Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau (September 25, 1683 - September 12, 1764) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera, and was attacked by those who preferred Lully's style.

Life and work

Rameau's father was the organist at the cathedral of Dijon, and had his son practicing harpsichord at the earliest age possible. However, Rameau began his studies in the field of law before deciding that the study and composition of music was his true passion. He spent much of his youth in Italy and Paris, and for a time followed his father's footsteps as organist at Clermont Cathedral. Rameau was perhaps most well known for his theories regarding tonality through basse fondamentales or root notes, the idea that chords remain equivalent under inversion, described in Traité de l'harmonie (1722) and Nouveau système de musique théorique (1726). It wasn't until he reached his 40s that Rameau achieved prominence in the field of composition, but by the death of François Couperin in 1733 he was arguably the leading French composer of the time. From then on he devoted himself primarily to opera, starting with Hippolyte et Aricie (1733). He collaborated with Voltaire on a number of operas, in particular La Princesse de Navarre which earned him the King's title of "Compositeur de la Musique de la Chambre". At the end of his life Rameau also became a character in Denis Diderot's - then unpublished - dialogue Le neveu de Rameau (Rameau's Nephew). Even if he never composed a real symphony, he especially showed his skills in the operatic genre as an innovator of orchestral music and orchestration, influencing and anticipating the music of the Classical music era, Romantic music (Hector Berlioz), and even Stravinsky's neoclassicism in a short prelude in his last opera, Les Boréades (1763). Brahms uses the theme of one of Rameau's pieces, "The Birds", as a subject for one of his chamber works.

His music was admired by two other great French composers; Hector Berlioz, who described Rameau's art as "one of the most sublime conceptions of dramatic music". The other was Claude Debussy, who was especially impressed by Rameau's opera Castor et Pollux (1737), which was revived in 1903: "Gluck's genius was deeply rooted in Rameau's works. (...) a detailed comparison allows us to affirm that Gluck could replace Rameau on the French stage only by assimilating the latter's beautiful works and making them his own." [http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/special/index.htms?ID=minkowski-rameau Camille Saint-Saëns, Vincent d'Indy, and Paul Dukas were three other important French musicians who gave practical championship to Rameau's music in their day.

Works

Instrumental works

Trois livres de pièces de clavecin. Pieces for harpsichord, 3 books published (1706, 1724, 1728)
Les pièces de clavecin en concert (1741)
La Dauphine for harpsichord (1747)
several orchestral suites extracted from his operas

Cantatas

Les amants trahis
L’impatience
Aquilon et Orithie
Orphée
Thétis (1727)
Le berger fidèle (1728)

Motets

Deus noster refugium (before 1716)
In convertendo (c.1718)
Quam dilecta (1720)
Laboravi

Lyric tragedy

Hippolyte et Aricie (1733)
Castor et Pollux (1737)
Dardanus (1739), score
Zoroastre (1749)
Les Boréades (1763)

Other works for the stage (operas and ballets)

Les Indes galantes (1735-36)
Les fêtes d'Hébé ou les Talens Lyriques (1739)
La princesse de Navarre (1744, textbook by Voltaire)
Platée (1745), score
Pygmalion (1748)
Naïs (1749)
La Guirlande (1751)
Zéphire (Les Nymphes de Diane) (1754)
Anacréon (1757)
Les paladins (1760)

Writings

Traité de l’harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels (Paris 1722)
"Démonstration du principe de l'harmonie" (Paris 1750)

Selected discography

Orchestral music

Une symphonie imaginaire. (Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski, Deutsche Grammophon 2005)
Ballet Suites from "Platée", "Pygmalion" and "Dardanus". (European Union Baroque Orchestra, Roy Goodman, Naxos 2005)

Operas

Les Boréades (Monteverdi Choir, John Eliot Gardiner, Erato 1982)
Les Indes galantes (Les Arts Florissants, William Christie, Harmonia Mundi 1991)
Castor & Pollux (Les Arts Florissants, William Christie, Harmonia Mundi 1993)
Hippolyte et Aricie (Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski, Deutsche Grammophon 1994)
Dardanus (Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski, Deutsche Grammophon 2000)

Others

Louis Sclavis: Violences De Rameau (ECM, 1999)

External links

(en) jp.rameau.free.fr Rameau - Le Site

(en) amarcordes.ch Biography, works, bibliography (GroveMusic.com)

(fr) musicologie.org Biography, List of Works, bibliography, discography, Theoretical writings, in French

(fr) Jean-Philippe Rameau / Discography

Magnatune Les Cyclopes de Rameau in on-line mp3 format

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