Rameau and Musical Thought in the EnlightenmentCambridge University Press, 2004 M12 16 - 327 pages This is the first intellectual biography of the French composer and theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau. Rameau synthesised the vocabulary and grammar of musical practice into a concise scientific system, earning himself the popular title of 'Newton of the Arts'. Ranging widely over the musical and intellectual thought of the eighteenth century, Thomas Christensen is able to orient Rameau's accomplishments in the light of speculative and practical considerations of music theory as well as many of the scientific ideas current in the French Enlightenment. He shows how Rameau incorporates ideas ranging from neoplatonic thought and Cartesian mechanistic metaphysics to Locke's empirical psychology and Newtonian experimental science. Additional primary documents help clarify Rameau's fascinating and stormy relationship with the Encyclopedists, Diderot, Rousseau and d'Alembert. |
Contents
Rameau and the Enlightenment | 5 |
Rameau as music theorist | 21 |
Precursors of harmonic theory | 43 |
The generative fundamental | 71 |
The fundamental bass | 103 |
The corps sonore | 133 |
Mode and modulation | 169 |
Rameau and the philosophes | 209 |
The final years | 291 |
A note on harmonic and arithmetic proportions | 307 |
Select bibliography | 313 |
| 321 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Académie acoustical analysis arguments arithmetic basse fondamentale basso continuo Bernoulli cadence Cartesian Castel Chapter chordal chromatic Code de musique composer composition consonant triad corps sonore counterpoint critical d'Alembert Démonstration derived Descartes diatonic Diderot dissonant seventh dominant dominante-tonique eighteenth century empirical Encyclopédie enharmonic Enlightenment Euler Example explained French fundamental bass Génération harmonique genre geometric progression Gianotti Gossett harmonic Ibid ideas intervals inversion Jean-Philippe Rameau leading tone letter Mairan major third mathematical mechanistic melody Mémoire Mersenne minor mode minor triad modulation monochord motion music theory musicians musique pratique nature Newton Newtonian Nouveau système Nouvelles réflexions octave original overtones Paris perfect fifth philosophes pitch proportions Pygmalion Rameau's theory ratios reason règle de l'octave Rousseau scale degree scientific scientists seventeenth century seventh chord sixth string divisions subdominant supposition sympathetic resonance term theoretical theorists thorough-bass tonal tonic tonique Traité de l'harmonie treatise triple progression unison vibrating string writings Zarlino