Whilst Wielding the Baton
Jean-Baptiste Lully was a scheming, nasty, arrogant and altogether unpleasant ‘piece of work.' Some say he solicited, even committed, murder to secure his place as the indispensable court composer to the Sun King, Louis XIV of France.
If that is true, then Lully, who perfected the art of sucking up to and manipulating the king, at the end got his own self-inflicted lethal comeuppance, though we have to thank and give him credit for putting French Grand Opera on the world map forever.
