ABSTRACT
The mechanisms by which a French musical identity was constructed in the age of Louis xiv have been extensively analysed. In parallel with stylistic explorations of the genres most representative of this identity, notably the motet à grand chœur and tragédie en musique, such analysis has revealed the control exercised by royal power over musical institutions, individual careers and critical debate. The debate on the corruption of taste, which developed as a consequence of the dispute between the Ancients and Moderns during the first decades of the eighteenth century, frequently made reference to the figure of Lully. Subsequent French composers, in distancing themselves from this ideal model and in yielding to both fashion and external influences, were accused of causing the decline of French music. Rameau’s conquest of the Académie Royale de Musique was nevertheless the result of a restructuring of his professional career.
