the French stage till the middle of the last century, when Rameau came into vogue. Lully is considered to have invented the overture, or at least to have given to it its most distinctive marks of character. He composed symphonies for violins, in three parts; but these are not to be met with in print.
If we may judge of the old French violin-players, en masse, from the kind of business assigned to them by Lully, in his operas, we must draw a very moderate conclusion as to their proficiency; or, to borrow the words of Dr. Burney, we must regard them as “musicians not likely, by their abilities, to continue the miraculous powers ascribed to Orpheus and Amphion.” Even for half a century after Lully’s time, the French progress on the instrument appears to have been far from considerable. Their performers had as yet borrowed but little of the true spirit of their great Italian originals; nor do we come to any very important name among them until that of