Definitive, full-scale biography and critical study of great 18th-century composer. Rameau's life and times, influence on Gluck, acoustic and harmonic theories, other topics, plus full treatment of great operas and ballets. Over 300 musical examples.

This book is the most authoritative and up-to-date source of quick reference on the Baroque composer and theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), covering every significant area of his life and creative activity. In particular, the dictionary and work-list provide the reader with easy access to a wealth of cross-referenced material. The dictionary highlights recent discoveries and developments, and corrects a number of errors and misunderstandings. It includes entries on institutions, places, individuals, genres, instruments, technical terms, iconography, editions, specific works and publications, and caters for the fact that some users will be at least as interested in Rameau's theoretical writings as in his life and music. Performers too are well served by the range of entries, many of which illuminate aspects of Rameau's notation and performance practice that can prove puzzling to the non-specialist. The biographical chapter not only provides relevant factual information but also draws attention to significant patterns in Rameau's life and work. This book counters the widespread perception of the composer as a dry, irascible, unsociable individual, revealing him in a far more sympathetic light by giving due weight to hitherto little-known information. GRAHAM SADLER is Professor Emeritus at the University of Hull, Research Professor at Birmingham Conservatoire and Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. He is known internationally as an authority on French music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

"Definitive full-scale biography and critical study of great 18th-century composer Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764). Full chapter treatments of great operas and ballets as well as his chamber music, cantatas and motets, and minor works. Rameau's life and musical times, acoustic and harmonic theories, link to Lully, influence on Gluck and other interesting topics are also included. Numerous useful appendixes, indexes and an extensive bibliography. Over 300 musical examples"--Provided by publisher.

"Ranging widely over the musical and intellectual thought of the eighteenth century, Thomas Christensen orients Rameau's accomplishments in the light of contemporaneous traditions of music theory as well as many of the scientific ideas current in the French Enlightenment. Rameau is revealed to be an unsuspectedly syncretic and sophisticated thinker, betraying influences ranging from neoplatonic thought and Cartesian mechanistic metaphysics to Locke's empirical psychology and Newtonian experimental science. Additional primary documents and manuscripts (many revealed here for the first time) help clarify Rameau's fascinating and stormy relationship with the Encyclopedists: Diderot, Rousseau, and d'Alembert." "This book will be of value to all music theorists concerned with the foundations of harmonic tonality and it should also be of interest to scholars of eighteenth-century science, the Enlightenment, and the general history of ideas."--BOOK JACKET.

Music Theory operates with a number of fundamental terms that are rarely explored in detail. This book offers in-depth reflections on key concepts from a range of philosophical and critical approaches that reflect the diversity of the contemporary music theory landscape.