The distinguishing qualities of Lully’s dramatic music are nobility of style, correct declamation, and truth of sentiment, dramatic and scenic. Most of the ornate effects in vocal music which were then fashionable in Italy were excluded from French opera by Lully.
In “Alceste,” a lyric tragedy in five acts, with prologue, the words by Quinault, Lully’s third work, performed in the month of January, 1674, we find the celebrated air sung by Charon. It is a veritable masterpiece of lyric declamation, and is still frequently sung and has not become old-fashioned, for it embodies that supreme quality that knows no date, human sentiment voiced in a truthful manner.
“Cadmus et Hermione” was the first great work produced by Lully. The master had just taken possession of the Palais-Royal hall, as director of the Opéra, by royal favor, and it was with this piece that he inaugurated his control. So far, the composer had written only interludes, interspersed with songs and dance music, among which the most important were those written for pieces by Molière, “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,” “La Princesse d’Elide,” “Le Mariage Forcé,” “L’Amour Médecin,” “Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,” and “Psyché.” He had also written, prior to his brilliant début as a dramatic composer, the music for the ballets “La Raillerie,” “Le Ballet des Muses,” “Cariselli,” “Les Amours Déguisés,” and several others.
Before his first tragic work, Lully had produced the pasticcio, composed of airs borrowed from his own répertoire, “Les Fêtes de l’Amour et de Bacchus,” a pastoral in three acts for which Molière, Benserade, and Quinault wrote the words. The composer, ever fortunate, had the pleasure of seeing, at a performance at which the king was present, the Duke of Monmouth, the Duc de Villeroy, and the Marquis de Rassen dance in this pastoral; for, with a view to acquire graceful deportment, they were content to mix with professional dancers. This fact is significant of the manners of society during that period in the history of France, and the applause bestowed by Louis XIV. upon the noble dancers, also redounded to the credit of Lully and contributed to his promotion.
“Atys” was a particularly fortunate piece, for it gave especial pleasure to Le Grande Monarque, who might have said, without undue exaggeration, “La France, c’est moi!” This work, on which Quinault collaborated, was produced for the first time at the Château of St. Germain, in the month of January, 1678, in the presence of Louis XIV., and was not brought to the notice of the Parisians before the month of August of the following year. “Atys” was therefore called the “Opéra du Roy.”
LULLY.
From an engraving in Clément’s Musiciens Célèbres. Probably suggested by the Mignard portrait, although the face is reversed.
The first performance of this lyric tragedy at St. Germain was made especially attractive because the dances were executed by lords and ladies of the court, in conjunction with the ordinary dancers of the Royal Academy of Music. Many of the morceaux in “Atys” are worthy of mention. The critics of the time have greatly eulogized the air “Le Sommeil” in the third act, on account of the persistence of the rhythm in the bass (four quarter notes).
Just as “Atys” was called the “King’s Opera,” so “Isis” received the name of the “Musicians’ Opera.” A music critic of the times writes as follows concerning the work: “This opera is the most erudite ever written by Lully, who spent an infinite time upon it. At the court performance, the great number of instruments, played by the most accomplished masters, contributed not a little to emphasize the beauties of the music.”
M. de Lajarte, formerly the librarian of the Opéra library, and one of the principal collaborators of the publisher, Michaelis, of Paris, has recently realized the happy idea of reconstituting and condensing, with piano accompaniment, the masterpieces of the French opera of the seventeenth century, and he makes the following interesting remark respecting this “great number” of instruments: “The extraordinary number spoken of by Fresneuse dwindles down to trumpets in the prologue, and flutes at the end of the third act. But, by a happy coincidence, these two symphonic members of the work which so astonished our forefathers are also a subject of astonishment for us modern critics, at least in the matter of the trumpets. The degree of skill and certainty in tonguing displayed by the trumpet players in Lully’s orchestra was nothing short of marvellous.” The trumpet parts in the works of Bach and Handel are not less difficult of execution, and at this day it would seem that they could not possibly be played.