Although he was naturalized French in 1661, Giovanni Battista Lulli kept the musical imprint of his native country alive in his work for years, filling his ballets with numerous airs in Italian, a language very much in vogue at court in the early years of Louis XIV's reign.

What we hear here, then, is a "Signor Lulli" steeped in the Commedia dell'Arte and Italian Baroque lyricism, a whimsical, unbridled Mister Hyde before the level-headed Doctor Jekyll of Jean-Baptiste Lully takes over and becomes the great champion of French tragédie lyrique. Jérôme Correas and Les Paladins record the complete Italian music of Lully here for the first time, revealing a musical world quite apart from the rest of the Sun King's official composer's output — a secret garden linking him back to his childhood, and a musical portrait of the Florentine Lulli: violinist, guitarist, mime, dancer, and performer of his own works.