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Composer of the Month: |
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In the month of March you'll hear works by Rameau in the programme Composer of the Month on the Concertzender.The French composer Jean-Phillippe Rameau was born on 25th September 1683 as the seventh of eleven children in Dijon. His father Jean Rameau was the organist at several churches in Dijon and his mother Claudine de Martinécourt was of noble birth. He received his first music lessons from his father. Because of poor grades he had to leave the Jesuit college he was attending. At eighteen he left for Italy but got no further than Milan. In 1702 Rameau became organist
of the cathedral of Avignon and in Clermont-Ferrand. In 1706 he moved
to Paris, where he worked with Louis Marchand. In Paris he published
his Pièces de clavecin which gave a clear view of his
opinions about keyboard music. Until 1709 he was organist of several
churches in Paris and that year was his father's successor in Dijon.
Until 1722 he was organist in several cities such as Lyon and
Clermont-Ferrand. In this period Rameau composed most of his secualr
and religious choral music, including the grand motets on the occasion of the Peace of Utrecht in 1713. In 1722 Rameau moved definitively to Paris and published the Traité de l’harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels. This important and influential work made him immediately famous. In 1726 he published the additional Nouveau Système de musique theorique establishing the basis of modern music theory for chords and harmony. He established with the l’accord tonique the tonic for the three part chords on which classical music is based. On 25th February 1726 he married the 23 years younger Marie-Louise Mangot, daughter of a ballerina and a royal symphonist’. She was a good singer and sung in her husband's operas. They had two sons and two daughters. The première of the opera Hippolyte et Aricie in 1733 was a turning point in Rameau’s life. He managed to combine the form of the ‘Tragédie en musique’ of Jean-Baptiste Lully, at the same time shifting the focus of the treatment of recitatives to performing vocal solo parts, ensembles and instrumental showpieces. He met Alexandre Le Riche de la Pouplinière who became his maecenas . Until 1760 Rameau published five more musical theory works, in which he covered the development of the higher scales. In the so-called buffonist war between 1752 tot 1754 there was a major break in Rameau’s opera career. His foremost opponent was Jean-Jacques Rousseau who in his Lettre sur la musique française attacked French music. Le Riche de la Pouplinière chose Rousseau's side and dropped Rameau . The last years of his life he worked with the Dance theorist and librettist Louis de Cahusac. Rameau was above all an opera composer and wrote about 35 works for the stage. His ballets were warmly received. He died in Paris on 12th September 1764 . Composer of the Month: Jean-Philippe Rameau:
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