Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Premier Intermède (string quartet)

Title: Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Premier Intermède

Composer: Jean Baptiste Lully, arr. David Gable

Instrumentation: Violin 1; Violin 2; Viola; Cello

Printout: 8 pages

Note: In 1670 Lully collaborated with  Moliere to create The Bourgeois Gentleman. It is a comedy-ballet, a newly devised genre melding opera, ballet, and stage -play, which quickly became ubiquitous to the French baroque. In the plot, the title character, desiring to attain a level of sophistication to match his newly acquired wealth, hires a music-master and a dance-master to instruct him in their respective arts. This music is heard in Act I when the dance-master’s assistants demonstrate several dances popular in France at the time.