This fortunate musician, the son of a peasant in the neighbourhood of
Florence, was born in 1633. He had a few instructions in music from a
cordelier. His first instrument was the guitar, to which he was always
fond of singing. The Chevalier de Guise brought him into France, in
1646, as a present to his sister, Mademoiselle de Guise, who placed
him among the assistants of her kitchen, where he was assigned the
honourable office of _sous marmiton_[1].
[1] Under scullion.
In his leisure hours, being naturally fond of music, he used to
be scraping on a miserable violin, to the great annoyance of his
fellow-servants. However, his disposition for music being discovered,
his patroness had him taught the violin by a regular master, under
whom he made so rapid a progress, that he was admitted among the
violins of the king’s band; where he distinguished himself so much,
that he was employed to compose the music for the court ballads, in
which Louis XIV., at this time very young, used to dance. But though
Lulli approached the royal presence, early in life, it was by slow
degrees, that he arrived at solid preferment. In 1652 he was appointed
superintendent or master of the king’s new band of violins, which, if
we may judge by the business assigned them afterwards, by Lulli in his
operas, was composed of musicians not likely, by their abilities, to
continue the miraculous powers ascribed to Orpheus and Amphion.
Lulli married the daughter of Lambert, the celebrated musician and
singing master of his time, who lived till the year 1720. Having
composed a _Te Deum_ for the king’s recovery, after a dangerous
illness, in 1687, during the performance, at the Church of the
Feuillans, in the animation of beating time, and difficulty in keeping
the band together, by striking his foot, instead of the floor, with
his cane, he occasioned a contusion, that, from a bad habit of body,
brought on a mortification, which was soon pronounced to be incurable.
Every expedient that was tried, in order to stop the progress of the
malady, being ineffectual, he was informed of his situation. His
confessor refusing to give him absolution, unless he would burn the
opera of _Achilles and Polixene_, which he was composing for the stage;
he consented; and this new music was committed to the flames. A few
days after, being a little better, one of the young princes of Vendome
went to see him. “Why, Baptiste,” says he, “have you been such a fool
as to burn your new opera, to humour a gloomy priest?” ‘Hush, hush!’
says Lulli, ‘I have another copy of it.’ However, a few days after, he
was not only obliged to submit to the will of his confessor, but of
Death himself, who terminated his existence, March the 22d, 1687, at
fifty-four years of age.