Jean-Philippe Rameau

“ Rameau consented with an ill grace, incessantly repeating that the composition of a man not regularly bred to the science, and who had learned music without a master, must certainly be very fine! I hastened to copy into parts five or six select passages. Ten symphonies were procured, and Albert, Berard, and Mademoiselle Bourbonois undertook the vocal part. Remeau, the moment he heard the overture, was purposely extravagant in his eulogium, by which he intended it should be understood it could not be my composition. ”

“ Any part of their works which pointed to the influence of the opera seria, as it was being formed in the Neapolitan school, was rejected by the national vanity. 6
Jean Phil. Rameau (1683-1764) came to Paris from the provinces as an established musician in 1721. He succeeded by his force of character, and the powerful protection of the Farmer-General, La Popelinière, in placing his operas on a level with those of Lully in the public estimation. When he produced his "Hippolyte et Aricie" in 1732, he was met by the most determined opposition on the part of Lully's supporters ”

“ Removing to Paris, he published "Modern System" (1726) ; "Harmonic Generation" (1737) , and "Modern Reflections" (1752) . In 1733, at the mature age of 50, he produced his first opera, "Hippolyte and Aricie," the libretto of which was written by the Abbé Pellegrin. It created a great sensation. Rameau's best opera was "Castor and Pollux," produced at the Académie Royale de Musique in 1737. Between 1733 and 1760 he composed 21 operas and ballets, as well as numerous harpsichord pieces. ”

“ In temperament as in brain, Rameau belongs to another period. He is a bourgeois of the old school, positive and severe, of Cartesian education, the very last man to run after sentimental will o' the wisps and idyllic illusions. In that lofty and firm soul there is no nook for pastorals. But he is a very great artist with a quick and piercing eye, quick at probing the meaning of what lies around him, seizing passionately its appeal and grace, transforming it into rich material for his art, and appreciating it rather with the heart than the intellect. ”

“ Rameau then, seeking to drape himself in majesty,—as the aristocrats of journalism in a city wherein no other aristocracy is recognised naturally and commendably do, when ignorance combined with physical strength asserts itself to be a power, beside which the power of knowledge is what a learned poodle is to a tiger— Rameau then descended from his coupe, and said to this Titan of labour, as a French marquis might have said to his valet, and as, when the French marquis has become a ghost of the past, the man who keeps a coupe says to the man who mends its wheels, "Honest fellow, I trust you." ”

“ He is barely alive. These riches you speak about are imaginary. We have fields, cattle, a schooner; take them for the Republic, but, monsieur, my father has injured no one."
Petithomme Laguerre reseated himself in the hammock and swung himself idly, his bare soles scuffing the hard earthen floor; he continued to eye Pierrine.
Now that young Rameau had brought himself to beg, he fell to his knees and went on: "I swear to you that we are not traitors. Never have we spoken against the government. We are 'colored,' yes, but the black people love us. ”

“ Rameau is not worthless; he has beauty and youth and talent. My wife thinks more highly of him than I do; but I must respect a man who has found admirers so sincere as to set him up in a journal, and give him carte blanche for terms to contributors. I know of no man in Paris more valuable to me. His worth to me this morning is thirty thousand francs. I own I do not think him likely to be a very safe husband; but then French female authors and artists seldom take any husbands except upon short leases. There are no vulgar connubial prejudices in the pure atmosphere of art. ”

“ Like all truly great artists Rameau has both. He draws from the same source his double superiority in delicate expression and in the vigorous inspirations of eloquence. If anyone ever knew how to put energy into music, it is he. He has no equal for feats of conciseness and strength, for the sudden frankness and overwhelming bursts of melodic spate. ”

“ All people have thorns in their path, and I have no great respect for those who want lookers-on to heed them whenever they are scratched. But M. Rameau seems to me one of those writers very common nowadays, in France and even in England; writers who have never read anything worth studying, and are, of course, presumptuous in proportion to their ignorance. ”

“ The mere titles of these works are a proof of the research and invention which Rameau brought to bear on the theory of music; but what was most remarkable in his case is that he succeeded in lines which are generally opposed to each other, and throughout life occupied the first rank not only as a theorist, but as a player and composer. Just when his 'Traité de l'Harmonie' was beginning to attract attention he arranged to make music for the little pieces which his fellow-countryman, Alexis Piron, was writing for the Théâtre de la Foire, and accordingly, on Feb. ”

“ There is a sort of instinctive freemasonry among us, including masters and disciples; and one art has a fellowship with other arts. Mine is but song and music, yet I feel attracted towards a sculptor, a painter, a romance-writer, a poet, as much as towards a singer, a musician. Do you understand why I cannot contemn M. Rameau as you do? I differ from his tastes in literature; I do not much admire such of his writings as I have read; I grant that he overestimates his own genius, whatever that be,—yet I like to converse with him. ”

“ We have said enough to prove that Rameau was a composer of real invention and originality. His declamation was not always so just as that of Lully; his airs have not the same grace, and are occasionally marred by eccentricity and harshness, and disfigured by roulades in doubtful taste; but when inspired by his subject Rameau found appropriate expression for all sentiments, whether simple or pathetic, passionate, dramatic, or heroic. His best operas contain beauties which defy the caprices of fashion, and will command the respect of true artists for all time. ”

“ Celebrities are of rapid growth in the salons of Paris. Gustave Rameau has gained the position for which he sighed. The journal he edits has increased its hold on the public, and his share of the profits has been liberally augmented by the secret proprietor. Rameau is acknowledged as a power in literary circles. And as critics belonging to the same clique praise each other in Paris, whatever they may do in communities more rigidly virtuous, his poetry has been declared by authorities in the press to be superior to that of Alfred de Musset in vigour—to that of Victor Hugo in refinement ”

“ The meetings of that Council had been so long suspended that Rameau had almost forgotten its existence. He gave orders to admit the conspirators. The two men entered, the Pole, tall, stalwart, and with martial stride—the Italian, small, emaciated, with skulking, noiseless, cat-like step, both looking wondrous threadbare, and in that state called "shabby genteel," which belongs to the man who cannot work for his livelihood, and assumes a superiority over the man who can. ”

“ The great masters, on the other hand, in their strength, have always gloried in striking them, without petty precautions or beating about the bush—striking them again and again through long passages, in conformity with the robust decision and majestic gait of their thought. No one, not even the author of the Heroic Symphony and the Symphony in C Minor, has put more energy than Rameau into this familiar and superb handling of what might be called the fundamentals of the world of sound. ”

“ As the favourite music-master among ladies of rank, and organist of the church of Ste. Croix de la Bretonnerie, Rameau's position and prospects now warranted his taking a wife, and on Feb. 25, 1726, he was united to Marie Louise Mangot, a good musician with a pretty voice. The disparity of their ages was considerable, the bride being only 18, but her loving and gentle disposition made the marriage a very happy one. ”

“ The absence in his works of personality and of fine writing, then so common with musical authors, is the more striking as he had great command of language and thoroughly enjoyed discussion. His active pen was exercised in almost all branches of music—composition, theory, criticism, and history. Of his theoretical works the most celebrated are—the 'Handbuch beim Generalbasse, und der Composition,' founded on Rameau's system (3 parts, 1757–8, Berlin) ”

“ There is no musician, however humble his attainments, who does not know and admire the trio of the Fates, “Quelle soudaine horreur.” The succession of chords on the words, “Où cours-tu, malheureux?” are striking in their expression. This would appear even at the present day as a happy and wonderfully effective discovery.
“Les Indes Galantes,” an heroic ballet, was the second work that Rameau gave to the Opéra. He was then fifty years of age. The public, who had become more accustomed to the musician’s peculiarly characteristic style, received this work in the most favorable manner. ”

“ Still I am bound to say that both in verse and prose Gustave Rameau is in unison with a corrupt taste of the day, and therefore he is coming into vogue. So much as to his writings; as to his wickedness, you have only to look at him to feel sure that he is not a hundredth part so wicked as he wishes to seem. In a word, then, M. Gustave Rameau is a type of that somewhat numerous class among the youth of Paris, which I call 'the lost Tribe of Absinthe.' There is a set of men who begin to live full gallop while they are still boys. ”

“ He was not only irritated—he was bewildered; for De Mauleon's political disquisitions did not leave any clear or definite idea on his mind as to the principles which as editor of the Sens Commun he was to see adequately represented and carried out. In truth, Rameau was one of those numerous Parisian politicians who have read little and reflected less on the government of men and States. Envy is said by a great French writer to be the vice of Democracies. Envy certainly had made Rameau a democrat. ”

“ If he created some enemies, he created many more friends, or, at least, partisans and admirers. He only needed fine and imprisonment to become a popular hero.
A few days after be had thus proclaimed himself, Victor de Mauleon—who had before kept aloof from Rameau, and from salons at which he was likely to meet that distinguished minstrel—solicited his personal acquaintance, and asked him to breakfast.
Rameau joyfully went. He had a very natural curiosity to see the contributor whose articles had so mainly insured the sale of the Sens Commun. ”

“ Rameau as painter of warlike pageants, of the sports of athletes and soldiers, is just as great, perhaps more so. Perhaps Mars inspires him with even more life than Venus, and fills him with more enthusiasm. The interlude in the first act is extraordinary in its power and virile gaiety. In particular, the air for the athletes, "sound forth, proud trumpets" is remarkable for a strength, a burst of rhythm, and a flame of melody to which I find nothing comparable in other masters. ”

“ Le Docteur Rameau is, at least towards its close, one of the most ambitious, if not the most ambitious of all its author's books. The hero is one of those atheistic and republican physicians who are apt rather to embêter us by their frequency in French novels. He is thrown into the also familiar situation of ascertaining, after his wife's death, that she has been false, and that his daughter, of whom he is very fond, is probably or certainly not his own. ”

“ What is certain is that for Frenchmen nothing could be more heavy, hampering, scholastic and crushing. Nothing could be more unsuited to our alert temperaments. The recitative that suits us is one that follows Nature with simplicity and has the lure of spontaneity of expression and of freshness due to continuous inventions. That is Rameau's way and it is, let me repeat, far more difficult to get hold of. ”

“ Rameau, who knew more about women in general, and Isaura in particular, than his mother conjectured, shook his head mournfully. “She could not do less,” he said. “Has no one offered to do more?”—he thought of Julie when he asked that—Madame Rameau hesitated.
The poor Parisians! it is the mode to preach against them; and before my book closes, I shall have to preach—no, not to preach, but to imply—plenty of faults to consider and amend. Meanwhile I try my best to take them, as the philosophy of life tells us to take other people, for what they are. ”

“ I dislike that sort of writing which is neither manlike nor womanlike, and in which young Rameau excels. He has the knack of finding very exaggerated phrases by which to express commonplace thoughts. He writes verses about love in words so stormy that you might fancy that Jove was descending upon Semele; but when you examine his words, as a sober pathologist like myself is disposed to do, your fear for the peace of households vanishes,—they are Fox et proeterea nihil; no man really in love would use them. He writes prose about the wrongs of humanity. You feel for humanity ”

“ Rameau, who was thinking of trying a theatrical venture, asks him for a "book," and seeks to inspire his confidence.
"When people speak of a learned musician," he writes, "they mean usually a man who has the various combinations of notes at his fingers' ends, but he is supposed to be so much absorbed in these combinations that he sacrifices everything to them,—good sense, sentiment, judgment, reason. Now such a man is merely a school musician, and of a school that deals with notes and nothing else; and one may rightly prefer a musician who prides himself less on knowledge than on taste. ”