Dukes went to great - and expensive - lengths by the Ducal Court to be ahead of the cultural curve. The result, in the final years of the 17th century, was an increasing awareness and then desire for French style and fashion, resulting in the employment of French musicians, adoption of new Baroque woodwinds, putting on of large-scale French-style ballets de cour called Singballete and the institution of a Lullian string band that paved the way for appearance of the orchestra at court. Even in the face of periodic French aggression in the 18th century, Duke Eberhard Louis, educated with French style and mannerisms, strove to make his court a haven for French culture. At the turn of the 18th century, Württemberg's musical interests, like many other European states, began turning to Italy, which can be seen in the productions of Johann Sigismund Kusser from 1698 to 1702. Musical funding would, unfortunately, come to a sudden end with the War of Spanish Succession and it would have an indelible impact on music at the court in later years. While very little documentation of the musical activity of the first decade of the 18th century, we know that by 1715, the membership of the Duchy's Hofkapelle was three concertmasters (), 22 instrumentalists, 11 vocalists, and two choirboys () as well as an additional complement of seven trumpeters and a single kettledrummer. Two of those Kapellmeisters, Theodor Schwartzkopf and Johann Georg Christian Störl, Schwartzkopf's former pupil. These two men had a falling out and Störl attempted to have Schwartzkopf and his family ejected from the Kapellhaus, claiming that his residence was unsuitable for the practice of opera. In truth, the small Old Castle was already too small for the Duke's musical retinue, as was noted by the two Kapellmeister. While in Munich during the winter of 1705–06 following the defeat of Elector Maximilian II Emanuel and his brother, Joseph Clemens, Elector-archbishop of Cologne, after their defeat at defeat at Blenheim in 1704 and subsequent exile to France in 1706, he learned of the Catholic musician and composer Johann Christoph Pez, a Catholic, who now was in charge of instructing the Wittelsbach children in music. Emperor Charles VI released the entire musical ensemble of the Imperial fugitives by decree in May 1706, and Eberhard Louis hired Pez as Senior concert master () of the Württemberg Hofkapelle, above both Störl and Schwartzkopf. Pez expanded