Lully's use of recorder symbolism.

Although the information provided in manuscript and contemporary printed sources is limited and often confusing, the author attempts to list all occasions (over 60) where Lully used recorders in his ballets, comedies-ballets and tragedies en musique. Each such context is then examined to ascertain its purpose, and the results tabulated, with general and detailed commentaries, under 13 recorder associations and symbolisms. They show that in his early works Lully employed recorders in much the same way as had earlier composers of ballets de cour, but that he took full advantage of a range of opportunities in the tragedies en musique to extend and develop his use of recorder symbolism. This greater and wider usage coincides with the redesign by his wind-prayers of the early 17th-century or 'late Renaissance' recorder as the more refined and expressive late Baroque instrument. Lully's use of the new recorders in sleep scenes and pompes funèbres occasions in particular excited considerable approbation. The author suggests that Lully contributed to the revival of the recorder in the last three decades of the 17th century leading to its later use by composers such as Handel and Bach. A series of illustrations linked to the text shows the cultural background to the recorder symbolisms so potently developed in the music of Lully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]