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Jean-Philippe Rameau: La Pouplinière
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Traité sur l'harmonie de Jean-Philippe Rameau précédé de "Rameau et les méprises de la tradition" par Joseph François Kremer , livre entier téléchargeable gratuitement (format pdf, 518 pages ! ), extraits consultables , sur le site Gallica de la BNF (nota : ce site est hélas souvent surchargé et le téléchargement du livre entier est un peu long surtout por un document si long !)
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Rameau had begun composing for the harpsichord, publishing his first book of keyboard works in 1706 (subsequent volumes appeared in 1724, 1728, and 1741). He had ... written a few motets and secular cantatas, and had started his first book, the Traité de l'harmonie (published 1722), which later made his reputation as an important theorist.
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Rameau's Treatise on Harmony established the primacy of triadic harmony as the central "law" of music. He claimed that melody must be subordinated to harmony and that harmonic considerations alone should dictate composition. He established the significant theoretical concept that the inversions of chords did not create new chords but were further manifestations of a single harmony. While Rameau's ideas were much debated and attacked, their importance for the future of theory and practice cannot be overestimated. His codification of functional harmony provided much of the theoretical basis for traditional composition well into the 19th century.
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Rameau pursued his activities as a theorist and composer until his death. He lived with his wife and two of his children in his large suite of rooms in Rue des Bons-Enfants which he would leave every day, lost in thought, to take a solitary walk in the nearby gardens of the Palais-Royal or the Tuileries. Sometimes he would meet the young writer Chabanon, who noted down some of Rameau's disillusioned confidential remarks: "Day by day I'm acquiring more good taste, but I no longer have any genius" and "The imagination is worn out in my old head, it's not wise at this age wanting to practise arts that are nothing but imagination".[22]
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As a response to Desfontaines, Thérèse des Hayes (Mrs La Pouplinière), Rameau's pupil, publishes "Etude sur la Génération Harmonique de Rameau" (Study on Rameau's Génération Harmonique), in Le Pour et le Contre, a magazine headed by Abbé Prévost. (see text in French).
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Het verhaal van deze strubbelingen toont ons Rameau van een sympathieke, stoutmoedige, zeer grote kant. Hij werkt hier aan de grens van wat in zijn tijd in Frankrijk mogelijk was. Hij wil vooruit met al het élan van zijn genie, maar het publieke onverstand, misschien ook zijn eigen nog niet genoeg verhelderd begrip vormen een onoverkomelijke hindernis. Men verstaat zeer wel dat deze teleurstelling hem erg hoog zat.
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