Newly Identified Manuscript Sources for the Music of Jean-Baptiste Lully

Abstract

The popularity of Jean-Baptiste Lully's music across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries led to prolific trafficking in printed and manuscript copies of his works. Dealers-from Henry Foucault in the waning years of the seventeenth century through several generations of Ballards in the eighteenth century-constantly advertised their Lully stock, no doubt in response to a continued demand from professional musicians and amateurs alike. Even a cursory glance at Herbert Schneider's Chronologisch-thematisches Verzeichnis sdmtlicher Werke von Jean-Baptiste Lully (LWV)' reveals the plethora of surviving sources ranging from full scores to arrangements, parodies, and transcriptions. In the few years since its publication in 1981, however, many new Lully sources have come to light in libraries and private collections around the world. Still others continue to find their way to the rare book market place with surprising persistence and regularity. Lully studies, along with those on Rameau, form the cornerstone for a vigorous reawakening of interest in French Baroque music. The following catalogue is intended to further our knowledge of the range and variety of Lully sources in this year which marks the three-hundredth anniversary of the composer's death. Manuscripts of single works, such as the large tragedies lyriques, are still relatively common in rare-book and auction catalogues and pose little problem in identifying Lully as the composer. Miscellanies, however, especially instrumental compilations of excerpts lacking composer attributions or titles, pose a much more significant problem in this regard. A few miscellanies contain only occasional Lully pieces (e.g., GBOb [Mus. Sch. E. 441-46]), while others (e.g., US-STg [Green Library 84-074]) include hundreds of excerpts. The catalogue below is divided into two sections: (1) Manuscript Sources of Individual Works, and (2) Excerpts Appearing in Instrumental or Vocal Miscellanies. It provides