ENFIN CES BEAUX YEUX

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In 1608, two years after the coronation of Louis XIII, Gabriel Bataille published the first volume of a collection of airs accompanied by the lute. He participated in the dissemination of famous works and the work of renowned musicians such as Pierre Guédron and Henri Le Bailly. In 1617 he became the music master of the Queen of France, Anne of Austria, where he also worked with Antoine Boësset who continued his publishing work from 1621. The fifteen books published by the two musicians allow us today to benefit from several hundred airs of courses, dialogues, airs to drink and airs of ballets. The ensemble Près de votre oreille offers you an immersion in the subtle poetry that constitutes this revival of air and French song, which will also take part Etienne Moulinié as well as instrumental arrangements of works composed for the baroque lute by François Dufaut, Le Vieux Gaultier, Germain Pinel or René Mézengeau.  While the viola da gamba and the harpsichord have not yet acquired the place they will gain under the reign of Louis XIV, the renaissance lute and the baroque lute serve as a field of experience for the emancipation of French instrumental music.