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Approaching the Music of the French Baroque

This interlude outlines the historical and cultural background to French Baroque music, arguably the hardest Baroque style to approach. A study of attitudes, conventions, and etiquette within Louis XIV’s court at Versailles and an account of Louis’s achievements in the arts provide the reader with a foundation for the understanding and performance of the music itself. The stylized, proscribed behavior at court is reflected in the aesthetics of French musical style and in the French concept of ornamentation, radically different from that of the Italians that some considered lacked sophistication. French ornamentation is written down in the form of agrémens, little ornaments indicated by specific symbols. Little deviation from the written text is normally allowed. The lowly social status of the violin in France accounts for the dearth of violin music in the early Baroque period, one reason for the Concerts Royaux of Couperin to be selected for discussion here.