This month’s program (10 minutes and 32 seconds) explores the music of Giovanni Battista Lully. In 1646, at the tender age of 14, Lully was pressed into service for the French Chevalier de Guise as a dishwasher. Just seven years later, his fame as a dancer, comedian and composer had grown enormously and he had risen to the position of Louis XIV’s in-house composer, the compositeur de la musique instrumentale.
In 1670 Lully collaborated with the playwright Molière on a comédie-ballets called Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, the featured work for this month’s program. Of particular note is the March pour Le Grand Ceremonie des Turcs that opens this work, which reflects the then-current trend for “les turqueries”- all things related to the Ottoman Empire. This month’s performance features Ars Antigua under the direction of Jerry Fuller.