Antoine Boësset,Antoine Boesset orAnthoine de Boesset (1586[1] – 8 December 1643), Sieur de Villedieu, was the superintendent of music at theAncien Régime French court and a composer of secular music, particularlyairs de cour. He and his father-in-lawPierre Guédron dominated the court's musical life for the first half of the 17th century underLouis XIII. His sonJean-Baptiste [de] Boesset, Sieur de Dehault, composed church music.
Born atBlois and baptised there on 24 February 1587, he was made master of the children within the musical household of theChambre du roi in 1613. He rose to be the queen's music master in 1617 and secretary to theChambre du roi in 1620, and finallysurintendant of the musical household of theChambre du roi in 1623 – in the last of these roles he succeeded Guédron (surintendant underHenry IV and Louis XIII), whose daughter he married in 1613. In 1632 he wasconseiller andmaître d'hôtelordinaire du roi. He then held all these posts simultaneously until his death.
At the court he got to knowDescartes,Mersenne andHuygens. Around 1640 Mersenne arranged a contest between Boësset and the Dutch Catholic priestJoan Albert Ban to setGermain Habert'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 (Mersenne had already criticised Ban's work as boring and trivial). Boësset was also one of the forerunners of thebasso continuo in France. He died in Paris in 1643.
A critical edition of theairs de cour is being prepared by theCentre de Musique Baroque de Versailles (http://www.cmbv.com).
