Le triomphe de la raison sur l'amour 1st edition, 1697

Le Triomphe de la Raison sur l'Amour is one of very few surviving works attributed to Jean-Baptiste Lully II, son of the famous 17th-century composer. Little is known of the creation and presentation of this pastorale. It was performed once (25 October 1696) at Fontainbleau, but no record exists of a second or revival performance. The characters in Le Triomphe de la Raison sur l'Amour are stock shepherds and shepherdesses who appear in many idylls and pastorals taken from Greek and Roman mythology. Tircis appears in Jean de la Fontaine's Fables (Book 8, Number 13 "Tircis et Amarante," 1678-79). While many of the Fables were drawn from Aesop, "Tircis et Amarante" was a creation of la Fontaine. The final installment of the Fables appeared in 1695, one year before Le Triomphe de la Raison sur l'Amour was performed.

While the opening scene of Le Triomphe de la Raison sur l'Amour  serves as a prologue, there is not a satisfactory conclusion to the work as a whole; the final scene functions more as choral commentary than as a denouement

Scene I. On a hill in ancient times. Menalque asks which god has forced the furies to flee their empire. Celimene replies that it is to their gracious king that they owe the peace that reigns in their forest. They sing together of the new peace, entreating the birds and brooks to sing with them. 

Scene II Menalque pines that love will not end his misfortune. Cloris remarks that it is possible for love to reign in one's heart, as long as it is not given to vanity. Menalque counters that love takes and leaves people according to its various whims. In a short air, Cloris sings that one can resist love in personal constraint, but that even so, people are drawn to love despite the suffering that it sometimes causes. Cloris declares that because of love's suffering, she will never love, but instead, will tend her flock. Menalque tries to dissuade her, to no avail. Cloris swears that only reason gives true happiness and calms the spirit while love threatens disorder. 

Scene III Celimene wonders why love reserves its pleasures for the birds but gives people only a sad slavery. Tircis asks why she is afraid of love, and Celimene replies that love seldom keeps its original promises. Trying to win Celimene's heart, Tircis warns her not to neglect a constant and faithful shepherd. Celimene dismisses his appeal, arguing that all shepherds say the same thing. Tircis declares that his heart burns for Celimene in an eternal flame, but again she ignores him. In an air, Tircis compares ephemeral love with a rushing stream - the time that one spends with a love flows a hundred times faster than a brook. Celimene rebuffs him again and will hear him no more. 

Scene IV Cloris, alone, declares that she will not carry love's chains. She entreats reason to take her far away from the dangerous poison that love pours out in her heart. The god of sleep descends and casts her into a deep trance. 

Scene V In two nightmares, visions come to Cloris and warn her not to seek the false softness of love lest she perish in a thousand abysses. 

Scene VI Cloris awakens and wonders which voice has spoken to her. She demands to know why the gods will not protect her. 

Scene VII A chorus enters and sings of the false charms of love and how happy they are not to know of such slavery. "Love is cruel and barbarous. It disturbs forever the heart which it seizes. Peace and innocence are never rational with love around."

Title from title page: LE TRIOMPHE / DE LA RAISON / SUR L'AMOUR, / PASTORALE / MISE EN MUSIQUE
Genre: pastorale
Composer: Jean-Baptiste Lully (ii), 1665-1743
Librettist: unknown
Libretto based on: unknown
Premiere: Fontainebleau, 25 October 1696
First published: Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1697
Volume in the UNT Lully Collection: First edition, Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1697

See the Lully bibliography for suggested reading.

M1619 .R43 1701

Skeleton score w/figured bass: Typeset. oblong 4°: ² A-I4 K². P4, 1-74, Table, Extrait. 9-1/8 X 7 inches

This first edition of Jean-Baptiste Lully II's pastorale, Le Triomphe de la Raison sur l'Amour was printed in 1697, in the year following the first performance at Fontainebleu on 25 October 1696. The copy in the Lully Collection is bound with the 1701 accumulation of monthly fascicles of songs, published under the title Recuil d'airs serieux et à boire de different auteurs pour l'année 1701 (Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1701). The skeleton score is restricted to a maximum of three scores; on several pages four-part choruses with basso continuo have been condensed to three staves with the chorus parts rendered polyphonically (see for example p. 17). The type for the polyphonic sections, which is likely to have been cast specifically for this print job, appears to have been hastily done; the stems are uneven and the notes fuzzy.

Condition: The current binding is an original full sprinkled-calf with gilt floral motifs in the panels of the jointed spine and gilt on the edges of the covers. A red morocco paste-on label gives an abbreviated title ("RECUIL / DES AIRS"). The colorful endpapers are marbled.

RISM A/I, L3067