The English semi-opera, Psyche (1675), written by Thomas Shadwell, with music by Matthew Locke, was thought at the time of its performance to be a mere copy of Psyche (1671), a French tragedie-ballet by Moliere, Pierre Corneille, and Philippe Quinault, with music by Jean- Baptiste Lully. This view, accompanied by a certain attitude that the French version was far superior to the English, continued well into the twentieth century. This view is misleading; although the English play was adapted from the French, both were representative of two well-developed native theatrical traditions. Therefore, though there are certain parallels, both in plot and in the subject matter of some musical numbers, the differences in structure, both of the drama and of the music, are more significant. This thesis is a comparative study of the two plays, analyzing both their dramatic and musical structures, and examining them both from the context of the two theatrical traditions. It is concluded that the literary approach to tragedy of French theater resulted in the separation of drama and music, the latter relegated to the prologue, or to end-of-act diversions called intercedes. This allowed Lully to have great control over his music, and in Psyche (1671), he was concerned with the form of each intermede as a whole instead of striving for a variety of forms and ensembles within individual songs. Most of his songs and dances are solo airs in binary form; he makes little use of chorus and ensembles. On the contrary, the music in Psyche (1675) on many occasions was integrated with the plot, and was scattered randomly throughout the play. This prevented Locke from having artistic control over his compositions; Shadwell, the lyricist, determined where the music would occur, the ensembles to be used, and the moods of songs. Shadwell and Locke were concerned with the variety in each individual piece, rather than with unifying the overall form of musical scenes, and the overwhelming majority of songs have a combination of solo voice, ensembles, and chorus. Therefore, Psyche is not an unoriginal copy, but is a reinterpretation of the myth using the aesthetic of the Restoration tragic theater. / Arts, Faculty of / Music, School of / Graduate

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L'historiographie musicale trouve dans la France de l'epoque baroque un champ ideal de developpement. Ce phenomene est lie a la conjonction de differents facteurs: le modele fourni par l'histoire generale, l'heritage humaniste, les mouvements polemiques, les tentatives de refonte de l'histoire de l'Eglise. Les musicographes, de Salomon de Caus (1615) a Jacques Bonnet-Bourdelot (1715), etablissent les fondements d'une critique historique et l'appliquent dans des ouvrages qui annoncent l'expansion de la musicologie a l'age des Lumieres.

The present essay deals with the Charles Le Brun's theory of the representation of passions. It summarizes the most important publications about Le Brun's lecture on expression ("Conference generale et particuliere) and mention some neglected aspects, for example its relation to the tradition of ancient rhetoric or period manners. The lecture is set in the context of period quarrels (quarrel about the importance of drawing or colour, quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns) and a special attention is given to the sources wich were used by Le Brun to develop his theory (philosophical, rhetorical, medical and physiognomical studies, book of manners) It follows from the study of literature and sources that the Le Brun's theory was innovative in many aspects but still depended on the older tradition, probably more than was recently supposed.

During the late seventeenth century in France, the viol was beginning to emerge as one of the most important musical instruments of the day. French luthiers had created the quintessential French viol, which allowed violists in France to make their mark on viol playing, both as performers and teachers. So fervent was this enterprise that players soon formed cliques, creating two opposing schools of viol playing. One of the main protagonists who is the focus of this thesis, De Machy, led one of these schools. Although we are fully aware of this historical dichotomy, it is widely assumed that De Machy's rivals were the eventual victors of this conflict, and thus have become the model for modern violists to emulate. This has, however, encouraged modern violists to completely disregard the efforts of De Machy, which, as this thesis shall demonstrate, are as important as those of his contemporaries. Chapter 1 discusses De Machy's place in modern scholarship, giving readers an overall view of the kinds of biases and prejudices that currently exist. It also serves to act as a brief collation and analysis of modern writings that discuss De Machy. Chapter 2 provides us with a historical account of the viol in France, giving special emphasis to solo viol playing. It also traces the evolution of musical style and playing technique as well as the development of the instrument within its social role. Chapter 3 discusses French ornamentation on plucked instruments, keyboard instruments and the viol, giving special emphasis to De Machy's own ideas on ornamentation. Possible explanations for the proper execution of these ornaments are also provided. Chapter 4 revaluates Rousseau and the Traité de la Viole (1687), and seeks to determine its reliability as a credible source of information. Chapter 5 describes and analyses the quarrel between De Machy and Rousseau as described by Rousseau in the Réponce de Monsieur Rousseau (1688). In addition to providing a more complete picture of the social interactions of the viol community of the late seventeenth century, this chapter seeks to better explain the issues that De Machy and Rousseau argued about. Chapter 6 examines historical and modern writings and attempts to explain one of the main issues of aforementioned quarrel, the left hand position otherwise known as the ports de main as advocated by De Machy. Appendix A reproduces the avertissement from De Machy's Pièces de Violle. The facsimile of the original publication is presented alongside the English translation. This document is central to many of the issues discussed in this thesis. Appendix B is an English translation of the Réponce de Monsieur Rousseau. One of the aims of this thesis is to re-examine the history of the viol in France, and more specifically, its use as a solo instrument. It is through De Machy's Pièces de Violle and Rousseau's Réponce that most of this information is centred.

During the carnival season of 1700, as some of the entertainments at the court of Louis XIV, there were presented seven mascarades at Marly, a châiteau near Versailles. The mascarade was a small-scale musical production that combined music and dance and was influenced by the ballet de cour and later the tragidie-lyrique. They were composed by André, Anne, and Pierre Philidor who were members of a family dynasty of wind players connected to the French court for several generations. Sources including the music, libretti, descriptive journal and diary entries, costume drawings, and related research allow reconstruction of the mascarades. These sources, especially the survival of the music in this collection, are important in that they display the type of musical/theatrical entertainment occurring at the court of Louis XIV. The thesis includes a modern edition of the music.

A study of the historical development of the origins of ballet in Italy and France during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Specifically focuses on the ballet-comique de la reine and the ballet de cour.

The tragedie en musique of Quinault and Lully was a highly successful new genre, representative of contemporary Parisian life. However, it is still largely viewed in the negative terms of its detractors, the proponents of classical tragedy. The purpose of this study is to redefine the tragedie en musique in terms of seventeenth-century modernism. An examination of the society and poetry of the contemporary gallant world provides the historical framework for an analysis of both the libretto and music of Quinault and Lully's Atys (1676). This study attempts to bridge the historical and cultural distances that until now have hindered accessibility to this major new genre in seventeenth-century literature and music.

The purpose of the study is the investigation of the topics of transposition and the transposed major and minor modes as discussed principally by selected French authors of the final twenty years of the seventeenth century and the first three decades of the eighteenth. The sources are relatively varied and include manuals for singers and instrumentalists, dictionaries, independent essays, and tracts which were published in scholarly journals; special emphasis is placed on the observation and attempted explanation of both irregular signatures and the signatures of the minor modes. The paper concerns the following areas: definitions and related concepts, methods for singers and Instrumentalists, and signatures for the tones which were identified by the authors. The topics are interdependent, for the signatures both effected transposition and indicated written-out transpositions. The late Baroque was characterized by much diversity with regard to definitions of the natural and transposed modes. At the close of the seventeenth century, two concurrent and yet diverse notions were in evidence: the most widespread associated "natural" with inclusion within the gamme; that is, the criterion for naturalness was total diatonic pitch content, as specified by the signature. When the scale was reduced from two columns to a single one, its total pitch content was diminished, and consequently the number of the natural modes found within the gamme was reduced. An apparently less popular view narrowed the focus of "natural tone" to a single diatonic pitch, the final of the tone or mode. A number of factors contributed to the disappearance of the long-held distinction between natural and transposed tones: the linking of the notion of "transposed" with the temperament, the establishment of two types of signatures for the minor tones (for tones with sharps and flats, respectively), the transition from a two-column scale to a single-column one, and the recognition of a unified system of major and minor keys.