page_title: History of music in Paris
section_title: Salons
hierarchical_section_title: History of music in Paris / 18th century—the opera, the comic opera, and the salons / Salons
context_page_description: The city of Paris has been an important center for European music since the Middle Ages. It was noted for its choral music in the 12th century, for its role in the development of ballet during the Renaissance, in the 19th century it became famous for its music halls and cabarets, and in the 20th century for the first performances of the Ballets Russes, its jazz clubs, and its part in the development of serial music. Paris has been home to many important composers, to name a few: Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Niccolò Piccinni, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, Jacques Offenbach, Georges Bizet, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Hector Berlioz, Paul Dukas, Gabriel Fauré, César Franck, Charles Gounod, Jules Massenet, Vincent d'Indy, Camille Saint-Saëns, Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky, Sidney Bechet...
context_section_description: Much of the musical activity of the city took place in the salons of the nobility and wealthy Parisians. They sponsored private orchestras, often with a combination of both professional and amateur musicians, commissioned works, and organized concerts of very high quality, often with a mixture of both professional and amateur musicians. Some very wealthy Parisians built small theaters within their homes. In 1764, Louis François, Prince of Conti hosted a reception in his palace where the featured attraction was the ten-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the harpsichord. A musical society was organized by the Marquise de Prie, the mistress of the Duke of Bourbon, which gave concerts of Italian music twice a week at the Louvre. The sixty-odd members who attended paid an annual fee, which went to the musicians. Though private individuals were forbidden to hold concerts without the permission of the Royal Academy of Music, a wealthy Parisian named Monsieur Bouland had a theater within his house on rue Saint-Antoine with a stage for two actors, an orchestra of twenty, and seating for three hundred. The owners of salons invited not only classical musicians, but also popular singers of comic opera from the Paris fairs, such as Pierre Laujon and Charles Collé, who became quite wealthy.
  The Masonic movement became immensely popular among the Parisian upper classes; the first lodge opened in Paris in 1736, and had four famous musicians among its first members. By 1742, there were more than twenty, each with its own musical director. One of the most famous concert societies was the Concert Spirituel, created in 1725, which organized public concerts of religious music in Latin, and later Italian and French, in a salon within the Tuileries Palace provided by the King. Attendees at the concerts included queen Marie Antoinette. The society commissioned works of music by important composers, including Haydn and Mozart, who wrote and performed the Symphony n° 31, K. 297/300a, known as the "Paris Symphony", for the Society during his visit to Paris in 1778. In 1763, the society moved to the Hall of Machines, and had an orchestra of fifty-four musicians and vocal ensemble of six sopranos, six tenors, and six basses.
caption: The 8-year old Mozart performs for guests in the salon des Quatre Glaces of the Temple in Paris in 1764. Painting Le thé à l'anglaise by Michel Barthélemy Ollivier, finished in 1766
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