Wednesday 27 June 2012 7.30pm

Musical Revolutions: Age of the French baroque

Music from a golden age by Lully, Marais and Charpentier

Event details

• 7.30pm. Wigmore Hall, London, UK

• 6.30pm Pre-concert talk with Richard Egarr

• Choir of the AAM

• Richard Egarr director & keyboards

Programme

• J-B Lully De profundis (1683)

• M-A Charpentier Sonate a huit (c.1690)

• J-B Lully Regina coeli laetare (1684)

• J-B Lully Salve Regina (1684)

• M Marais Suite from Sonatas pour le Coucher du Roy (1692)

• J-B Lully Dies irae (1683)

Tickets

 Book online

 Phone 020 7935 2141

About this concert

Jean-Baptiste Lully was best known in his lifetime for his deft dancing and his revolutionary ballet and opera scores. But he was never afraid to bring his developments in these fields to bear on his few compositions for the church, and Lully’s four works in this programme forged a new direction in European sacred music with their bold instrumental lines and innovative balance of solo and choral voices.

Lully’s work is complemented by instrumental pieces of huge ingenuity by two of his contemporaries. The simultaneous creative outpourings of these composers, the competition between them encouraging ever greater success, were at the heart of an astonishingly vibrant musical culture.

In context: The Sun King

Late seventeenth-century France brimmed with culture. At the centre of it all stood Louis XIV, the ‘Sun King’, whose patronage and love of the arts ushered in a golden age for music, literature, visual arts and architecture. As well as being a fine dancer himself, he was patron to Molière and Racine, restored the Louvre and turned Versailles from a hunting lodge into one of the largest palaces in the world. Lully, Charpentier and Marais all worked in different capacities for him, producing much of their best work in the King’s service.