The Concert pour le souper du roi, presented by the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, is an original orchestral suite by Jean-Baptiste Lully’s son, performed on 16 January 1707 during one of the famous King’s Suppers, a ritual characteristic of etiquette at Versailles, consisting of a staging of royal power during dinner, to the accompaniment of music. The inspiration for the Concert for the King’s Supper, its originality and the richness of the counterpoint in its middle voices, place this orchestral suite among the masterpieces of Grand Siècle table music, alongside Lalande’s famous Grande pièce royale.
 
It is possible to reconstruct the scoring of the Petits violons du cabinet who performed during the suppers: 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 6 dessus de violon, 2 haute-contres, 2 tailles, 2 quintes and 5 basses de violon. Note the absence of harmonic instruments such as the harpsichord or the theorbo, the practice in instrumental music at the opera.
 
Jean-Baptiste de Lully junior (1665–1743) was the youngest of the children of Jean-Baptiste Lully, Surintendant de la musique du roi, and Madeleine Lambert, daughter of the composer Michel Lambert. Destined for an ecclesiastical career, he was chaplain to Monsieur, the king’s brother, when a divertissement of his own composition, Le Triomphe des brunes, was performed in Toulon in 1695. He subsequently left the clergy to devote himself to composition and in 1696 had a musical essay performed at the king’s supper. In the same year, he obtained the semester of Claude-Jean-Baptiste Boesset as Surintendant de la Musique de la Chambre, a post he held until his resignation in 1719. Little has come down to us today of the divertissements and concerts attributed to him by Titon du Tillet.