French Baroque

[Ella Beck]

When I started to listen to classical music properly, seven years ago, my biggest discovery was Lully and the French Baroque style. I love the spirited elegance of Lully - maybe because he was a dancer and I am too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Lully

Lully was selfish and greedy - he would never have got on if he hadn't been, starting, as he did, as a street musician in Italy. But this isn't about the man - it's about his music.

 

[Ella Beck]

Here's some ballet music from Lully's Xerxes - we have this cd. The images on this video are serene and lovely, too.

 

[Ella Beck]

The thread isn't just about Lully, however, but about any French Baroque music that you, dear reader, have discovered.

Here's a Sarabande from Louis Couperin.

 

[Taggart]

There's always Charpentier

 

[Ella Beck]

This French Baroque piece is a wow - sounds so modern in its use of dissonance and its passion, and yet the ideas behind it, the four elements and their harmonious combination to form the sublunary world, go way back to the middle ages.

[h=1]Jean-Féry Rebel - Chaos in the Elements.[/h]

 

[Ella Beck]

Here's another French Baroque favourite of mine, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, a female performer and composer at the court of the Sun King.

[h=1]Harpsichord Suite #1, Allemande - Elisabetta Guglielmin[/h]

 

[John Watt]

All the bands I played in have been defined by the sounds of electronic instruments.
But even before electricity, the evolution of acoustic construction has defined musical eras.
Here's an explanation of a Baroque instrument.
If you are a violin player, you might be interested in this viola. Under three minutes.

 

[Ella Beck]

Returning to the thread topic of French Baroque Music, here is my favourite Lully pieces, the suite from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

 

[Ella Beck]

Le Bourgeous Gentilhomme was a play written by Moliere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Bourgeois_gentilhomme

Probably the most famous tune from Lully's suite is his Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs. This has the force, the elegance, the assurance that to me characterises Lully's music and the French Baroque in general.

There is a word which sums up French Baroque Music for me, and that is élan.

 

[John Watt]

Coming back to this French Baroque thread to embed another Baroque instrument video,
this is about a Baroque cello made in Italy around 1730.
As you can see, this instrument has traveled throughout the entire Baroque era,
as limited as it was to the wealthier European nations,
making it into ours. What a beautiful looking instrument.
I wonder how often it was used in the court of the Sun King. (Le Rois de Soleil)

 

[Ella Beck]

Musical arrangements at the court of the Sun King well described here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Vingt-quatre_Violons_du_Roi

 

[Ella Beck]

Rebel, just about the next French Baroque composer after Lully started it all, was a member of Les Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi. Here's a lovely bourree written by Rebel.

 

[Ella Beck]

Here's a lovely French baroque sonata for the cello by Jean-Baptiste Barrière (1707 - 1747) -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Barrière

 

[Ella Beck]

Another gorgeous Barriere video -

 

[Ella Beck]

Some heavenly harpsichord music from Francois Couperin here - it 'sends' me.

 

[John Watt]

I have to admit, listening to French Baroque music isn't going to increase my song-list,
but I am learning a lot about the evolution of the instruments they used during this period.
This woman is saying the Baroque era is between 1600 and 1750, dating it that way.
Looking closely at this instrument, I was wondering if it was a barn find.
Symphony musicians are too shy about their own music and instruments.
If this woman described how this instrument came into her life...
how she paid for it and why it means so much to her after all this time...
I'm sure the bow is worth a separate story all by itself.

This video makes me think I'm hearing the voice of the woman who created this thread.
...ooooo!...but somehow... I'm thinking she'd be pronouncing baroque a little different.

 

[Ella Beck]

This French baroque song and its lyrics are so beautiful and sad that I can hardly bear to listen to them. The French lyrics are printed on the video. The situation is that the King chooses a devoted wife to be his mistress - her husband tells her she must obey - and, weeping, she eventually agrees, only to be poisoned by smelling a bouquet sent by the jealous queen.

 

[Ella Beck]

Here's another French song by le Poeme Harmonique. The lyrics can be found here - https://lyricstranslate.com/en/la-fille-au-roi-louis-king-louis-daughter.html

I'm not sure of the date - one video describes the song as being 15th century, which would make it more appopriate to my early music thread. Another places the tune to a collection of 1607, just into the baroque period. The tune is rather monotonous, though, and may be much earlier. Great story, much like the Child ballads.

 

[elderpiano]

I love French Baroque.

 

[Ella Beck]

Here's a fabulous Lully Video that I learned about on Talk Classical - it has most of my favourite bits on it too. Lully - so lively, so lyrical, so lovely.