Lully

Jean-Baptiste Lully, Louis XIV's court composer, was the subject of many songs. Here is a medley of a few songs which celebrate Lully's colourful romantic life! 

Set to a popular song-tune, 'Vous m'entendez bien' (meaning 'You know what I mean'), the song refrain builds up a sense of connivence and complicity between singer and  listener. 

Without having to spell out every detail of Lully's love life, the singer (and song-writer) leaves it to the knowing listener to fill in the gaps. 

Follow Jonathan Rees's arrangement of the song Scavez-vous bien here. 

Another series of songs that imagine Lully as the speaker in bawdy songs about his lovers can be heard here, with the three arrangements: La vieille here, Je porte au doigt here and Chantons tous en ce jour arrangement of an aria from Lully's opera Amadis. 

Often parodies of music from Lully's latest operas were performed on the Pont Neuf, and it gave people who could not afford to go to the operas themselves the chance to hear the music and even join in. 

Lully himself was reputed to have climbed down from his carriage and conducted the musicians playing his music on the Pont Neuf!