Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)

[jayne lee wilson]

What do Rameau-lovers find in Rameau that is so distinctive? (There's definitely something....)
From - say, Telemann, various Bachs, Heinichen, Lully, Zelenka....

What musical (or other) qualities keep drawing us back....?

[Richard Barrett]

What do Rameau-lovers find in Rameau that is so distinctive? (There's definitely something....)
From - say, Telemann, various Bachs, Heinichen, Lully, Zelenka....

What musical (or other) qualities keep drawing us back....?

See my #17 for a few words in that direction.

[MickyD]

For me, there is something very other-worldly about Rameau. The extraordinary harmonies and instrumental colours he uses are on a totally different plane to anyone else. I'm no musician so can't be any more technical than that. To me, he is simply enchanting.

[Richard Barrett]

I've been listening to a lot of Rameau in the last few days, having visited a few pieces for the first time and revisited a few others, some more and some less familiar. My previous opinion, that the masterpieces of the first order are Castor, Dardanus, Les Boréades, Les Indes galantes, Zaïs and Zoroastre, with Les Paladins, Les fêtes d'Hébé and Platée not too far behind, hasn't been seriously challenged, although I am going to have to find more space for Temple de la Gloire and Les Surprises de l'Amour, and maybe others. Admirers of Rameau might wonder why Hippolyte et Aricie isn't mentioned, but strangely that work has never really got through to me.

[oddoneout]

For me, there is something very other-worldly about Rameau. The extraordinary harmonies and instrumental colours he uses are on a totally different plane to anyone else. I'm no musician so can't be any more technical than that. To me, he is simply enchanting.

I agree;'fey' was the word that came to my mind but I gather that has now acquired other meanings which are not what I'm thinking of, elusiveness might be better. The other thing that came to mind was the difference between watercolour and oils where the subject is identical but the outcome so very different.

[edashtav]

What do Rameau-lovers find in Rameau that is so distinctive? (There's definitely something....)
From - say, Telemann, various Bachs, Heinichen, Lully, Zelenka....

What musical (or other) qualities keep drawing us back....?

His mastery, his originality, his command of colour, line and rhythm and his constant willingness to surprise.

plus... much of his music was unavailable when many of us were young... it remains fresh, and... interpretations are yet to be set in the yellowing aspic of tradition.

[MickyD]

I've been listening to a lot of Rameau in the last few days, having visited a few pieces for the first time and revisited a few others, some more and some less familiar. My previous opinion, that the masterpieces of the first order are Castor, Dardanus, Les Boréades, Les Indes galantes, Zaïs and Zoroastre, with Les Paladins, Les fêtes d'Hébé and Platée not too far behind, hasn't been seriously challenged, although I am going to have to find more space for Temple de la Gloire and Les Surprises de l'Amour, and maybe others. Admirers of Rameau might wonder why Hippolyte et Aricie isn't mentioned, but strangely that work has never really got through to me.

I have come to the same conclusion about "Castor"...probably at the top of my list, too. It is full of such wonderful things. I am particularly fond of the Charles Farncombe recording on Erato. I would, however, put "Les Fêtes d'Hébé" higher up the list - I know that there is not much substance to the work, but I find the dreamy, pastoral sections so irresistible. As for "Hippolyte", that is high in my affections, too, probably because the selection of dances recorded by La Petite Bande was the first Rameau LP I ever heard.

[kernelbogey]

I'm reviving this January 2019 thread on Rameau, the last COTW thread I have found, to encourage comments on the current COTW (and have removed the original broadcast dates from the thread title).

[kernelbogey]

What do Rameau-lovers find in Rameau that is so distinctive? (There's definitely something....)
From - say, Telemann, various Bachs, Heinichen, Lully, Zelenka....

What musical (or other) qualities keep drawing us back....?

I've come relatively recently to Rameau, and am enjoying the programmes this week. There is an energy in the rhythms and harmonies of his music for the stage which is in quite a different dimension from JS Bach, Telemann and others.

But this energy has something of the qualities I hear in CPE Bach, as though, with both, a pre-romantic force is trying to burst through the constraints of the Enlightenment.

[richardfinegold]

I've come relatively recently to Rameau, and am enjoying the programmes this week. There is an energy in the rhythms and harmonies of his music for the stage which is in quite a different dimension from JS Bach, Telemann and others.

But this energy has something of the qualities I hear in CPE Bach, as though, with both, a pre-romantic force is trying to burst through the constraints of the Enlightenment.

I’ve been listening to Rameau for a few decades and I thought of him as (French) High Baroque, not as a Classicist. His music can be extremely pictatorial —think of the hen clucking bit—and prone to great passion. A French Vivaldi

[RichardB]

I think an important point to remember about Rameau's music is its connection with dance. While the well-known composers of his time in other countries often wrote instrumental pieces inspired by dance forms, with Rameau's stage music (which also supplies material for much of his keyboard music) it was actually written to be danced, and thus, at least for me, it has the quality of evoking movement. Part of this evocation is through the medium of instrumental colour, something inherited by subsequent generations of French composers: Berlioz, Debussy, Ravel...

[richardfinegold]

I think an important point to remember about Rameau's music is its connection with dance. While the well-known composers of his time in other countries often wrote instrumental pieces inspired by dance forms, with Rameau's stage music (which also supplies material for much of his keyboard music) it was actually written to be danced, and thus, at least for me, it has the quality of evoking movement. Part of this evocation is through the medium of instrumental colour, something inherited by subsequent generations of French composers: Berlioz, Debussy, Ravel...

Have you heard the album by Pianist Vikingur Olaffson, which pairs and alternate music of Rameau and Debussy?

[RichardB]

Have you heard the album by Pianist Vikingur Olaffson, which pairs and alternate music of Rameau and Debussy?

No I haven't, but in general I don't much like Rameau on the piano. The connection with Debussy is clear enough anyway - and part of it consists in the way they both work so intimately with the sonic potential of their respective instruments. Debussy is always going to sound better-written for piano than Rameau (or indeed very many others who did write for piano!).

[Ein Heldenleben]

I think an important point to remember about Rameau's music is its connection with dance. While the well-known composers of his time in other countries often wrote instrumental pieces inspired by dance forms, with Rameau's stage music (which also supplies material for much of his keyboard music) it was actually written to be danced, and thus, at least for me, it has the quality of evoking movement. Part of this evocation is through the medium of instrumental colour, something inherited by subsequent generations of French composers: Berlioz, Debussy, Ravel...

He’s got an interesting harmonic palette though hasn’t he ? I thought the Hippolyte opera extract on Monday contained some of the most intensely expressive early (ish) vocal music I’ve heard outside Monteverdi. I wonder why it’s so rarely performed - static stage action ? Plot ?

[RichardB]

He’s got an interesting harmonic palette though hasn’t he ?

He certainly has. In 1722, that is to say before any of his stage works, he published a Traité de l'harmonie which puts it all in a theoretical context by trying to derive tonal harmony from the natural harmonic series.