La musique ancienne in the Waning of the Ancien Régime

Abstract

Fast upon rise of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette to throne of France, Academie Royale de Musique-or, in vulgar terms, Opera-began complete housecleaning of its repertory, eliminating virtually all old operas by Jean-Baptiste Lully and his successors, which had loomed large in its programming throughout century. New works, often called grand opera, by Christoff Willibald Gluck, host of Italian composers, and few Frenchmen, became new repertory. By 1782 an administrative memorandum spoke of the epoch of revolution in music since 1774, and in 1783 another saw it as a veritable revolution in musical taste.' That magical word re'volution, implying end of cycle in taste, suggests magnitude of what took place in Paris's central theater during this time. If most visible change was in age of repertory, decade after 1774 saw as well rethinking of many aspects of institution-its genres and productions, its administration and authority structure, and its sense of artistic and political purpose. Thus departed in short order, fifteen years before Revolution, opera world which had begun under Louis XIV and was dedicated to myth of his grandeur. That old repertory, or la musique ancienne as it was called, lasted as long as it did during eighteenth century was ultimately more remarkable than abruptness of its departure. Everywhere else in Europe present ruled musical taste, for it was highly unusual for works to outlast lives of composers, save when youthful prodigy such