For centuries, many composers relied on royal patronage to make a living.
Courts provided not only financial support but also a built-in audience, prestige, and much-needed stability.
In France, Jean-Baptiste Lully rose from humble Italian beginnings to become one of Louis XIV’s favourite composers…before a dark secret imploded their relationship.
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, the first woman to compose an opera in France, navigated court politics with remarkable resilience and savvily tied her career closely to the Sun King.
Meanwhile, across the Channel, George Frideric Handel secured his legacy in Britain by serving monarchs from Queen Anne to George II, producing masterpieces like Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks.
Today, we’re looking at three stories that reveal how deeply the fate of composers was intertwined with kings, queens, and court life in the Baroque Era.
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Lully’s Te Deum
Lully: Te Deum | Vicent Dumestre & Le Poème Harmonique
Jean-Baptiste Lully was born in Florence in 1632. As a boy, he learned guitar and violin, often playing at parties.
A French duke’s son traveling through Italy heard Lully and was impressed. He invited him back to Paris with him to serve as a conversation partner for his niece, who wanted to practice her Italian with a native.
Once the teenage Lully arrived at court, he learned more and more about music, dance…and, most importantly of all, how the aristocracy functioned.
King Louis XIV
In 1653, having caught the eye of the Sun King himself, he got a job with Louis XIV. He danced ballet with him and also composed music for the court.
Having found favour with Louis, Lully was named head of the royal violin orchestra.
In 1672, he became the director of the French court opera. Between 1673 and 1687, he composed around an opera a year.
It was all very glamorous, but court life can be fickle. Everything fell apart in 1685, when Lully was accused of having a gay relationship with his young page.
Lully escaped criminal prosecution, but Louis XIV snubbed him by not inviting him to present his five-act opera Armide at court the next year.
Deadly misfortune followed a couple of years later, in early 1687. Lully had composed a Te Deum thanking God for sparing Louis XIV’s life during a period of ill health.
Ironically, while conducting this work, giving thanks to God for saving the king from death, Lully stabbed his foot with the staff he was using to keep time, and he developed gangrene.
He refused to have his foot amputated, and he died from the resulting infection. He was 55 years old.
Learn more about a scandalous court case during which Lully sought Louis XIV’s counsel.
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre
Jacquet de La Guerre’s Sonata No. 2 in B-flat-major
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre was born in Paris in 1665 to a family of professional musicians.
She began studying music as a little girl and first played harpsichord for King Louis XIV at the age of five.
When she was a teenager, she joined the royal household as a musician. Her first mentor at Versailles was one of Louis XIV’s mistresses, a woman named Madame de Montespan.
Portrait of King Louis XIV
Around this time, Madame de Montespan got wrapped up in a scandal known as the Affair of the Poisons, leading to her popularity dropping precipitously in court.
The downfall of Louis’s mistress was a valuable lesson for the young composer to learn: to have staying power at court, one had to play political games. Jacquet de La Guerre did so for the rest of her life.
In 1684, when she was nineteen, she married a fellow musician named Marin de la Guerre. Although she left full-time court service at that time, she also continued her career, and she maintained her connections with her contacts at court.
Nearly all her published works were dedicated to Louis XIV, indicating that she was always seeking his favour.
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre
She composed ballet music, cantatas, and France’s first opera by a woman (Céphale et Procris, 1694) under royal auspices.
In 1721, she was even commissioned to write a Te Deum in honour of Prince Louis XV’s recovery from smallpox.
Tragically, she didn’t have much longer to live herself. She died in 1729 at the age of 64.
George Frideric Handel
Handel’s Water Music
Handel was born in 1685 in Halle in present-day Germany, and spent his early years in Hamburg before traveling to study music in Italy as a young man.
In 1710, he was appointed Kapellmeister to Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover (in Germany), with a generous salary and (unusually) permission to travel abroad.
He took advantage of the opportunity and spent time in London, where he ultimately decided to settle.
He became hugely popular in British society. One writer wrote, “His return to London was hailed by the musical world as a national acquisition, and every measure was adopted to make his abode pleasant and permanent.”
In gratitude for his 1713 Te Deum celebrating the Peace of Utrecht, Queen Anne bestowed Handel an annual lifetime payment of £200 for life.
Queen Anne
Conveniently, the following year, thanks to the densely interwoven genealogies of European royal families, Handel’s former employer inherited the title of King of Great Britain, succeeding Queen Anne as George I.
This meant that Handel enjoyed a premade connection with the royal family that predated the new king’s ascension to the throne.
King George I
One of his most famous pieces, Water Music (1717), was written for the new king.
When George I died in 1727 and his son George II ascended to the throne, Handel was there, composing coronation marches.
In 1749, he also composed the Music for the Royal Fireworks at King George II’s behest.
King George II
Throughout his long and very successful career, Handel was financially supported and championed by the British royal family. His career would have been very different without that support.
Learn more about Handel’s Water Music and why the royal family commissioned it.
Conclusion
The careers of Lully, Jacquet de La Guerre, and Handel show how powerful the bond between composers and royalty could be in the Baroque Era.
Royal patronage was not always secure. As all three composers here could attest, court intrigues and shifting allegiances could end careers overnight.
But when the relationships endured, they helped to enable the creation of some of the most beloved works in classical music.
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