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Given the theme of my last two posts, I thought I’d share one more find with you.

Some years ago, as I was searching for a good rendition of a Jean Joseph Mouret piece, that movement made contemporarily-popular as the intro for Masterpiece Theater (as we called it in my day). Among the many performances on YouTube, I found the following:

The way it is orchestrated and performed is quite different than one usually hears it. Also, as you can see above, the song is illustrated by portraiture of Louis XIV. Indeed, as the poster of this video obviously realized, this arrangement invokes a sense of regalia and majesty in a way that the standard arrangement does not.

Of course, the tie to Louis XIV is fallacious.

This is the opening movement of Suite of Symphonies for brass, strings and timpani No. 1 and was composed in 1729, fourteen years after Louis’ death. It was composed as part of a concert series intended to provide spiritually-uplifting music during religious holidays, when the Opera and other worldly entertainments were closed. This recording is taken from a vinyl pressing from 1992 (no longer available) called The Rage of 1710. Even that album’s descriptor would set a time frame too early to include this piece.

I don’t care.

This is a sound that makes me feel within my bones a bit of the power that surrounded the absolute monarch of Europe’s most powerful nation. Even if my feeling has nothing to do with the song.

Naturally, this piece did not make an appearance in Versailles which, as far as my uneducated ear could tell, featured period-appropriate music.