the controversy between partisans of French and Italian opera which raged in Paris in the early 1750s. Members of the "French party" ensured that Titon'''s premiere was a resounding success (their opponents even alleged they had guaranteed this result by packing the Académie Royale de Musique, where the staging took place, with royal soldiers). Mondonville's one foray into serious French opera - the genre known as tragédie en musique - was a failure however. He took the unusual step of re-using a libretto, Thésée, which had originally been set in 1675 by the "father of French opera", Jean-Baptiste Lully. Mondonville's bold move to substitute Lully's much-loved music with his own did not pay off. The premiere at the court in 1765 had a mixed reception and a public performance two years later ended with the audience demanding it be replaced by the original. Yet Mondonville was merely ahead of his time - in the 1770s, it became fashionable to reset Lully's tragedies with new music, the most famous example being Armide by Gluck. Selected works Instrumental Sonates pour violon op.1 (1733) (6) Sonates en trio pour deux Violons avec la basse continue Œuvre Second, Dédiées à Monsieur le Marquis de la Bourdonnaye, gravées par Le Duc, Paris 1734 6 Pièces de clavecin en sonates op.3 (1734, orchestrated as Sonates en symphonies 1749) The preface of op.4 contains the first evidence of a written text concerning playing with harmonic sounds, "Les sons harmoniques" (Paris and Lille, 1738) Pièces de clavecin avec voix ou violon op.5 (1748) Operas Isbé (1742) Bacchus et Erigone (1747) Le carnaval du Parnasse (1749) Vénus et Adonis (1752) Titon et l'Aurore (1753) Daphnis et Alcimadure (1754) Les fêtes de Paphos (1758) Thésée (1765) Les projets de l'Amour (1771) Grands motets Mondonville's nine surviving grands motets are: Dominus regnavit decorem (Psalm 92) (1734) Jubilate Deo (Psalm 100) (1734) Magnus Dominus (Psalm 48) (1734) Cantate domino (Psalm 150) (1743) Venite exultemus Domino (Psalm 95) (1743) Nisi Dominus aedficavit (Psalm 127) (1743) De profundis (Psalm 130) (1748) Coeli enarrant gloria (Psalm 19) (1750) In exitu Israel (Psalm 115) (1753) Oratorios Mondonville's three oratorios (none survive) were: Les Israélites à la Montagne d'Oreb (1758) Les Fureurs de Saul (1759) Les Titans (1761) Recordings of works by Mondonville Pieces de clavecin avec voix ou violon Op.5 Judith Nelson, William Christie, Stanley Ritchie (Harmonia Mundi, 1980) Titon et l'Aurore Les Musiciens du Louvre,