Lully’s Baton Accident Turned into Amputation

Every conductor has a signature move: some draw circles in the air, some pump straight up and down, and some flail so wildly you wonder how anyone keeps the beat. Mark Twain once joked that much conducting is just ‘ornamental beckoning.’

But for Jean-Baptiste Lully, baton-waving had real consequences. While conducting a Te Deum before Louis XIV—celebrating the King’s recovery from a severe illness—Lully saw the orchestra growing uncertain in the time. He got excited and began making huge gestures. In the process he accidentally struck his own foot, raising a blister. In those days the ‘baton’ could be a heavy violin bow, not the light stick we picture today.

The blister inflamed. On medical advice a toe was amputated. Later they removed the foot, and finally the whole limb. The moral, the author says, is plain: conductors, beware where you swing.