Olivier Cayatte
New member
Hello
I would like to introduce my favourite composer to you.
Jean-Philippe Rameau (September 25, 1683 - September 12, 1764) is one of the most important French composers (with Debussy and Berlioz). He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera.
It wasn't until he reached his 40s that Rameau achieved prominence in the field of composition, but by the death of Couperin in 1733 he was arguably the leading French composer of the time. From then on he devoted himself primarily to opera.
He wrote about 25 operas. The most famous are Hippolyte et Aricie, Les Indes Galantes, Castor et Pollux, Dardanus, Platée et Les Boréades.
My favourite opera is Les Boréades, his last creation. Rameau reserved for this work some of his most beguiling music : the brief, voluptuous love-duet in Act V, which would surely have found approval with Debussy, and above all the Entrée de Polymnie (Act IV, Scene 4) perhaps the most melting and gravely sensual writing for orchestra to emerge from the entire Baroque era. His music sounds very modern : new thematic devices are called into play - terse and fragmentary to suggest sighs or gusts of wind (as in the Webern-like prelude to Act V).
He is 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).
He composed also many harpsichord pieces. Some are very famous like La Poule, Les Sauvages, Gavotte et six doubles and Tambourin .
Hope you will enjoy listening his music.
Olivier
Jean-Philippe Rameau / Discographie
I would like to introduce my favourite composer to you.
Jean-Philippe Rameau (September 25, 1683 - September 12, 1764) is one of the most important French composers (with Debussy and Berlioz). He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera.
It wasn't until he reached his 40s that Rameau achieved prominence in the field of composition, but by the death of Couperin in 1733 he was arguably the leading French composer of the time. From then on he devoted himself primarily to opera.
He wrote about 25 operas. The most famous are Hippolyte et Aricie, Les Indes Galantes, Castor et Pollux, Dardanus, Platée et Les Boréades.
My favourite opera is Les Boréades, his last creation. Rameau reserved for this work some of his most beguiling music : the brief, voluptuous love-duet in Act V, which would surely have found approval with Debussy, and above all the Entrée de Polymnie (Act IV, Scene 4) perhaps the most melting and gravely sensual writing for orchestra to emerge from the entire Baroque era. His music sounds very modern : new thematic devices are called into play - terse and fragmentary to suggest sighs or gusts of wind (as in the Webern-like prelude to Act V).
He is 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).
He composed also many harpsichord pieces. Some are very famous like La Poule, Les Sauvages, Gavotte et six doubles and Tambourin .
Hope you will enjoy listening his music.
Olivier
Jean-Philippe Rameau / Discographie
