Jean-Phillipe Rameau's Controversy In The Concert Hall

!!!Controversy in the Concert Hall

Parisians in 1733 were taking sides, debating in the streets and coffee houses. Strident opinions were voiced. Friendships were ruined. Serious matters were at hand. Jean-Phillipe Rameau had premiered his first opera in Paris, and the audiences were sharply divided over one issue: Was Jean-Baptiste Lully still the epitome of French opera, or had the younger Rameau replaced him?

!!Rameau's Humble Beginnings
After Jean-Phillipe was born in September of 1683 in Dijon, France, there was very little about his early life to indicate the excitement he would cause in Paris years later. His father, Jean, was an organist, but Jean-Phillipe was not encouraged to pursue music. Instead, his parents hoped he would become

Lully's music demonstrated a refinement and restraint that appealed to audiences. When Rameau burst on the scene with his first opera, ''Hippolyte et Aricie'' audiences complained about ~'discordant music~' and ~'noisy instrumentation.~' His critics were not entirely wrong.; influenced by Italian opera, Rameau employed a large orchestra, especially for the __recitatives__. Recitatives are passages of music where the text moves rapidly in a style similar to speech. Traditionally, only a harpsichord and a handful of string instruments accompanied these

The influence of this new, completely integrated art form cannot be overestimated. One hundred years later, the titan opera composer Richard Wagner would look back to Rameau's work as he developed his own idea of __''Gesamtkunstwerk''__, the complete integration of music and drama.

!!Rameau's Legacy

Rameau continued to compose opera until near the end of his life, finishing more than twenty. Some of the more successful works include ''Pygmalion,'' ''Castor et Pollux,'' and ''Les Indes Galantes.'' By the 1750's new ideas were sweeping the musical world. Rameau found his music was considered old fashioned and out of favor as the classical era was ushered in by composers such as Stamitz and Pergolesi.[{Image src='les_indes_galantes.jpg' alt='A scene from the opera Les Indes Galantes' caption='A scene from a modern production of Les Indes Galantes'}]

Still, Rameau’s innovations in harmony, dissonance, melodic line, and above all, the idea that all arts should be integrated into a unified work, influenced composers for the next two centuries. He was revered by Gluck, Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, D'Indy, who were inspired by his