Giovanni Battista Lulli came from the right place at the right time, and his influence on French music was comparable to that of Racine on tragedy. He was born in Italy, but was shrewd enough to disown his origins and place his native talents at the service of the King of France. Lully was a talented actor, dancer and voilinist - a leader in those fields in France.

He had a long collaboration with Molière which included such gems as Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, and Psyché. However, since Lully's (he had by that time changed to the French spelling) ambitious nature wouild not allow him to play second fiddle to any poet, a quarrel with Molière could not be long delayed!

In 1672 he bought a privilege from the Kind to become the 'Director of all musical theatres' thus obtaining a virtual monopoly of all musical performances on French territory (to Molière's intense displeasure). The following years saw the publication of his most famous serious operas (tragédies lyriques), amoungst those - Armide the last, yet most powerful.

It seems somehow fitting that this 'King of French Music' (so oppossed to the extravagancies of the diametrically opposed Italian style but who was nevertheless Italian, and well versed in the Italian idioms) uses a somewhat Italian-sounding Passacaille (i.e. very lyrical) for the lover's duet. One can only surmise that it is because the enchantress is here employing her most potent spell - the perilous seduction of a musical style which for any years French opera would attempt to avoid.

All lovers of the flute owe a debt of gratitude to Jaques-Martin Hotteterre, who unquestionably did more than any other player, composer or instrument maker to launch the transverse flute as a viable alternative to the traditional recorder. Hotteterre not only wrote the first instruction method for modern flute ever published (1707), but was also, it seems, the High Baroque era's first serious composer for the instrument.

This solo sonata is also a first - the first ever piece published for solo flute. It is an incredibly atmospheric piece, making great use of the newly fashionable echo effects which were also so in tune with the French taste for pastoral scenes, and natural effects. Nature however had always to be beautiful, so the echo, for example, is always perfectly times, and phrased.

Marais was born in Paris on May 31, 1656, and died there on August 15, 1728. as a boy, he was a member of the choir of Sainte-Chapelle and in his teens studied the basse de viole with Hotman and Sainte-Colombe, both important figures in the early development of French string music. Marais entered the royal orchestra as a soloist in 1685 and about the same time became a member of the orchestra of the Académie Royale de Musique. In the latter position he played under the direction of Lully, who later became his teacher in composition. Marais spent the remainder of his life performing and composing, and also fathering nineteen children, several of whom became important figures in French musical life.

The instrument for which Marais wrote the major portion of his works is commonly referred to as the viola da gamba. Strictly speaking, however, it was the small bass of the viol family, which in the 17th and early 18th centuries included as many as nine different sizes of instruments, all called by the generic name viola da gamba. Marais' instrument--viola da gamba, bass viol, basse de viole, or, simply, "gamba"--was somewhat smaller than the modern cello and had frets and seven strings, tuned to A1, D, G, c, e, a d1. According to contemporary, Marais was recognized as the greatest performer on the bass viol of his era. Hubert le Blanc reported that Marais played the viol "like an angel," and Johann Gottfried Walther called him "an incomparable French violdigambist." ontemporary judgments of his prowess as a composer are no less enthusiastic. Joachim Christoph Nemeitz declared that Marais' works "were known by the whole of Europe." Another contempory musician, Titon, stated: "One recognizes the fecundity and elegance of the genius of this musician by the quantity of works he has composed. One finds everywhere in them good taste and a surprising variety."

This is one of Couperin's most famous pieces, and this is what he himself says about it in the preface to his first publication:

One should not adhere too strongly to the beat in the double which follows. Everything must be sacrified to style and to the cleaness of the passages between the intervals, in order to render expressively the escape tones marked with a mordent. If it is performed properly, the Rossignol could not sound better than when it is played on the transverse flute.

Thanks to this piece, Le Coucou (The Cuckoo) by Daquin, and La Poule (The Hen) by Rameau, one ight say that the harpsichord survivied centuries of obscurity on the wings of a few birds. It was not very long ago that the harpsichord was reduced the merely warbling a chirping the favorite 'classics'. Perhaps it is in reaction that one is tempted to disregard this piece as a work for the harpsichord and perform it instead on the transverse flute, the instrument on which it 'could not sound better' as Couperin himself said.

In his autobiaography, Telemann recounts the events of a unique journey to France in 1737 that had a strong impact on musicians and found expression in a superb collection of instrumental pieces - the so-called 'Paris Quartetts'.

My long-planned journey to Paris, where I had had a standing invitation from various virtuosi there who had taken a liking to several of my printed works, took place at Michaelmas in 1737; it lasted eight months. There, on receipt of a royal publishing privilege extending for 20 years, I had several new quartets printed by subscription as well as sic sonatas in the form of melodic canons. If only words were adequate enough to describe the admirable way in which these quartets were played by Messrs. Blavel, taverse flute; Guignon, violin; Forqueray the younger, viola da gamba; and Edouard, violoncello. Suffice it to say that they make the ears of the Court and the whole city most remarkably attentive, and these quartets rapidly won for me almost universal acclain, accompanied with exceeding courtesy... and finally I took my leave with great pleasure in the hope of coming again.'

In these quartets, the marriage of Italian and French styles must have caught the attention of the Parisian musicians.