a French composer whose dramatic works made him one of the leading exponents of Baroque music in his country. Mouret's father was a prosperous silk merchant of Avignon, an amateur violinist who recognized his son's precocious musical abilities and provided him with a fine education. The elder Mouret generously supported his son's decision to pursue a musical career. Mouret composed mainly for the stage. He contributed to the emergence of the distinctively French genres of lyric tragedy and opera-ballet but his jealousy of the rising star of Jean-Philippe Rameau led to the bitterness and madness in which he ended his days.
