William Lincoln Christie (born December 19, 1944 in Buffalo, New York) is an American-born French conductor and harpsichordist. He is noted as a specialist in baroque repertoire and as the founder of the ensemble Les Arts Florissants.

Christie studied art history at Harvard University, where he was briefly assistant conductor of the Harvard Glee Club. From 1966, he began studies at Yale University in music, where he was a student of harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick. He was opposed to the Vietnam War, and served in a reserve officers course to avoid the draft. He subsequently taught at Dartmouth College, but after his Dartmouth post was not renewed, Christie moved to France in 1971.^[1] He was one of a number of young men who left the United States at this time because of disagreement with the Vietnam War, and in order to avoid the draft. In France, he became known for his interpretations of Baroque music, particularly French Baroque music, working with René Jacobs and others. He also performed contemporary music alongside baroque music with the Ensemble Five Centuries.^[1]

In 1979, Christie founded Les Arts Florissants, named after the opera of the same name by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, which was to be its first fully staged production. Major recognition came in 1986 with the production of Lully's Atys at the Opéra-Comique in Paris.^[1] Christie has also presented and recorded works by André Campra, François Couperin, Claudio Monteverdi and Jean-Philippe Rameau.^[2]

Christie was a professor at the Paris Conservatoire from 1982 to 1995, and maintains an active role in pedagogy by participating in master classes and academies. In 2002, he founded Le Jardin des Voix, a biennial academy for young singers in Caen.^[3] Since 2007, he has had an affiliation with the Juilliard School, providing master classes in historical performance practice.^[4]

Christie has expanded beyond his group's core French repertoire, performing Henry Purcell, George Frideric Handel, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He has been guest conductor at the Glyndebourne Festival, and productions for Zurich Opera and the Opera de Lyon. He has also conducted period-instrument performances with more modern ensembles such as the Berlin Philharmonic.^[5]

Christie took French citizenship in 1995.^[6] He was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1993, and is an Officer in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He was elected a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts on November 12, 2008, in the "Unattached members" section (Membres libres), at the seat formerly held by Marcel Marceau, Seat #1.^[7]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Les Arts Florissants
• Goldberg Magazine with full Discography
• William Christie at the Internet Movie Database

William Christie may refer to:

• William Christie (priest) (1816–1885), inaugural dean of the United Diocese of Moray, Ross, and Caithness
• William Christie (musician) (born 1944), American-born French conductor and harpsichordist
• William Christie (astronomer) (1845–1922), British astronomer
• William Christie (Ulster politician) (1913–2008), British politician
• William Mellis Christie (1829–1900), Scottish-born cookie company founder in Canada
• William Christie (Conservative politician) (1830–1913), British Member of Parliament for Lewes, 1874–1885
• William Christie (Unitarian) (1748–1823), Scottish Unitarian writer
• William Harvey Christie (1808–1873), British army officer and public servant
• William J. Christie, Canadian politician and Hudson's Bay Company employee
• William Dougal Christie, British Member of Parliament for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis

This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Stefano Landi

Stefano Landi (baptized 26 February 1587 – 28 October 1639) was an Italian composer and teacher of the early Baroque Roman School. He was an influential early composer of opera, and wrote the earliest opera on a historical subject: Sant'Alessio (1632).

Biography[link]

Landi was born in Rome, the capital of the Papal States.

In 1595 he joined the Collegio Germanico in Rome as a boy soprano, and he may have studied with Asprilio Pacelli. Landi took minor orders in 1599 and began studying at the Seminario Romano in 1602. He is mentioned in the Seminary's records as being the composer and director of a Carnival pastoral in 1607; and in 1611 his name appears as an organist and a singer, though he was already maestro di cappella at S Maria della Consolazione in 1614. Agostino Agazzari was maestro di cappella at the Seminario Romano, and he may have been one of Landi's teachers as well.

In 1618 he had moved to the north of Italy, and published a book of five-voice madrigals at Venice; apparently he had acquired a post as maestro di cappella at Padua. In addition he wrote his first opera in Padua, La morte d'Orfeo. Most likely it was used as part of the festivities for a wedding. His experience in Padua and Venice was essential for developing his style, since there he made contact with the work of the progressive Venetian School composers, whose music was generally avoided in conservative Rome.

In 1620 Landi returned to Rome, where he spent the rest of his life, where his patrons included successively the Borghese family, Cardinal Maurizio of Savoy, and the Barberini family, who were to be his major employers throughout the late 1620s and 1630s, though he joined the papal choir in 1629 on half-salary. It was for the Barberini family that he wrote the work for which he is most famous, Sant'Alessio, in 1632, which was used to open the Teatro delle Quattro Fontane. Throughout this period he was compositionally prolific, writing masses, arias, and responsories, mostly in the seconda pratica style of the early Baroque, a decision which was controversial with some of the more conservative musicians, who thought the prima pratica — the style of Palestrina — more appropriate for sacred music.

After about 1636 he began suffering ill-health, and he died at Rome in 1639 and was buried at Santa Maria in Vallicella.

Music and influence[link]

Curiously, Landi's secular music is more conservative than most of his sacred music, and his first book of madrigals, for five voices and basso continuo, is almost indistinguishable in style from many late 16th century collections, except for the basso continuo part. His other secular music consists of strophic airs, arias, and other songs for voice and basso continuo.

Landi's masses, of which there are only two, are in the simple, 16th century style encouraged (and sometimes demanded) by the Counter-Reformation. However he uses the Venetian concertato style for some of his motets, as well as his Magnificat and Vespers psalm settings, probably as a result of the years he spent in northern Italy.

By far his most famous composition, and one of the most significant operas of the early Baroque, is his setting of the life of fifth-century Saint Alexis, Il Sant'Alessio. Not only is it the first opera to be written on a historical subject, but it carefully describes the inner life of the saint, and attempts psychological characterization of a type new to opera. Most of the interspersed comic scenes, however, are anachronistically (and hilariously) drawn from contemporary life in 17th century Rome.

The part of Sant'Alessio himself is extremely high, and was meant to be sung by a castrato. At the initial performance, half of the singers were from the papal choir, and there were several soprano parts sung by other castrati. The accompanying orchestra is up-to-date, dispensing with the archaic viols and using violins, cellos, harps, lutes, theorbos, and harpsichords. The opera includes introductory canzonas which function as overtures; indeed they are the first overtures in the history of opera. Dances and comic sections mix with serious arias, recitatives, and even a madrigalian lament, for an overall dramatic variety which was extremely effective, as attested by the frequent performances of the opera at the time. Sant'Alessio was one of the first staged dramatic works successfully to mix both the monodic and polyphonic styles.

References and further reading[link]

• Margaret Murata: "Stefano Landi", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed January 9, 2005), Grove Music Online
• Manfred Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1947. ISBN 0-393-09745-5
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Donald Jay Grout, A Short History of Opera. New York, Columbia University Press, 1965. ISBN 0-231-02422-3
• F. Kennedy, The Musical Tradition at the Roman Seminary During the First Sixty Years (1564–1621), in Bellarmino e la Controriforma, Atti del simposio internazionale di studi, Sora 15-18 October 1986, pp. 629-660

External links[link]

• Free scores by Stefano Landi at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Stefano Landi in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)

Francesco Cavalli

Francesco Cavalli (14 February 1602 – 14 January 1676) was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. His real name was Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron Federico Cavalli, a Venetian nobleman.

Life[link]

Cavalli was born at Crema, Lombardy. He became a singer at St Mark's Basilica in Venice in 1616, second organist in 1639, first organist in 1665, and in 1668 maestro di cappella. He is chiefly remembered for his operas. He began to write for the stage in 1639 (Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo) soon after the first public opera house opened in Venice, the Teatro San Cassiano. He established so great a reputation that he was summoned to Paris from 1660 (he revived his opera Xerse) until 1662, producing his Ercole amante. He died in Venice at the age of 73.

Music and influence[link]

Cavalli was the most influential composer in the rising genre of public opera in mid-17th century Venice. Unlike Monteverdi's early operas, scored for the extravagant court orchestra of Mantua, Cavalli's operas make use of a small orchestra of strings and basso continuo to meet the limitations of public opera houses.

Cavalli introduced melodious arias into his music and popular types into his libretti. His operas have a remarkably strong sense of dramatic effect as well as a great musical facility, and a grotesque humour which was characteristic of Italian grand opera down to the death of Alessandro Scarlatti. Cavalli's operas provide the only example of a continuous musical development of a single composer in a single genre from the early to the late 17th century in Venice — only a few operas by others (e.g. Monteverdi and Antonio Cesti) survive. The development is particularly interesting to scholars because opera was still quite a new medium when Cavalli began working, and had matured into a popular public spectacle by the end of his career.

Cavalli wrote forty-one operas, twenty-seven of which are still extant, being preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Library of St Mark) in Venice. Copies of some of the operas also exist in other locations. In addition, two last operas (Coriolano and Masenzio), which are clearly attributed to him, are lost, as well as twelve other operas have been attributed to him, though the music is lost and attribution impossible to prove.

In addition to operas, Cavalli wrote settings of the Magnificat in the grand Venetian polychoral style, settings of the Marian antiphons, other sacred music in a more conservative manner – notably a Requiem Mass in eight parts (SSAATTBB), probably intended for his own funeral – and some instrumental music.

See also[link]

• Music of Venice

References and further reading[link]

• Bukofzer, Manfred, Music in the Baroque Era. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1947. ISBN 0-393-09745-5
• Glixon, Beth L. and Jonathan E., Inventing the Business of Opera: The Impresario and His World in Seventeenth-Century Venice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-19-515416-9
• Glover, Jane, Cavalli. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1978. ISBN 0-312-12546-1
• Rosand, Ellen, Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. ISBN 0-520-06808-4
• Selfridge-Field, Eleanor, Venetian Instrumental Music, from Gabrieli to Vivaldi. New York: Dover Publications, 1994. ISBN 0-486-28151-5
• Ross, Alex, "Unsung: Rediscovering the Operas of Francesco Cavalli." The New Yorker, May 25, 2009, pp. 84–85.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links[link]

• Free scores by Francesco Cavalli in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Rodrigo, Artaserse L. (9 March 2005). "Brief biography and discography" (in Italian). http://www.haendel.it/compositori/cavalli.htm. Retrieved 5 January 2009. 
• Free scores by Francesco Cavalli in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Free scores by Francesco Cavalli at the International Music Score Library Project

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

Jean-Philippe Rameau (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃filip ʁaˈmo]; September 25, 1683, Dijon – September 12, 1764) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era.^[1] He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François Couperin.^[2]

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 50 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.

Life[link]

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,^[3] which explains the scarcity of biographical information available.

Early years, 1683–1732[link]

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.^[4] 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. 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 pupil and disrupted classes with his singing, later claiming that his passion for opera had begun at the age of twelve.^[5] 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.^[6] 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.^[7] 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.^[8] In 1724 and 1729 (or 1730), he also published two more collections of harpsichord pieces.^[9] 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.^[10] 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.^[11] In spite of his fame as a music theorist, Rameau had trouble finding a post as an organist in Paris.^[12]

Later years, 1733–1764[link]

Bust of Rameau by Caffieri, 1760

It was not until he was approaching 50 that Rameau decided to embark on the operatic career on which his fame as a composer mainly rests. He had already approached writer Houdar de la Motte for a libretto in 1727, but nothing came 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 October 1, 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 Lullyistes and the Rameauneurs, fought a pamphlet war over the issue for the rest of the decade.^[13]

Just before this time, Rameau had made the acquaintance of 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.^[14] 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.^[15] 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.^[16] 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.^[17] 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 had a falling-out with the authorities at the Académie royale de la musique.^[18]

The year 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 Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain. 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.^[19] They gained Rameau official recognition; he was granted the title "Compositeur du Cabinet du Roi" and given a substantial pension.^[20] 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 was 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.^[21]

Rousseau was a major participant in the second great quarrel that 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.^[22] In the mid-1750s, Rameau criticised Rousseau's contributions to the musical articles in the Encyclopédie, which led to a quarrel with the leading philosophes d'Alembert and Diderot.^[23] 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 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 Johann Stamitz, who succeeded Rameau after a breach developed between Rameau and his patron; however, by then, 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 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."^[24]

Rameau composed prolifically in the late 1740s and early 1750s. After that, his rate of productivity dropped off, probably due to old age and ill health, although 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.^[25] Rameau died on September 12, 1764 after suffering from a fever. He was buried in the church of St. Eustache, Paris the following day.^[26]

Rameau's personality[link]

Portrait of Rameau by Carmontelle, 1760

While the details of his biography are vague and fragmentary, the details of Rameau's personal and family life are 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 his satirical novel 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."^[27] Physically, Rameau was tall and exceptionally thin,^[28] 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^[28]), who frequented La Pouplinière's salon; his music was his passport, and it made up for his lack of social graces.

His enemies exaggerated his faults; e.g. 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^[29] in his rooms in Rue des Bons-Enfants, yet he also had a bag containing 1691 gold louis.^[30]

Music[link]

General character of Rameau's music[link]

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 Lullyistes, 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 from 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 had been either unable or unwilling to render it correctly.

Rameau's musical works[link]

Rameau's musical works may be divided into four distinct groups,^[31] 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 that 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; e.g., 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.^[32]

Motets[link]

For at least 26 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 nonexistent. Judging by the evidence, it was not his favourite field, but rather, 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.^[33]

Cantatas[link]

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^[34] 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.^[35][36]

Instrumental music[link]

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.

Rameau and Couperin have very different styles 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). 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 that resemble Scarlatti ("Les tourbillons," "Les trois mains") as well as pieces that 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 semiretirement 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 has 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.^[37][38]

Opera[link]

From 1733, Rameau dedicated himself almost exclusively to opera. 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 that arises from the respective relationships between the arias and the recitatives. Another essential difference: whereas Italian opera gave a starring role to female sopranos and castrati, French opera had no use for the latter. The Italian opera of Rameau's day (opera seria, opera buffa) was essentially divided into musical sections (da capo arias, duets, trios, etc.) and sections that 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—limiting certain techniques such as the vocalise, which was reserved for special words such as "gloire" ("glory") or "victoire" ("victory"). A subtle equilibrium existed between the more and the less musical parts: melodic recitative on the one hand and arias that 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 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, that of Pigmalion, suggesting the sculptor's chipping away at the statue with his mallet, or many more conventional depictions of storms and earthquakes, as well perhaps as 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.^[39] This "learned" composer, forever preoccupied by his next theoretical work, also was one who 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:

• 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 feelings needed to be expressed.
• Arias: less frequent than in Italian opera, Rameau nevertheless 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; and the final ariette in Pigmalion. In Platée we encounter a showstopping arspoetic aria for the character of La Folie (the madness), "Formons les plus brillants concerts / Aux langeurs d'Apollon".
• 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 (1733–39), Rameau wrote his great masterpieces destined for the Académie royale de musique: three tragédies en musique and two opéra-ballets that 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.

His Zoroastre was first performed in 1749. According to one of Rameau's admirers, Cuthbert Girdlestone, this opera has a distinctive place in his works: "The profane passions of hatred and jealousy are rendered more intensely [than in his other works] and with a strong sense of reality."

Rameau and his librettists[link]

Unlike Lully, who collaborated with Philippe Quinault on almost all his operas, Rameau rarely worked with the same librettist twice. He was highly demanding and bad-tempered, unable to maintain longstanding partnerships with his librettists, with the exception of Louis de Cahusac, who collaborated with him on several operas, including Les fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour (1747), Zaïs (1748), Naïs (1749), Zoroastre (1749; revised 1756), La naissance d'Osiris (1754), and Anacréon (the first of Rameau's operas by that name, 1754). He is also credited with writing the libretto of Rameau's final work, Les Boréades (c. 1763).

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 his 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 were 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 1754) and three of Dardanus (1739, 1744, and 1760).

Reputation and influence[link]

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 that show the French composer's influence, Ippolito ed Aricia (1759) and I Tintaridi (based on Castor et Pollux, 1760).^[41] 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.^[42] Many of the operatic reforms advocated in the preface to Gluck's Alceste were already present in Rameau's works. Rameau had used accompanied recitatives, and the overtures in his later operas reflected the action to come,^[43] 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.^[44]

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' music, he himself was more conscious of the gap which separated them."^[45] French humiliation in the Franco-Prussian War brought about a change in Rameau's fortunes. As 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."^[46] 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, 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.

Theoretical works[link]

Title page of the Treatise on Harmony

[edit] Treatise on Harmony, 1722

Rameau's 1722 Treatise on Harmony initiated a revolution in music theory.^[47] Rameau posited the discovery of the "fundamental law" or what he referred to as the "fundamental bass" of all Western music. Rameau's methodology incorporated mathematics, commentary, analysis and a didacticism that was specifically intended to illuminate, scientifically, the structure and principles of music. He attempted to derive universal harmonic principles from natural causes.^[48] Previous treatises on harmony had been purely practical; Rameau added a philosophical dimension,^[49] and the composer quickly rose to prominence in France as the "Isaac Newton of Music."^[50] 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 that persists to this day.

List of works[link]

RCT numbering refers to Rameau Catalogue Thématique established by Sylvie Bouissou and Denis Herlin.^[51]

Instrumental works[link]

• 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.

Motets[link]

• 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)

Canons[link]

• 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)

Songs[link]

• 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).

Cantatas[link]

• RCT 23 – Aquilon et Orithie (between 1715 and 1720)^[52]
• 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)

Operas and stage works[link]

[edit] Tragédies en musique

• RCT 43 – Hippolyte et Aricie (1733; revised 1742)
• RCT 32 – Castor et Pollux (1737; revised 1754)
• RCT 35 – Dardanus (1739; revised 1744 and 1760), score
• RCT 62 – Zoroastre (1749; revised 1756, with new music for Acts II, III & V)
• RCT 31 – Les Boréades or Abaris (unperformed; in rehearsal 1763)

[edit] Opéra-ballets

• RCT 44 – Les Indes galantes (1735; revised 1736)
• RCT 41 – Les fêtes d'Hébé or les Talens Lyriques (1739)
• RCT 39 – Les fêtes de Polymnie (1745)
• RCT 59 – Le temple de la gloire (1745; revised 1746)
• RCT 38 – Les fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour or Les Dieux d'Egypte (1747)
• RCT 58 – Les surprises de l'Amour (1748; revised 1757)

[edit] Pastorales héroïques

• RCT 60 – Zaïs (1748)
• RCT 49 – Naïs (1749)
• RCT 29 – Acante et Céphise or La sympathie (1751)
• RCT 34 – Daphnis et Eglé (1753)

[edit] Comédies lyriques

• RCT 53 – Platée or Junon jalouse (1745), score
• RCT 51 – Les Paladins or Le Vénitien (1760)

[edit] Comédie-ballet

• RCT 54 – La princesse de Navarre (1744)

[edit] Actes de ballet

• RCT 33 – Les courses de Tempé (1734)
• RCT 40 – Les fêtes de Ramire (1745)
• RCT 52 – Pigmalion (1748)
• RCT 42 – La guirlande or Les fleurs enchantées (1751)
• RCT 57 – Les sibarites or Sibaris (1753)
• RCT 48 – La naissance d'Osiris or La Fête Pamilie (1754)
• RCT 30 – Anacréon (1754)
• RCT 58 – Anacréon (completely different work from the above, 1757, 3rd Entrée of Les surprises de l'Amour)
• RCT 61 – Zéphire (date unknown)
• RCT 50 – Nélée et Myrthis (date unknown)
• RCT 45 – Io (unfinished, date unknown)

Lost works[link]

• 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 6, 1753)

[edit] Incidental music for opéras comiques

Music mostly lost.

• 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)

Writings[link]

• Traité de l’harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels (Paris, 1722)
• Nouveau système de musique théorique (Paris, 1726)
• Dissertation sur les différents méthodes d'accompagnement pour le clavecin, ou pour l'orgue (Paris, 1732)
• Génération harmonique, ou Traité de musique théorique et pratique (Paris, 1737)
• Mémoire où l'on expose les fondemens du Système de musique théorique et pratique de M. Rameau (1749)
• Démonstration du principe de l'harmonie (Paris, 1750)
• Nouvelles réflexions de M. Rameau sur sa 'Démonstration du principe de l'harmonie' (Paris, 1752)
• Observations sur notre instinct pour la musique (Paris, 1754)
• Erreurs sur la musique dans l'Encyclopédie (Paris, 1755)
• Suite des erreurs sur la musique dans l'Encyclopédie (Paris, 1756)
• Reponse de M. Rameau à MM. les editeurs de l'Encyclopédie sur leur dernier Avertissement (Paris, 1757)
• Nouvelles réflexions sur le principe sonore (1758–9)
• Code de musique pratique, ou Méthodes pour apprendre la musique...avec des nouvelles réflexions sur le principe sonore (Paris, 1760)
• Lettre à M. Alembert sur ses opinions en musique (Paris, 1760)
• Origine des sciences, suivie d'un controverse sur le même sujet (Paris, 1762)

Media[link]

	Philippe Rameau – Gavotte and Variations Philippe Rameau – Gavotte and Variations (1) Philippe Rameau – Gavotte and Variations (2) Philippe Rameau – Gavotte and Variations (3) Philippe Rameau – Gavotte and Variations (4) Philippe Rameau – Gavotte and Variations (5) Philippe Rameau – Gavotte and Variations (6)
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

See also[link]

• Querelle des Bouffons

Notes[link]

Sources[link]

• 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)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jean-Philippe Rameau

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jean-Philippe Rameau

• (en) Gavotte with Doubles Hypermedia by Jeff Hall & Tim Smith at the BinAural Collaborative Hypertext – Shockwave Player required
• (en) jp.rameau.free.fr Rameau – Le Site
• (fr) musicologie.org Biography, List of Works, bibliography, discography, theoretical writings, in French
• (en) Jean-Philippe Rameau / Discography
• Magnatune Les Cyclopes by Rameau in on-line mp3 format (played by Trevor Pinnock)
• Jean-Philippe Rameau at Find a Grave
• [1] Jean-Philippe Rameau, "L'Orchestre de Louis XV" - Suites d'Orchestre, Le Concert des Nations, dir. Jordi Savall, Alia Vox, AVSA 9882

Sheet music[link]

• Free scores by Jean-Philippe Rameau at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Jean-Philippe Rameau in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by Jean-Philippe Rameau in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Rameau free sheet music from the Mutopia Project