A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Vingt-Quatre Violons
VINGT-QUATRE VIOLONS. No reader of French 'Mémoires' of the 17th century can be ignorant of the part played by ballets at the courts of Henri IV., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV. The ballet combined the pleasures of music, dancing, and the play, gave great opportunities for magnificent display, and was for nearly a century the favourite diversion of princes and grands seigneurs, thus preparing the way for opera. The passion for ballets de cour and dancing led to the formation of a special band of violinists, who, under Louis XIII, bore the name of the 'band of 24 violins of the King's chamber.' Its members, no longer mere ménestriers [see Roi des Violons, iii. 145], became musiciens en charge, with a prospect of being eventually admitted to the Chapelle du Roi. Their functions were to play for the dancing at all the court-balls, as well as to perform airs, minuets, and rigadoons, in the King's antichamber, during his lever and public dinner, on New Year's Day, May 1, the King's fête-day, and on his return from the war, or from Fontainebleau.
No complete list of 'the 24 violins' who enlivened the court of the melancholy Louis XIII. has yet been made, but some of their airs may be seen in the MS. collection of Philidor diné—one of the precious possessions of the Conservatoire library. [See vol. ii. p. 703 a.] The composers names are Michel Henri, Constantin, Dumanoir, Robert Verdié, Mazuel, Le Page, Verpré, de La Pierre, de La Vallez, and Lazarin, all, we conjecture, among the 24. The violinists occasionally acted in the ballets, as in the 'Ballet des doubles Femmes' (1625), when they walked in backwards, dressed as old women with masks at the back of their heads, so as to look as if they were playing behind their backs. This had a great success, and was revived by Taglioni (the father) in the masked ball in Auber's 'Gustave III,' in 1833.
In Louis XIV's reign the band of 24 violins was called the 'grande bande,' and on Dumanoir's appointment as Roi des Violons, the King made him conductor, with the title of '25me violon de la Chambre.' The post however was suppressed at the same time with that of the Roi des ménestriers (May 22, 1697). The 'grande bande,' again called 'the 24 violins,' continued to exist till 1761, when Louis XV. dissolved it by decree (Aug. 22). During the rage for French fashions in music which obtained in Charles II.'s reign, the '24 violons' were imitated here, in the 'King's music,' and became the 'four-and-twenty fiddlers all of a row' of the nursery rhyme. Meantime a dangerous rival had sprung up in its own home. In 1655 Lully obtained the direction of a party of 16 violins, called the 'petite bande.' As violinist, leader, and composer he soon eclipsed his rival, and his brilliant career is well known. The modest position of conductor of a few musicians, whose duty was simply, like that of the 'grande bande,' to play at the King's levers, dinners, and balls, satisfied him at first, but only because it brought him in contact with the nobility, and furthered his chance of becoming 'Surintendant de la Musique' to Louis XIV. This point once gained, nothing further was heard of the 'petite bande,' and by the beginning of the next reign it had wholly disappeared.
The 24 violins remained, but as time went on they became old-fashioned and distasteful to the courtiers. Accordingly, as fast as their places fell vacant they were filled by musicians from the Chapelle du Roi, and thus the band became independent of the community of St. Julian. After 1761 the only persons privileged to play symphonies in the King's apartments were the musicians of his 'chamber' and 'chapel.'