Jean-Philippe Rameau
Born 1683 Died 1764 Though he was no judge of librettos, he raised the musical side of opera to a new level and in his ballets introduced many novel descriptive effects – the French loved these – such as the earthquake in Les Indes galantes . Although revered as being among the most influential and important French composers of the 18th century, little of Rameau ’s music is heard today. Yet his theories on music continue to exert an influence. He had a strangely disjointed career. At seven he could sight-read anything put in front of him on the harpsichord (his father was an organist) and, for the first 40 years of his career, he was merely a provincial organist, moving around from Avignon to Clermont-Ferrand to Paris, Dijon, Lyon and back to Clermont again. In 1722 he returned to Paris and published a controversial and revolutionary textbook on harmony ( Traité de l’harmonie ) which, with his reputation as one of the country’s leading organists, helped make his name. Then he c...