Antoine Boësset,Antoine Boesset or Anthoine de Boesset (1586 – 8 December 1643), sieur de Villedieu, was the superintendent of music at the Ancien Regime French court and a composer of secular music, particularly airs de cour

Air de cour

The Air de cour was a popular type of secular vocal music in France in the very late Renaissance and early Baroque period, from about 1570 until around 1650...

. He and his father-in-law Pierre Guédron

Pierre Guédron

Pierre Guédron, , was a French singer and composer known for writing Airs de cour ....

 dominated the court's musical life for the first half of the 17th century under Louis XIII. His son Jean-Baptiste [de] Boesset

Jean-Baptiste Boësset

Jean-Baptiste Boësset was a French composer of sacred and secular music, whose notable works include an Ave Regina and several airs de cour...

, sieur de Dehault, composed church music.

Life

Born at Blois

Blois

Blois is the capital of Loir-et-Cher department in central France, situated on the banks of the lower river Loire between Orléans and Tours.-History:...

 and baptised there on 24 February 1587, he was made master of the children within the musical household of the Chambre du roi in 1613. He rose to be the queen's music master in 1617 and secretary to the Chambre du roi in 1620, and finally surintendant of the musical household of the Chambre du roi in 1623 - in the last of these roles he succeeded Guédron (surintendant under Henry IV

Henry IV of France

Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....

 and Louis XIII), whose daughter he married in 1613. In 1632 he was conseiller and maître d'hôtel

Maître d'hôtel

The maître d’hôtel in the original French language is literally the "master of the hotel". In a suitably staffed restaurant or hotel, it is the person in charge of assigning customers to tables and dividing the dining area into areas of responsibility for the various servers on duty. The plural...

 ordinaire du roi. He then held all these posts simultaneously until his death.

At the court he got to know Descartes

René Descartes

René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...

, Mersenne

Marin Mersenne

Marin Mersenne, Marin Mersennus or le Père Mersenne was a French theologian, philosopher, mathematician and music theorist, often referred to as the "father of acoustics"...

 and Huygens

Constantijn Huygens

Constantijn Huygens , was a Dutch Golden Age poet and composer. He was secretary to two Princes of Orange: Frederick Henry and William II, and the father of the scientist Christiaan Huygens.-Biography:...

. In around 1640 Mersenne arranged a contest between Boësset and the Dutch Catholic priest Joan Albert Ban

Joan Albert Ban

-Life:From 1628-42 he was canon priest of the Haarlem chapter . In 1630 he became priest of the Begijnhof in Haarlem, across the street from the Janskerk ....

 to set Germain Habert

Germain Habert

Germain Habert de Cérisy was a French churchman and poet. He was abbot of Saint-Vigor.Germain Habert was born in Paris...

's poem "Me veux-tu voir mourir", but altered the poem's first line and thus its sense in the copy sent to Boësset - this influenced the setting and allowed Boësset to easily win the competition (Mersinne had already criticised Ban's work as boring and trivial). He was also one of the forerunners of the basso continuo in France. He died in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

Works

• 9 Livres d'airs de cour (Books of airs de cour) for 4 and 5 voices (1617-1642 ; republished 1689)
• Dozens of airs de cour for voice and lute (in anthologies published by Ballard)
• Many ballet
  Ballet
  Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
  
  s (1614-1639)
• 3 mass
  Mass (music)
  The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the invariable portions of the Eucharistic liturgy to music...
  
  es, 5 motet
  Motet
  In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...
  
  s and a Magnificat
  Magnificat
  The Magnificat — also known as the Song of Mary or the Canticle of Mary — is a canticle frequently sung liturgically in Christian church services. It is one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns and perhaps the earliest Marian hymn...
  
  

A critical edition of the airs de cour is being prepared by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles

Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles

The Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles is a centre for the study and performance of French Baroque music, based at the Palace of Versailles. It was founded by Philippe Beaussant and Vincent Berthier de Lioncourt, who were entrusted with the task of founding a musical establishment at...

(http://www.cmbv.com).