States

Les Elemens

This four-act ballet was premiered on 22 December 1721 at the Tullieries and, later, performed at L'Academie Royale de Musique on 29 May 1725 and 27 May 1734, and at the Theatre on 22 May 1742. Various dramatis personae present an allegorical depiction of the French court.
Date: 1742
Creator: Destouches, André Cardinal, 1672-1749
System: The UNT Digital Library

Extrait des airs françois de tous les operas nouveaux, qui ont eté representés: Appropriés pour le chant ou la flute avec la basse continue., Partie I.

This collection of opera arias is scored for either one or two voices with continuo (with figures) and, for some songs, obbligato flute.
Date: 1770~
Creator: Hummel, Johann Julius, 1728-1798
System: The UNT Digital Library

Prodromus Musicalis

"Prodromus Musicalis" (published in 1702) is bound, here, with "Motets à une et deux voix, mélez de symphonies, livre premier" (1704); thus, the latter gate is used for this item as a unit. Both sets of motets consist of Latin-texted music preceded by a title page in French. A Table of Contents either at the front or back of each collection describes the motets contained therein. Content is printed on both sides of each leaf. "Prodromus" also has a note from Brossard informing the reader that a Dictionary of Music, published at the same time as "Prodomus," contains French translations of Italian, Greek, and Latin terms, knowledge of which is vital to the understanding and performance of the present music. The contents of "Prodromus" are as follows: "Ave vivens hostia," "O Jesu quam dulce," "Congratulamini filiae Sion," "O vos aetherei," "Festivi martyres" "Angele sancte" "Sonitus armorum," "Quemadmodum desiderat," and "O plenus irarum dies." "Motets à une et deux voix" contains the following pieces: "Venite exultemus," "Gaudete Mortales," "Ad mensam caelitus paratam," "Ave Regina coelorum," "Animae Amantes ad Deum esurientes," "Ite gemmae, Ite flores," "Anxiatus est super me spiritus meus," "Festivi Martyres, festivae Virgines," "Nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum."
Date: 1704
Creator: Brossard, Sebastian, 1655-1730
System: The UNT Digital Library

Le voyage de Cythere

This secular cantata for soprano and basso continuo features obbligato flute and violin. The introductory letter addresses not a royal patron but a commercial one - the women that would sing this cantata.
Date: 1727
Creator: Villeneuve, Alexandre de, 1677-1756
System: The UNT Digital Library

Cantates françoises à I. et II. voix: avec simphonie, et sans simphonie, V. 1-2

This item contains volumes 1 and 2 of Clérambault's "Cantates Françoises." The second volume bears the subtitle "Mellées de Simphonies." Volume 1 contains the cantatas "L'amour piqué," "Le jaloux," "Orphée," "Poliphême," "Medée," and "L'amour et Baccus." Volume 2 contains "Alphée et Arethuse," "Leandre et Hero," "La musette," "Pirame et Tisbé," "Pigmalion," and "Le triomphe de la paix." The continuo line is figured.
Date: 1710
Creator: Clérambault, Louis-Nicolas, 1676-1749
System: The UNT Digital Library

Le roy et le fermier

This three-act opera was premiered at the Comédie Italien on 22 November 1762.
Date: 1762
Creator: Monsigny, Pierre-Alexandre
System: The UNT Digital Library

Les Danaïdes, tragédie lirique en cinq actes

Antonio Salieri began work on Les Danaïdes upon the recommendation of Gluck, whose health prevented him from fulfilling a commission for the work. Although Salieri was living in Vienna, the tragedie-lyrique was written for the Opéra in Paris, with a libretto by François Louis Gand Leblanc Roullet and Ludwig Theodor Tschudi based on Calzabigi’s Italian libretto.
Date: 1784
Creator: Salieri, Antonio, 1750-1825; Du Roullet, François Louis Gaud Lebland, marquis, 1716-1786 & Tschudi, Jean-Baptiste-Louis-Théodore, baron de, 1734-1784
System: The UNT Digital Library

Tarare : opéra en cinq actes avec un prologue

Antonio Salieri’s French debut Les Danaïdes (1784) led to additional commissions, Les Horaces (1786) and Tarare (1787). Although Les Horaces was not well-received, Tarare was popular both in Paris and Vienna. Beaumarchais supplied the libretto for Tarare, basing his plot on the third volume of the exotic English collection The Tales of the Genii, or The Delightful Lessons of Horam, the Son of Asmar (1764) by James Ridley, (pseudonym for Sir Charles Morell), who claimed the stories were translated from a Persian source.
Date: 1790
Creator: Salieri, Antonio, 1750-1825 & Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de, 1732-1799
System: The UNT Digital Library

Colonie : opéra comique en deux actes

La colonie is Nicolas Etienne Framery’s French parody of Sacchini’s Italian L’isola d’amore, which was premiered during the 1766 Roman carnival. However, Framery chose music in a pastiche-like fashion from various Sacchini operas, without actually using any arias from L’isola d’amore. Although the operas that Sacchini specifically composed for Paris faced resistance from opponents of foreign composers, La colonie received praise from critics. The 1775 French premiere at the Comédie-Italienne was quite successful; the work even drew comparisons with Pergolesi’s wildly popular La serva padrona.
Date: 1776
Creator: Sacchini, Antonio, 1730-1786 & Framery, Nicolas Etienne, 1745-1810
System: The UNT Digital Library

Les deux journées

Vocal score of Luigi Cherubini's rescue opera "Les deux journées" (also known by the title, The water carrier) to a libretto by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly. The first performance took place in Paris at Théâtre Feydeau on January 16, 1800 followed by 56 performance during that year. Les deux journées remained in the international repertory of operas for most of the 19th century. The piano reduction contains the text in French and German.
Date: 1800~
Creator: Cherubini, Luigi, 1760-1842.
System: The UNT Digital Library

1er quatuor, pour deux violons, alto et basse, oeuvre 5

Musical score containing the four parts of Charles Dancla's first string quartet, op.5 in F minor, written for two violins, with alto and bass.
Date: 182X
Creator: Dancla, Charles, 1817-1907.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Phaëton. Tragedie mise en musique

Like many of the operas created by composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and Philippe Quinault, his favorite librettist, Phaëton is filled with solar symbolism--a reference to the "Sun King," Louis XIV. The story also provides a political lesson: the haughty youth unable to contend with his position of power served as a warning to anyone brash enough to challenge the rigid mores of Louis' court. In addition to this political interpretation, the story is also a character study of a reckless juvenile whose arrogance destroys him. Phaëton's misguided and inappropriate attempts to make his lineage public bring about his downfall. The plot, like that of several of Lully's operas, is based on an episode in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Date: 1709
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687 & Quinault, Philippe, 1635-1688
System: The UNT Digital Library

Atys : tragedie mise en musique

Atys, which premiered on 10 January 1676, is the first of the tragédies lyriques of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Philippe Quinault to have a tragic ending. As the Prologue indicates, the tragedie itself is a divertissement to ease the king's mind of his impending duties. Joyce Newman, in Jean-Baptiste de Lully and his Tragédie Lyriques, summarizes the message of the story in this way: "In [Atys], Quinault shows how actions which are not in accord with the noble ideal will bring defeat and punishment. Not only is love in opposition to glory in this opera, but also it is shown that if love is place more highly than honor, it will bring unhappiness even to one of the immortals."
Date: 1720
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687 & Quinault, Philippe, 1635-1688
System: The UNT Digital Library

Armide: Drame héroique, mis en musique

Armide was premiered at the Paris Opéra on September 23, 1777, recalling the earlier success of Lully’s opera of the same name, which premiered nearly a century earlier on February 15, 1686. After collaborating on several reform operas with Calzabigi, Gluck revived the older dramatic tradition of Quinault (Lully's librettist) by setting the older text in the modern musical style. The seventeenth-century five act model requires more continuous music, with few distinct arias, as well as divertissements and spectacular effects. Gluck also respects the tragic conclusion endemic to the model, avoiding the modern practice of the lieto fine ("happy ending") in which misfortunes are reversed at the last possible moment.
Date: 1783
Creator: Gluck, Christoph Willibald, Ritter von, 1714-1787
System: The UNT Digital Library

Atys; tragedie mise en musique

Atys, which premiered on 10 January 1676, is the first of the tragédies lyriques of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Philippe Quinault to have a tragic ending. As the Prologue indicates, the tragedie itself is a divertissement to ease the king's mind of his impending duties. Joyce Newman, in Jean-Baptiste de Lully and his Tragédie Lyriques, summarizes the message of the story in this way: "In [Atys], Quinault shows how actions which are not in accord with the noble ideal will bring defeat and punishment. Not only is love in opposition to glory in this opera, but also it is shown that if love is place more highly than honor, it will bring unhappiness even to one of the immortals."
Date: 1709
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687 & Quinault, Philippe, 1635-1688
System: The UNT Digital Library

Atys : tragedie

Atys, which premiered on 10 January 1676, is the first of the tragédies lyriques of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Philippe Quinault to conclude with a tragic ending. Joyce Newman, in Jean-Baptiste de Lully and his Tragédie Lyriques, summarizes the message of the story in this way: In [Atys], Quinault shows how actions which are not in accord with the noble ideal will bring defeat and punishment. Not only is love in opposition to glory in this opera, but also it is shown that if love is placed more highly than honor, it will bring unhappiness even to one of the immortals.
Date: 1708
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687
System: The UNT Digital Library

Armide

Armide, which premiered at the Paris Opéra February 15, 1686, was the last tragédie lyrique on which Jean-Baptiste Lully collaborated with his favorite librettist, Philippe Quinault. Quinault retired from the stage after Armide, and Lully died a year later on March 22, 1687. From its first performance, Armide was considered their masterpiece. Armide is unusual among Lully and Quinault's tragédies lyriques in that it concentrates on the psychological development of a single character; the reflective style of this late work may be regarded as an early presentiment of trends toward individualism in art.
Date: 1686~
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687 & Quinault, Philippe, 1635-1688
System: The UNT Digital Library

Amadis; tragedie, mise en musique

The premiere of Amadis was delayed for a year after Lully completed its composition in order to allow the proper mourning period for Marie Thérese, wife of Louis XIV, who died in July of 1683. While still abstaining from theater at court, Louis XIV at last allowed the first public presentation of Amadis at the Opéra in Paris on 18 January 1684. It was an immediate public success.
Date: 1684
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687 & Quinault, Philippe, 1635-1688
System: The UNT Digital Library

Bellérophon; tragedie mise en musique

Although not the first of the Jean-Baptiste Lully's tragédies lyriques, Bellérophon was the first of Lully's opera scores to appear in print. The Ballard first edition was printed in 1679 to accompany the premiere, on January 31 of that year, at the Palais Royale. Bellérophon was the second of two operas (the first was Psyché) created by Lully without librettist Philippe Quinault after the scandal associated with Isis that led to Quinault's temporary dismissal as royal librettist. After an extended illness during which he did not compose, Lully collaborated with Thomas Corneille and Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle for the second time to create one of his most unqualified successes. Following the first performance in January 1679, Bellérophon played for nine months at the Palais Royale.
Date: 1679
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687; Corneille, Pierre, 1606-1684; Fontenelle, M. de (Bernard Le Bovier), 1657-1757 & Boileau Despréaux, Nicolas, 1636-1711
System: The UNT Digital Library

Isis; tragedie mise en musique

Isis, which premiered January 5, 1677, at St. Germain-en-Laye, was the fifth of Jean-Baptiste Lully's tragédies lyriques written with librettist Philippe Quinault. The plot is loosely adapted from one of the episodes in Ovid's Metamorphoses. In many of its essentials, the plot of Isis resembles that of Lully's previous opera, Atys. In Isis, the nymph Io, daughter of the river Inachus, is promised in marriage to Hierax, just as the nymph Sangaride, daughter of the river Sangar, was promised to Celoenus. Like Sangaride, Io is pursued by another love and yields to this love in spite of her feelings of guilt. Like Sangaride, Io has a goddess as a rival and is vulnerable to her jealousy. Lully's contemporaries interpreted this story as representing the volatile situation between two of the King's mistresses. The subsequent scandale of the premiere ended the collaboration between Lully and Quinault for a time, and led to the dismissal of a number of members of Lully's artistic circle.
Date: 1719
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687 & Quinault, Philippe, 1635-1688
System: The UNT Digital Library

Omphale, tragedie en musique

Omphale (1701) is one of Destouches’s contributions to the Lullian genre of the five-act tragédie en musique. Half a century after the premiere, Friedrich Melchior Grimm targeted the opera in his pamphlet “Lettre sur Omphale” (1752), which continued the earlier debate between advocates of Lully and Rameau. This written attack also precipitated the famous guerre des bouffons, which was sparked by a performance of Pergolesi’s La serva padrona (1733) in 1752.
Date: 1701
Creator: Destouches, M. (André Cardinal), 1672-1749
System: The UNT Digital Library

Persée : tragedie

King Louis XIV's involvement in campaigns against the Dutch/Swedish alliance in early 1682 prevented him from attending the premiere of Persée in April of that year. As was customary in the operas of composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and librettist Philippe Quinault, the prologue included references to current battlefield exploits and portrayed the king as a paragon of virtue. The prologues of previous Lully operas emphasized glory and prowess over virtue; the change in emphasis in Persée may have resulted from the increased influence of Madame de Maintenon (the king's new mistress) in the court and her pension for decorum.
Date: 1722
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687 & Quinault, Philippe, 1635-1688
System: The UNT Digital Library

Pasilogie, ou de la musique: considérée comme langue universelle

1806 edition of Pasilogie, ou de la musique: considérée comme langue universelle.
Date: 1806
Creator: Vismes, Anne Pierre Jacques de, 1745-1819
System: The UNT Digital Library

Prologue: Oboe Part

Oboe part for music intended to accompany a silent film.
Date: 1917
Creator: Ourdine, Hans
System: The UNT Digital Library