Jean-Philippe Rameau

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Jean-Philippe Rameau, by Jacques André Joseph Aved, 1728
Jean-Philippe Rameau, by Jacques André Joseph Aved, 1728

Jean-Philippe Rameau (pronounced [ʒɑ̃filip ʀaˈmo] in French) (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 he is also considered the leading French author of music for the harpsichord of his time alongside François Couperin.

Little is known about Rameau's early years, and it was not until the 1720s that he won fame as a major theorist of music with his Treatise on Harmony (1722). He was almost fifty before he embarked on the operatic career on which his reputation chiefly rests. His debut Hippolyte et Aricie (1733) caused a great stir and was fiercely attacked for its revolutionary use of harmony by the supporters of Lully's style of music. Nevertheless, Rameau's pre-eminence in the field of French opera was soon acknowledged and he was later attacked as an "establishment" composer by those who favoured Italian opera during the controversy known as the Querelle des Bouffons in the 1750s. Rameau's music had gone out of fashion by the end of the 18th century and it was not until the 20th that serious efforts were made to revive it. Today he enjoys renewed appreciation with performances and recordings of his music ever more frequent.

Contents

[edit] Life

The details of Rameau’s life are generally obscure, especially concerning his first forty years before he moved to Paris for good. He was a secretive man and even his wife knew nothing of his early life,[1] which explains the scarcity of biographical information available.

[edit] Early years 1683-1732

The Cathedral of Saint-Bénigne, Dijon
The Cathedral of Saint-Bénigne, Dijon

Rameau's early years are particularly obscure. He was born on September 25, 1683 and baptised the same day.[2] His father Jean worked as an organist in several churches around Dijon and his mother, Claudine Demartinécourt, was the daughter of a notary. The couple had eleven children (five girls and six boys) of which Jean-Philippe was the seventh to be born. Rameau was taught music before he could read or write. He was educated at the Jesuit college at Godrans but he was not a good school pupil and disrupted classes with his singing, later claiming that his passion for opera had begun at the age of twelve.[3] Initially intended for the law, Rameau decided he wanted to be a musician and his father sent him to Italy, where he stayed for a short while in Milan. On his return he worked as a violinist in travelling companies and then as an organist in provincial cathedrals before moving to Paris for the first time.[4] Here in 1706 he published his earliest known compositions: the harpsichord works that make up his first book of Pièces de clavecin, which show the influence of his friend Louis Marchand.[5] In 1709, he moved back to Dijon to take over his father's job as organist in the main church. The contract was for six years, but Rameau left before then and took up similar posts in Lyon and Clermont. During this period he composed motets for church performance as well as secular cantatas. In 1722 he returned to Paris for good and here he published his most important work of music theory, Traité de l'harmonie (Treatise on Harmony). This soon won him a great reputation and it was followed in 1726 by his Nouveau système de musique théorique.[6] He also published two more collections of harpsichord pieces in 1724 and 1729 or 1730.[7] Rameau took his first tentative steps into composing stage music when the writer Alexis Piron asked him to provide songs for his popular comic plays written for the Paris Fairs. Four collaborations followed, beginning with L'Endriague in 1723. None of the music has survived.[8] On February 25 1726, Rameau married the 19-year old Marie-Louise Mangot, who came from a musical family from Lyon, and was a good singer and instrumentalist. The couple would have four children, two boys and two girls, and the marriage is said to have been a happy one.[9] In spite of his fame as a music theorist, Rameau had trouble finding a post as an organist in Paris.[10]

[edit] Later years 1733-1764

Bust of Rameau by Caffieri, 1760
Bust of Rameau by Caffieri, 1760

It was not until he was approaching fifty that Rameau decided to embark on the operatic career on which his fame as a composer mainly rests. He had already approached the writer Houdar de la Motte for a libretto in 1727, but nothing had come of it. He was finally inspired to try his hand at the prestigious genre of tragédie en musique after seeing Montéclair's Jephté in 1732. Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, premiered at the Académie Royale de Musique on 1 October, 1733. It was immediately recognised as the most significant opera to appear in France since the death of Lully, but audiences were split over whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. Some, such as the composer André Campra were stunned by its originality and wealth of invention; others found its harmonic innovations discordant and saw the work as an attack on the French musical tradition. The two camps, the so-called "Lullistes" and "Rameauneurs", fought a pamphlet war over the issue for the rest of the decade.[11]

Just before this time, Rameau had made the acquaintance of the powerful financier Alexandre Le Riche de La Poupelinière who became his patron until 1753. La Pouplinière's mistress (and later wife) Thérèse des Hayes was Rameau's pupil and a great admirer of his music. In 1731 Rameau became the conductor of La Pouplinière's private orchestra, which was of an extremely high quality. He held the post for 22 years (he was succeeded by Johann Stamitz and then Gossec).[12] La Pouplinière's salon enabled Rameau to meet some of the leading cultural figures of the day, including Voltaire who soon began collaborating with the composer. [13] Their first project, the tragédie en musique Samson, was abandoned because an opera on a religious theme by Voltaire, a notorious critic of the Church, was likely to be banned by the authorities.[14] Meanwhile Rameau had introduced his new musical style into the lighter genre of the opéra-ballet with the highly successful Les Indes galantes. It was followed by two tragédies en musique, Castor et Pollux (1737) and Dardanus (1739), and another opéra-ballet, Les fêtes d'Hébé (also 1739). All these operas of the 1730s are among Rameau's most highly regarded works.[15] However, the composer followed them with six years of silence, in which the only work he produced was a new version of Dardanus (1744). The reason for this interval in the composer's creative life is unknown, although it is possible he fell out with the authorities at the Académie royale de la musique.[16]

1745 was a watershed in Rameau's career. He received several commissions from the court for works to celebrate the French victory at the Battle of Fontenoy and the marriage of the Dauphin to a Spanish princess. Rameau produced his most important comic opera Platée as well as two collaborations with Voltaire: the opéra-ballet Le temple de la gloire and the comédie-ballet La Princesse de Navarre.[17] They gained Rameau official recognition: he was granted the title "Compositeur du Cabinet du Roi" and given a substantial pension.[18] 1745 also saw the beginning of the bitter enmity between Rameau and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Though best known today as a thinker, Rousseau had ambitions to be a composer. He had written an opera, Les muses galantes, inspired by Rameau's Indes galantes, but Rameau had been unimpressed by this musical tribute. At the end of 1745, Voltaire and Rameau, who were busy on other works, commissioned Rousseau to turn La Princesse de Navarre into a new opera with linking recitative called Les fêtes de Ramire. Rousseau then claimed the two had stolen the credit for the words and music he had contributed, though musicologists have been able to identify almost nothing of the piece as Rousseau's work. Nevertheless, the embittered Rousseau nursed a grudge against Rameau for the rest of his life.[19]

Rousseau was a major participant in the second great quarrel which erupted over Rameau's work, the so-called Querelle des Bouffons of 1752-54, which pitted French tragédie en musique against Italian opera buffa. This time Rameau was accused of being out of date and his music too complicated in comparison with the simplicity and "naturalness" of a work like Pergolesi's La serva padrona.[20] In the mid-1750s Rameau criticised Rousseau's contributions to the musical articles in the Encyclopédie which led him into a quarrel with the leading philosophes d'Alembert and Diderot.[21] As a result, Rameau became a character in Diderot's - then unpublished - dialogue Le neveu de Rameau (Rameau's Nephew).

In 1753, La Pouplinière took a scheming musician, Jeanne-Thérèse Goermans, as his mistress. The daughter of the harpsichord-maker Jacques Goermans, she went by the name of Madame de Saint-Aubin and her opportunistic husband pushed her into the arms of the rich financier. She had La Pouplinière engage the services of the Bohemian composer Stamitz, which led to a breach between Rameau and his patron. However, Rameau no longer needed La Pouplinière's financial support and protection.

Rameau pursued his activities as a theorist and composer until his death. He lived with his wife and two of his children in his large suite of rooms in Rue des Bons-Enfants which he would leave every day, lost in thought, to take a solitary walk in the nearby gardens of the Palais-Royal or the Tuileries. Sometimes he would meet the young writer Chabanon, who noted down some of Rameau's disillusioned confidential remarks: "Day by day I'm acquiring more good taste, but I no longer have any genius" and "The imagination is worn out in my old head, it's not wise at this age wanting to practise arts that are nothing but imagination".[22]

Rameau had composed prolifically in the late 1740s and the early 1750s. After that his rate of productivity dropped off, probably due to old age and ill health, though he was still able to write another comic opera Les Paladins in 1760. This was due to be followed by a final tragédie en musique, Les Boréades, but for unknown reasons, the opera was never produced and had to wait until the late 20th century for a proper staging.[23] Rameau died on 12 September, 1764 after suffering from a fever. He was buried in the church of St. Eustache, Paris the following day.[24]

Jean-Philippe Rameau.
Jean-Philippe Rameau.

[edit] Rameau's personality

While the details of his biography are vague and fragmentary, Rameau’s personal and family life is almost completely obscure. Rameau’s music, so graceful and attractive, completely contradicts the man’s public image and what we know of his character, as described -or perhaps unfairly caricatured- by Diderot in Le neveu de Rameau. Throughout his life music was his consuming passion; it occupied his entire thinking; Philippe Beaussant calls him a monomaniac. Piron explained that: “His heart and soul were in his harpsichord; once he had shut its lid there was no one home.”[25] Physically, Rameau was tall and exceptionally thin,[26] as can be seen by the sketches we have of him, including a famous portrait by Carmontelle. He had a “loud voice”. His speech was difficult to understand, just like his handwriting, which was never fluent. As a man he was secretive, solitary, irritable, proud of his own achievements (more as a theorist than as a composer), brusque with those who contradicted him and quick to anger. It is difficult to imagine him among the leading wits, including Voltaire - to whom he bears more than a passing physical resemblance - who frequented La Pouplinière’s salon: his music was his best passport and it made up for his lack of the social graces.

His enemies exaggerated his faults, for example his supposed miserliness. In fact, it seems that his thriftiness was the result of long years spent in obscurity, when his income was uncertain and scanty, rather than part of his character because he could also be generous. We know that he helped his nephew Jean-François when he came to Paris and also helped establish the career of Claude-Bénigne Balbastre in the capital. Furthermore, he gave his daughter Marie-Louise a considerable dowry when she became a Visitandine nun in 1750 and he paid a pension to one of his sisters when she became ill. Financial security came late to him, following the success of his stage works and the grant of a royal pension (a few months before his death he was also ennobled and made a knight of the Ordre de Saint-Michel). But he did not change his way of life, keeping his worn-out clothes, his single pair of shoes and his old furniture: after his death it was discovered that he only possessed one dilapidated single-keyboard harpsichord[27] in his rooms in Rue des Bons-Enfants, yet he also had a bag containing 1691 gold louis.[28]

[edit] Music

[edit] General character of Rameau's music

Rameau’s music is characterised by the exceptional technical knowledge of a composer who wanted above all to be renowned as a theorist of the art. Nevertheless it is not solely addressed to the intelligence and Rameau himself claimed “I try to conceal art with art”. The paradox of this music was that it was new, using techniques never known before, but it took place within the framework of old-fashioned forms; Rameau appeared revolutionary to the Lullystes, disturbed by the complex harmony of his music, and reactionary to the “philosophes” who only paid attention to its content and who either would not or could not listen to the sound it made. The incomprehension he received from his contemporaries stopped Rameau repeating such daring experiments as the second Trio des Parques in Hippolyte et Aricie, which he was forced to remove after a handful of performances because the singers were unable to interpret it correctly. So the greatest harmonist of his era went unrecognised at the very time that harmony - the “vertical” aspect of music - was taking precedence over counterpoint, which represented its “horizontal” aspect.

[edit] Rameau's musical works

Rameau’s musical works may be divided into four distinct groups,[29] which differ greatly in importance: a few cantatas, a few motets for large chorus, some pieces for solo harpsichord or harpsichord accompanied by other instruments, and, finally, his works for the stage to which he dedicated the last thirty years of his career almost exclusively. Like most of his contemporaries, Rameau often reused melodies which had been particularly successful, but never without meticulously adapting them: they are not simple transcriptions. Besides, no borrowings have been found from other composers, although his earliest works show the influence of other music. Rameau’s reworkings of his own material are numerous: for instance in Les Fêtes d'Hébé, we find L'Entretien des Muses, the Musette and the Tambourin taken from the 1724 book of harpsichord pieces, as well as an aria from the cantata Le Berger Fidèle.[30]

[edit] Motets

For forty years Rameau was a professional organist in the service of religious institutions, and yet the body of sacred music he composed is exceptionally small, and his organ works are non-existent. Judging by the evidence, it was not his favourite field, simply a way of making reasonable money. Rameau’s few religious compositions are nevertheless remarkable and compare favourably to the works of specialists in the area. Only four motets have been attributed to Rameau with any certainty: Deus noster refugium, In convertendo, Quam dilecta and Laboravi.

[edit] Cantatas

The cantata was a highly successful genre in the early 18th century. The French cantata - which should not be confused with the Italian or the German cantata - was “invented” in 1706 by the poet Jean-Baptiste Rousseau and soon taken up by many famous composers of the day such as Montéclair, Campra and Clérambault. Cantatas were Rameau’s first contact with dramatic music. The modest forces the cantata required meant it was a genre within the reach of a composer who was still unknown. Musicologists can only guess at the dates of Rameau’s six surviving cantatas and the names of the librettists are unknown.

[edit] Instrumental music

Along with François Couperin, Rameau is one of the two masters of the French school of harpsichord music in the 18th century. Both composers made a decisive break with the style of the first generation of harpsichordists, who confined their compositions to the relatively fixed mould of the classical suite. This reached its apogee in the first decade of the 18th century with successive collections of pieces by Louis Marchand, Gaspard Le Roux, Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, Jean-François Dandrieu, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Charles Dieupart and Nicolas Siret.

But Rameau and Couperin have a very different style anyway and Rameau cannot be considered the follower of the older composer. They seem not to have known one another (Couperin was one of the official court musicians while Rameau was still an unknown; fame would only come to him after Couperin’s death). Besides, Rameau published his first book of harpsichord pieces in 1706 while Couperin - who was fifteen years his senior - waited until 1713 before publishing his first “ordres”. Rameau's music includes pieces in the pure tradition of the French suite, imitative (“Le rappel des oiseaux“, “La poule“) and character (“Les tendres plaintes“, “L'entretien des Muses“) pieces, and works of pure virtuosity which resemble Scarlatti ((“Les tourbillons,” “Les trois mains“), as well as pieces which reveal the experiments of a theorist and musical innovator (“L'Enharmonique“, “Les Cyclopes“) which had a marked influence on Daquin, Royer and Jacques Duphly. The suites are grouped in the traditional way, by key.

Rameau’s three collections appeared in 1706, 1724 and 1726 or 1727 respectively. After this he only composed a single piece for the harpsichord: “La Dauphine” (1747). Other works, such as “Les petits marteaux” have been doubtfully attributed to him.

During his semi-retirement in the years 1740 to 1744, he wrote the Pièces de clavecin en concert (1741). Adopting a formula successfully employed by Mondonville a few years earlier, these pieces differ from trio sonatas in that the harpsichord is not simply there as basso continuo to accompany other instruments (the violin, flute or viol) playing the melody, but takes an equal part in the “concert” with them. Rameau also claimed that the pieces would be equally satisfying as solo harpsichord works, although this statement is far from convincing since the composer took the trouble to transcribe five of them himself, those where the lack of other instruments would show the least.

[edit] Opera

From 1733, Rameau dedicated himself almost exclusively to opera. What came before was nothing but a long preparation for his stage music. Armed with theoretical and aesthetic principles from which nothing could deflect him, he composed little else but a form of opera which in many ways prefigures the drama of Richard Wagner. On a strictly musical level, 18th century French Baroque opera is richer and more varied than contemporary Italian opera, especially in the place given to choruses and dances, but also in the musical continuity which arises from the respective relationships between the arias and the recitative. Another essential difference: whereas Italian opera gave a starring role to female sopranos and castratos, French opera had no use for the latter. The Italian opera of Rameau’s day (opera seria) was essentially divided into musical sections (da capo arias, duets, trios etc.) and sections which were spoken, or almost spoken (recitativo secco). It was during the latter that the action progressed, while the audience waited for the next aria; on the other hand, the text of the arias was almost entirely buried beneath music whose chief aim was to show off the virtuosity of the singer. Nothing of the kind is to be found in French opera of the day: since Lully, the text had to remain comprehensible, which limited certain techniques such as the vocalise, which was reserved for special words such as “gloire” (“glory”) or “victoire” (“victory”). In this sense French opera from Lully to Rameau is closer to the ideal of Monteverdi, that the music should serve the text - a paradox when we compare Rameau’s musical expertise and the poor literary quality of the libretti he set. A subtle equilibrium operated between the more and the less musical parts, melodic recitative on the one hand and arias which were often closer to arioso on the other, alongside virtuoso “ariettes” in the Italian style. This form of continuous music prefigures Wagnerian drama even more than it does the “reform“ opera of Gluck.

Five essential components may be discerned in Rameau’s operatic scores:

  • pieces of “pure” music (overtures, ritornelli, music which closes scenes). Unlike the highly stereotyped Lullian overture, Rameau’s overtures show an extraordinary variety. Even in his earliest works where he uses the standard French model, Rameau, the born symphonist and master of orchestration, composes novel and unique pieces. A few pieces are particularly striking, such as the overture to Zaïs depicting the chaos before the creation of the universe, or that to Pigmalion, suggesting the sculptor chipping away at the statue with his mallet, or the imposing final chaconnes of Les Indes galantes or Dardanus.
  • dance music: the danced interludes, which were obligatory even in tragédie en musique, allowed Rameau to give free rein to his inimitable sense of rhythm, melody and choreography, acknowledged by all his contemporaries including the dancers themselves. [31] This “learned” composer, forever preoccupied by his next theoretical work, paradoxically strung together gavottes, minuets, loures, rigaudons, passepieds, tambourins and musettes by the dozen... According to his biographer Cuthbert Girdlestone: “The immense superiority of all that pertains to Rameau in choreography still needs emphasizing” and the German scholar H.W. von Walthershausen affirmed:
“ Rameau was the greatest ballet composer of all times. The genius of his creation rests on one hand on his perfect artistic permeation by folk-dance types, on the other hand on the constant preservation of living contact with the practical requirements of the ballet stage, which prevented an estrangement between the expression of the body from the spirit of absolute music.[32] ”
  • choruses: Padre Martini, the erudite musicologist who corresponded with Rameau, affirmed that “the French are excellent at choruses”, obviously thinking of Rameau himself. A great master of harmony, Rameau knew how to compose sumptuous choruses, whether monodic, polyphonic or interspersed with passages for solo singers or the orchestra, and whatever the feelings needed to be expressed.
  • arias: less frequent than in Italian opera, nevertheless Rameau offers many striking examples. Particularly admired arias include: Télaïre’s “Tristes apprêts” from Castor et Pollux; "Ô jour affreux" and "Lieux funestes" from Dardanus; Huascar's invocations in Les Indes galantes; the final ariette in Pigmalion etc.
  • recitative: much closer to arioso than to recitativo secco. The composer took scrupulous care to observe French prosody and used his harmonic knowledge to give expression to his protagonists' feelings.

During the first part of his operatic career (1733-1739) Rameau wrote his great masterpieces destined for the Académie royale de musique: three tragédies en musique and two opéra-ballets which still form the core of his repertoire. After the interval of 1740 to 1744, he became the official court musician and for the most part composed pieces intended to entertain, with plenty of dance music, emphasising sensuality and an idealised pastoral atmosphere. In his last years, Rameau returned to a renewed version of his early style in Les Paladins and Les Boréades.

[edit] Rameau and his librettists

Unlike Lully, who collaborated with Philippe Quinault on almost all his operas, Rameau rarely worked with the same librettist twice. He was highly demanding, bad-tempered and was unable to maintain longstanding partnerships with his librettists, with the exception of Louis de Cahusac.

Many Rameau specialists have regretted that the collaboration with Houdar de la Motte never took place and that the Samson project with Voltaire came to nothing, because the librettists Rameau did work with were second-rate. He made the acquaintance of most of them at La Pouplinière's salon, at the Société du Caveau or at the house of the Comte de Livry, all meeting-places for leading cultural figures of the day.

Not one of his librettists managed to produce a libretto on the same artistic level as Rameau's music; the plots are often overly complex or unconvincing - but this was standard for the genre and is probably part of its charm. The versification too was mediocre and Rameau often had to have the libretto modified and rewrite the music after the premiere because of the ensuing criticism. This is why we have two versions of Castor et Pollux (1737 and 1752) and three of Dardanus (1739, 1744 and 1760).

[edit] Reputation and influence

By the end of his life Rameau's music had come under attack in France from theorists who favoured Italian models. However, foreign composers working in the Italian tradition were increasingly looking towards Rameau as a way of reforming their own leading operatic genre, opera seria. Tommaso Traetta produced two operas setting translations of Rameau libretti which show the French composer's influence: Ippolito ed Aricia (1759) and I Tintaridi (based on Castor et Pollux, 1760).[33] Traetta had been advised by Count Francesco Algarotti, a leading proponent of reform according to French models. Algarotti was a major influence on the most important "reformist" composer, Christoph Willibald von Gluck. Gluck's three Italian reform operas of the 1760s, Orfeo ed Euridice, Alceste and Paride ed Elena reveal a knowledge of Rameau's works. For instance, both Orfeo and the 1737 version of Castor et Pollux open with the funeral of one of the leading characters who later comes back to life.[34] Many of the operatic reforms advocated in the preface to Gluck's Alceste were already present in Rameau's works. Rameau had used accompanied recitative and the overture in his later operas reflected the action to come.[35] So when Gluck arrived in Paris in 1774 to produce a series of six French operas, he could be seen as continuing in the tradition of Rameau. Nevertheless, while Gluck's popularity survived the French Revolution, Rameau's did not. By the end of the 18th century his operas had vanished from the repertoire.[36]

For most of the 19th century Rameau's music remained unplayed, known only by reputation. Hector Berlioz investigated Castor et Pollux and particularly admired the aria "Tristes apprêts", but "whereas the modern listener readily perceives the common ground with Berlioz's music, he himself was more conscious of the gap which separated them".[37] French humiliation in the Franco-Prussian War brought about a change in Rameau's fortunes. As the Rameau biographer J.Malignon wrote: "...the German victory over France in 1870-71 was the grand occasion for digging up great heroes from the French past. Rameau, like so many others, was flung into the enemy's face to bolster our courage and our faith in the national destiny of France".[38] In 1894 composer Vincent d'Indy founded the Schola Cantorum to promote French national music. The society put on several revivals of works by Rameau. Among the audience was Claude Debussy, who especially cherished Castor et Pollux, 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." Camille Saint-Saëns (by editing and publishing the Pièces in 1895) and Paul Dukas were two other important French musicians who gave practical championship to Rameau's music in their day. But interest in Rameau petered out again and it was not until the late 20th century that a serious effort was made to revive his works. Over half of Rameau's operas have now been recorded, in particular by conductors such as John Eliot Gardiner, William Christie and Marc Minkowski.

[edit] Theoretical works

Title page of the Treatise on Harmony
Title page of the Treatise on Harmony

[edit] 1722 Treatise on Harmony

Rameau's 1722 Treatise on Harmony initiated a revolution in music theory.[39] Rameau posited the discovery of the "fundamental law" of all musical harmony and composition. Rameau's methodology incorporated mathematics, commentary, analysis and a didacticism that was specifically intended to illuminate the structure and principles of music composition scientifically. He attempted to derive universal harmonic principles from natural causes.[40] Previous treatises on harmony had been purely practical; Rameau added a philosophical dimension.[41] The composer quickly rose to prominence in France as the "Isaac Newton of Music."[42] His fame subsequently spread throughout all Europe, and his Treatise became the definitive authority on music theory; forming the foundation for instruction in western music which persists to this day.

[edit] List of works

RCT numbering refers to Rameau Catalogue Thématique established by Sylvie Bouissou and Denis Herlin. [43]

[edit] Instrumental works

  • Pièces de clavecin. Trois livres. "Pieces for harpsichord", 3 books, published 1706, 1724, 1726/27(?). Tambourin (help·info)
    • RCT 1 - Premier Livre de Clavecin (1706)
    • RCT 2 - Pièces de clavecin (1724) - Suite in E minor
    • RCT 3 - Pièces de clavecin (1724) - Suite in D major
    • RCT 4 - Pièces de clavecin (1724) - Menuet in C major
    • RCT 5 - Nouvelles suites de pièces de clavecin (1726/27) - Suite in A minor
    • RCT 6 - Nouvelles suites de pièces de clavecin (1726/27) - Suite in G minor
  • Pieces de Clavecin en Concerts Five albums of character pieces for harpsichord, violin and viol. (1741)
    • RCT 7 - Concert I in C minor
    • RCT 8 - Concert II in G major
    • RCT 9 - Concert III in A major
    • RCT 10 - Concert IV in B flat major
    • RCT 11 - Concert V in D minor
  • RCT 12 - La Dauphine for harpsichord. (1747)
  • RCT 12bis - Les petits marteaux for harpsichord.
  • Several orchestral dance suites extracted from his operas.

[edit] Motets

  • RCT 13 - Deus noster refugium (c.1713-1715)
  • RCT 14 - In convertendo (probably before 1720)
  • RCT 15 - Quam dilecta (c. 1713-1715)
  • RCT 16 - Laboravi (published in the Traité de l'harmonie, 1722)

[edit] Canons

  • RCT 17 - Ah! loin de rire, pleurons (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) (pub. 1722)
  • RCT 18 - Avec du vin, endormons-nous (2 sopranos, Tenor) (1719)
  • RCT 18bis - L'épouse entre deux draps (3 sopranos) (formerly attributed to François Couperin)
  • RCT 18ter - Je suis un fou Madame (3 voix égales) (1720)
  • RCT 19 - Mes chers amis, quittez vos rouges bords (3 sopranos, 3 basses) (pub. 1780)
  • RCT 20 - Réveillez-vous, dormeur sans fin (5 voix égales) (pub. 1722)
  • RCT 20bis - Si tu ne prends garde à toi (2 sopranos, bass) (1720)

[edit] Songs

  • RCT 21.1 - L'amante préoccupée or A l'objet que j'adore (soprano, continuo) (1763)
  • RCT 21.2 - Lucas, pour se gausser de nous (soprano, bass, continuo) (pub. 1707)
  • RCT 21.3 - Non, non, le dieu qui sait aimer (soprano, continuo) (1763)
  • RCT 21.4 - Un Bourbon ouvre sa carrière or Un héros ouvre sa carrière (alto, continuo) (1751, air belonging to Acante et Céphise but censored before its first performance and never reintroduced in the work).

[edit] Cantatas

  • RCT 23 - Aquilon et Orithie (between 1715 and 1720)[44]
  • RCT 28 - Thétis (same period)
  • RCT 26 - L’Impatience (same period)
  • RCT 22 - Les amants trahis (around 1720)
  • RCT 27 - Orphée (same period)
  • RCT 24 - Le berger fidèle (1728)
  • RCT 25 - Cantate pour le jour de la Saint Louis (1740)

[edit] Operas

[edit] Opéras comiques

  • RCT 36 - L'endriague (in 3 acts, 1723)
  • RCT 37 - L'enrôlement d'Arlequin (in 1 act, 1726)
  • RCT 55 - La robe de dissension or Le faux prodige (in 2 acts, 1726)
  • RCT 55bis - La Rose or Les jardins de l'Hymen (in a prologue and 1 act, 1744)

[edit] Tragédies en musique

[edit] Opéra-ballets

[edit] Pastorales héroïques

[edit] Comédies lyriques

[edit] Comédie-ballet

[edit] Actes de ballet

[edit] Lost works

See Lost operas by Jean-Philippe Rameau

  • RCT 56 - Samson (tragédie en musique) (partially performed in 1734)
  • RCT 46 - Linus (tragédie en musique) (1752, score stolen after a rehearsal)
  • RCT 47 - Lysis et Délie (pastorale) (scheduled on November 6th, 1753)

[edit] Writings

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

[edit] Media

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Beaussant p.21
  2. ^ Date of birth given by Chabanon in his Éloge de M. Rameau(1764)
  3. ^ New Grove p.207-208
  4. ^ Girdlestone p.3
  5. ^ Norbert Dufourcq, Le clavecin, p. 87
  6. ^ Girdlestone p.7
  7. ^ New Grove
  8. ^ New Grove p. 215
  9. ^ Girdlestone p.8
  10. ^ New Grove p.217
  11. ^ New Grove p. 219
  12. ^ Girdlestone, p.475
  13. ^ New Grove pp.221-223
  14. ^ New Grove pp.220
  15. ^ New Grove p.256
  16. ^ Beaussant p.18
  17. ^ New Grove pp.228-230
  18. ^ Girdlestone p.483
  19. ^ New Grove p.232
  20. ^ Viking p.830
  21. ^ New Grove pp.236-8
  22. ^ Quoted in Beaussant p.19
  23. ^ Viking p.846
  24. ^ New Grove p.240
  25. ^ Malignon p.16
  26. ^ Girdlestone p.513
  27. ^ Compare the inventories of François Couperin (one large harpsichord, three spinets and a portable organ) and Louis Marchand (three harpsichords and three spinets) after their deaths.
  28. ^ Girdlestone p.508
  29. ^ Apart from the pieces written for the Paris fairs, which haven‘t survived
  30. ^ Beaussant pp.340-43
  31. ^ According to the ballet master Gardel: “He divined what the dancers themselves did not know. We look upon him rightly as our first master.” Quoted by Girdlestone, p.563.
  32. ^ Girdlestone p.563
  33. ^ Viking pp.1110-11
  34. ^ Girdlestone pp.201-2
  35. ^ Girdlestone p.554
  36. ^ New Grove p.277
  37. ^ Hugh Macdonald The Master Musicians: Berlioz (1982) p.184
  38. ^ Quoted by Graham Sadler in "Vincent d'Indy and the Rameau Oeuvres complètes: a case of forgery?", Early Music, August 1993, p.418
  39. ^ Christensen, Thomas (2002). The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521623715.  p. 54
  40. ^ New Grove p.278
  41. ^ Girdlestone p.520
  42. ^ Christensen, Thomas (2002). The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521623715.  p. 759
  43. ^ Bouissou,S. and Herlin, D., Jean-Philippe Rameau : Catalogue thématique des œuvres musicales (T. 1, Musique instrumentale. Musique vocale religieuse et profane), CNRS Édition et Éditions de la BnF, Paris 2007
  44. ^ All dates from Beaussant p.83
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

[edit] Sources

  • Cuthbert Girdlestone Jean-Philippe Rameau: His Life and Work (Dover paperback edition, 1969)
  • The New Grove French Baroque Masters ed. Graham Sadler (Grove/Macmillan, 1988)
  • The Viking Opera Guide ed. Amanda Holden (Viking, 1993)
  • Rameau de A à Z Philippe Beaussant (Fayard, 1983)

[edit] External links

[edit] Sheet music