Mouret, Jean-Joseph
Mouret, Jean-Joseph
Mouret, Jean-Joseph, noted French composer; b. Avignon, April 11,1682; d. Charenton, Dec. 20,1738. He is believed to have received his musical training at the Notre Dame des Doms choir school in Avignon. After settling in Paris (1707), he became maître de musique to the Marshal of Noailles; within a year or so, he was made surintendant de la musique at the Sceaux court. He was director of the Paris Opéra orch. (1714–18), and became composer-director at the New Italian Theater (1717), remaining there for 2 decades. He was also made an ordinaire du Roy as a singer in the king’s chamber (1720), and served as artistic director of the Concert Spirituel (1728–34), where he brought out many of his cantatas, motets, and cantatilles. In 1718 he was granted a royal privilege to publ. his own music. Stricken with a mental disorder in 1737, he was placed in the care of the Fathers of Charity in Charenton in 1738. Among his most successful works were the opera-ballet Les Fêtes ou Le Triomphe de Thalie (Paris, Aug. 14,1714), the comédie lyrique Le Mariage de Ragonde et de Colin ou La Veillée de village (Sceaux, Dec. 1714), various divertissements for the Italian Theater, and the Suites de simphonies (c. 1729; ed. by M. Sanvoisin, Paris, 1970).
Bibliography
R. Viollier, J.-J. M., le musicien des grâces (Paris, 1950).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire