Download or read book Music in the Service of the King: France in the Seventeenth Century written by Robert M. Isherwood and published by Ithaca [N.Y.] : Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1973 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The arts, particularly music, are viewed in this work as an integral part of evolving royal absolutism during the reign of Louis XIV. Drawing extensively on archival documents and musical scores, the author views the historical association of music and monarchy as a continuous development beginning with the Valois and climaxing in Louis XIV’s reign. The king is pictured as a rational, calculating man whose luxurious life style was politically motivated, and who undertook the centralization of the arts to assure French artistic preeminence. Elaborate, costly musical productions were also used to distract the nobility, to demonstrate French affluence to foreign powers, and to embellish the royal image.