André Campra (1660-1744) testifies, through his work, to the profound change in taste that took place in Paris at the end of the seventeenth century. Here is a Provençal artist, raised in the purest tradition of church music in Aix-en-Provence, maître de chapelle in Arles and then Toulouse, who managed to impose himself at the age of 34 in a Paris that until then had been resolutely turned towards the musicians of the north. An unknown, indeed, that Parisian institutions (Notre-Dame de Paris, the Jesuits) nonetheless welcomed with open arms. The printer Ballard immediately published his first book of motets (1695), and even created a new collection for him; the princes commissioned him to create entertainments, and the Opéra finally took a risk on the success of a new genre that he imposed, the opera-ballet (L'Europe galante, 1697). But it was not until 1722 that the Court offered him a position worthy of his talents. This impressive success, which was immediate for the city, could not have been achieved without the support of powerful Provençals, nor without the Parisians’ desire to discover other ways of making and thinking about music, painting, religion... Campra thus responded, in the field of music, to a society in profound change, curious about strangeness, revelling in these sounds from elsewhere, almost the perfumes of Italy.

Comparative studies by historians of art, literature, religions and music, this book was produced with the help of Frédéric d'Agay, Régis Bertrand, Olivier Bonfait, Jean-Philippe Goujon, Jean-Christophe Maillard, Alexandre Maral, Thomas Vernet and Jean Duron.