Rameau, Jean-Philippe

Rameau, Jean-Philippe

(baptized Sept. 25, 1683, Dijon, France—died Sept. 12, 1764, Paris) French composer and music theorist. Son of an organist, he held organist posts until he was 49. His Treatise on Harmony (1722) established him as a major music theorist. In it he asserted that harmony is the basis of music, and that chords, which had been understood principally as collections of intervals above a bass, should instead be seen as representing inversions of more fundamental harmonic entities. From 1733 he wrote a series of highly successful operas, including Hippolyte et Aricie (1733) and The Gallant Indies (1735), assuring his place as the most important French opera composer since Jean-Baptiste Lully. In the querelles des bouffons (“war of the buffoons,” 1752–53), a famous artistic controversy about the relative merits of French and Italian opera, Rameau's music exemplified the French style. He also won renown for his many keyboard pieces, mostly composed for harpsichord.

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Rameau, Jean-Philippe 

Baptized Sept. 25, 1683, in Dijon; died Sept. 12, 1764, in Paris. French composer and music theoretician.

The son of an organist, Rameau served as an organist in various churches until 1738. In 1723 he moved to Paris, where he became a court composer in 1745. He wrote 48 miniatures for harpsichord (three collections published in 1706, 1724, and c. 1728), including program pieces and dances (for example, the allemande, courante, gigue, sarabande, tambourin, rigaudon, gavotte, and minuet), in which he emphasized and at the same time poeticized the dance element. Although he followed the traditions of the French harpsichord style associated with F. Couperin, Rameau also endeavored to go beyond chamber music and develop a more ornamental style.

Despite his dependence on the conventions of French aristocratic court opera, in his works for the stage Rameau endeavored to deepen dramatic expressiveness, intensify the action, and clarify and democratize the musical language (for example, the lyric tragedies Hippolyte et Aricie [1733], Castor et Pollux [1737], and Dardanus [1739], as well as the opera-ballet Les Indes galantes [1735]). By integrally combining the achievements of French and Italian music, Rameau contributed to the crystallization of the classical musical style and, to a significant degree, laid the foundation for C. W. Gluck’s operatic reforms.

Rameau also composed cantatas, motets, and instrumental ensemble works. He was an important scholar, whose theoretical works (including the Treatise on Harmony, 1722) represent a significant stage in the development of the theory of harmony.

WORKS

Oeuvres completes, vols. 1–18. Published under the direction of C. Saint-Saëns. Paris, 1895–1924. (Incomplete.)

REFERENCES

Briantseva, V. “Zh. F. Ramo i ego klavesinnoe tvorchestvo.” In J.-P. Rameau, Poh. sobr. soch dlia klavesina. Moscow, 1972.
Girdlestone, C. Jean Philippe Rameau: His Life and Work. London, 1957.

V. N. BRIANTSEVA