Jean-François Lalouette

Who is Jean-François Lalouette?

Jean-François Lalouette was a French composer of the Baroque period. He had his first musical education in the school choir of St. Eustache in Paris.

Lalouette studied violin with Guy Leclerc and composition with Jean-Baptiste de Lully. Lalouette was appointed as Lully’s assistant. It is known that Lalouette was asked by Lully to complete the internal parts of some of the latter’s works. But, after having been heard claiming credit for writing the better part of Lully’s opera, Isis, not surprisingly he was fired by Lully from his job as assistant.

In April 1678, he appeared at the Court of Savoy in Turin, where he was appointed as “French composer of music” and placed to guide the group of violinists in the orchestra. But, by July of 1679 he was fired again. He returned to Paris. During that time, he apparently wrote an opera, since there is a letter from a royal official in 1681 forbidding any further performance of his work on the grounds that it violated the privilege conferred by King Louis XIV of France on Lully.

News of activities for the period 1683 to 1693 is rather sparse.