Jean baptiste lully death wish
Jean-Baptiste Lully: the Baroque composer who died of gangrene after stabbing his foot with a conducting stick
2 June 2021, 11:16
Jean-Baptiste Lully met a rather sticky end. Quite literally, by his own conducting staff.
The 17th-century composer Jean-Baptiste Lully was a violin virtuoso, and master of French Baroque music. A favourite of Louis XIV, Lully spent most of his career composing in his court, writing trios, operas and ballets as music master of the royal family.
Lully, it is remembered, loved to compose music that could be danced to.
As many conductors did at this time, the Italian-born maestro would conduct his work using a large wooden conducting staff in lieu of today’s lighter, wand-like baton.
One evening, he was conducting a performance of Te Deum, a work he had composed to celebrate Louis XIV’s recovery from surgery.
Rather ironically, this was the night Lully accidentally struck his own foot with the staff.
Gangrene infected Lully’s leg after this ac Jean-baptiste lully music!