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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

Composer of the Week - Brand

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)

Composer of the Week: Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687): Episode 5: The Fatal Blow

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)

Episode 5

Episode 5: The Fatal Blow

The Fatal Blow

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), The Fatal Blow

Donald Macleod on how Lully fell out of favour with the King and then stabbed himself.

Donald Macleod focuses on how Lully fell out of favour with the King and then famously stabbed himself in the foot while conducting.

Today, Lully falls out of favour with the king and stabs himself in the foot.

Jean-Baptiste Lully is one of those figures who loom large in histories of music; much less so in concert and on disc. All this week, Donald Macleod explores the life and work of this ambitious, arrogant, difficult, ruthless but remarkable man who came from the backstreets of Florence to be the preeminent composer of the French court in the late 17th century, the founding father of French opera and one of the leading figures in the music of his era.

In today's programme, Lully goes too far - with his page-boy, a young lad called Brunet. The composer's rock-solid supporter to date, Louis XIV was scandalized, or at least had to appear so, and Lully was warned to 'amend his conduct' in future. Perhaps as a public sign of the king's disapproval, Lully's opera Armide, considered by many to be his masterpiece, did not, as usual, receive its premiere at Versailles, but in Paris. Lully had another rather more pressing problem to contend with around this time - an anal fistula, which was operated on in January 1686. When a few months later the king suffered the same affliction, the royal surgeon developed a special type of sheathed lancet to treat it. The operation, which was extensively trialled on citizens at the bottom end of the societal food chain, was a success, and celebrations broke out all over France. Lully's contribution to the frenzy of thanksgiving was a special performance of his Te Deum in Paris - during the course of which the famous self-inflicted accident took place.

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Donald Macleod explores the life and work of Jean-Baptiste Lully

Donald Macleod explores the work of Lully, the pre-eminent composer of the French court in the late 17th century, the founding father of French opera and a leading figure in the music of his era

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Composer of the Week

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)

Episode 5: The Fatal Blow

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