The details of Rameau's life are generally obscure, especially concerning his fi rst forty years, before he moved

to Paris for good. He was a secretive man, and even his wife knew nothing of his early life,[3] which explains the scarcity of biographical information available. [edit]Early years, 16831732 The Cathedral of Saint-Bnigne, Dijon Rameau's early years are particularly obscure. He was born on 25 September 1683 in Dijon, and baptised the same day.[4] His father, Jean, worked as an organist in several churches around Dijon, and his mother, Claudine Demartincourt, was the daughter of a notary. The couple had eleven children (five girls and six boys), of which Jean-Philippe was the seventh. Rameau was taught music before he could read or write. He was educated at the Jesuit college at Godrans, but he was not a good pupil and disrupted classes with his singing, later claiming that his pa ssion for opera had begun at the age of twelve.[5] Initially intended for the la w, Rameau decided he wanted to be a musician, and his father sent him to Italy, where he stayed for a short while in Milan. On his return, he worked as a violin ist in travelling companies and then as an organist in provincial cathedrals bef ore moving to Paris for the first time.[6] Here, in 1706, he published his earli est known compositions: the harpsichord works that make up his first book of Pice s de clavecin, which show the influence of his friend Louis Marchand.[7] In 1709 , he moved back to Dijon to take over his father's job as organist in the main c hurch. The contract was for six years, but Rameau left before then and took up s imilar posts in Lyon and Clermont. During this period, he composed motets for ch urch performance as well as secular cantatas. In 1722, he returned to Paris for good, and here he published his most important work of music theory, Trait de l'h armonie (Treatise on Harmony). This soon won him a great reputation, and it was followed in 1726 by his Nouveau systme de musique thorique.[8] In 1724 and 1729 (o r 1730), he also published two more collections of harpsichord pieces.[9] Rameau took his first tentative steps into composing stage music when the writer Alexi s Piron asked him to provide songs for his popular comic plays written for the P aris Fairs. Four collaborations followed, beginning with L'endriague in 1723; no ne of the music has survived.[10] On 25 February 1726 Rameau married the 19-year -old Marie-Louise Mangot, who came from a musical family from Lyon and was a goo d singer and instrumentalist. The couple would have four children, two boys and two girls, and the marriage is said to have been a happy one.[11] In spite of hi s fame as a music theorist, Rameau had trouble finding a post as an organist in Paris.[12] [edit]Later years, 17331764 Bust of Rameau by Caffieri, 1760 It was not until he was approaching 50 that Rameau decided to embark on the oper atic career on which his fame as a composer mainly rests. He had already approac hed writer Houdar de la Motte for a libretto in 1727, but nothing came of it; he was finally inspired to try his hand at the prestigious genre of tragdie en musi que after seeing Montclair's Jepht in 1732. Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie premiered at the Acadmie Royale de Musique on 1 October 1733. It was immediately recognise d as the most significant opera to appear in France since the death of Lully, bu t audiences were split over whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. Some, such as the composer Andr Campra, were stunned by its originality and wealth of i nvention; others found its harmonic innovations discordant and saw the work as a n attack on the French musical tradition. The two camps, the so-called Lullyiste s and the Rameauneurs, fought a pamphlet war over the issue for the rest of the decade.[13] Just before this time, Rameau had made the acquaintance of powerful financier Al exandre Le Riche de La Poupelinire, who became his patron until 1753. La Pouplinir e's mistress (and later, wife), Thrse des Hayes, was Rameau's pupil and a great ad mirer of his music. In 1731, Rameau became the conductor of La Pouplinire's priva

te orchestra, which was of an extremely high quality. He held the post for 22 ye ars; he was succeeded by Johann Stamitz and then Gossec.[14] La Pouplinire's salo n enabled Rameau to meet some of the leading cultural figures of the day, includ ing Voltaire, who soon began collaborating with the composer.[15] Their first pr oject, the tragdie en musique Samson, was abandoned because an opera on a religio us theme by Voltairea notorious critic of the Churchwas likely to be banned by the authorities.[16] Meanwhile, Rameau had introduced his new musical style into th e lighter genre of the opra-ballet with the highly successful Les Indes galantes. It was followed by two tragdies en musique, Castor et Pollux (1737) and Dardanus (1739), and another opra-ballet, Les ftes d'Hb (also 1739). All these operas of the 1730s are among Rameau's most highly regarded works.[17] However, the composer followed them with six years of silence, in which the only work he produced was a new version of Dardanus (1744). The reason for this interval in the composer's creative life is unknown, although it is possible he had a falling-out with the authorities at the Acadmie royale de la musique.[18] The year 1745 was a watershed in Rameau's career. He received several commission s from the court for works to celebrate the French victory at the Battle of Font enoy and the marriage of the Dauphin to Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain. R ameau produced his most important comic opera, Plate, as well as two collaboratio ns with Voltaire: the opra-ballet Le temple de la gloire and the comdie-ballet La princesse de Navarre.[19] They gained Rameau official recognition; he was grante d the title "Compositeur du Cabinet du Roi" and given a substantial pension.[20] 1745 also saw the beginning of the bitter enmity between Rameau and Jean-Jacque s Rousseau. Though best known today as a thinker, Rousseau had ambitions to be a composer. He had written an opera, Les muses galantes (inspired by Rameau's Ind es galantes), but Rameau was unimpressed by this musical tribute. At the end of 1745, Voltaire and Rameau, who were busy on other works, commissioned Rousseau t o turn La Princesse de Navarre into a new opera, with linking recitative called Les ftes de Ramire. Rousseau then claimed the two had stolen the credit for the w ords and music he had contributed, though musicologists have been able to identi fy almost nothing of the piece as Rousseau's work. Nevertheless, the embittered Rousseau nursed a grudge against Rameau for the rest of his life.[21] Rousseau was a major participant in the second great quarrel that erupted over R ameau's work, the so-called Querelle des Bouffons of 175254, which pitted French tragdie en musique against Italian opera buffa. This time, Rameau was accused of being out of date and his music too complicated in comparison with the simplicit y and "naturalness" of a work like Pergolesi's La serva padrona.[22] In the mid1750s, Rameau criticised Rousseau's contributions to the musical articles in the Encyclopdie, which led to a quarrel with the leading philosophes d'Alembert and Diderot.[23] As a result, Rameau became a character in Diderot's then-unpublishe d dialogue, Le neveu de Rameau (Rameau's Nephew). In 1753, La Pouplinire took a scheming musician, Jeanne-Thrse Goermans, as his mist ress. The daughter of harpsichord maker Jacques Goermans, she went by the name o f Madame de Saint-Aubin, and her opportunistic husband pushed her into the arms of the rich financier. She had La Pouplinire engage the services of the Bohemian composer Johann Stamitz, who succeeded Rameau after a breach developed between R ameau and his patron; however, by then, Rameau no longer needed La Pouplinire's f inancial support and protection. Rameau pursued his activities as a theorist and composer until his death. He liv ed 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 solitar y walk in the nearby gardens of the Palais-Royal or the Tuileries. Sometimes he would meet the young writer Chabanon, who noted some of Rameau's disillusioned c onfidential 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."[24] Rameau composed prolifically in the late 1740s and early 1750s. After that, his rate of productivity dropped off, probably due to old age and ill health, althou gh he was still able to write another comic opera, Les Paladins, in 1760. This w as due to be followed by a final tragdie en musique, Les Borades; but for unknown

reasons, the opera was never produced and had to wait until the late 20th centur y for a proper staging.[25] Rameau died on 12 September 1764 after suffering fro m a fever. He was buried in the church of St. Eustache, Paris the following day. [26] [edit]Rameau's personality Portrait of Rameau by Carmontelle, 1760 While the details of his biography are vague and fragmentary, the details of Ram eau's personal and family life are almost completely obscure. Rameau's music, so graceful and attractive, completely contradicts the man's public image and what we know of his character as described (or perhaps unfairly caricatured) by Dide rot in his satirical novel Le Neveu de Rameau. Throughout his life, music was hi s consuming passion. It occupied his entire thinking; Philippe Beaussant calls h im a monomaniac. Piron explained that "His heart and soul were in his harpsichor d; once he had shut its lid, there was no one home."[27] Physically, Rameau was tall and exceptionally thin,[28] as can be seen by the sketches we have of him, including a famous portrait by Carmontelle. He had a "loud voice." His speech wa s difficult to understand, just like his handwriting, which was never fluent. As a man, he was secretive, solitary, irritable, proud of his own achievements (mo re as a theorist than as a composer), brusque with those who contradicted him, a nd quick to anger. It is difficult to imagine him among the leading wits, includ ing Voltaire (to whom he bears more than a passing physical resemblance[28]), wh o frequented La Pouplinire's salon; his music was his passport, and it made up fo r his lack of social graces. His enemies exaggerated his faults; e.g. his supposed miserliness. In fact, it s eems that his thriftiness was the result of long years spent in obscurity (when his income was uncertain and scanty) rather than part of his character, because he could also be generous. We know that he helped his nephew Jean-Franois when he came to Paris and also helped establish the career of Claude-Bnigne Balbastre in the capital. Furthermore, he gave his daughter Marie-Louise a considerable dowr y when she became a Visitandine nun in 1750, and he paid a pension to one of his sisters when she became ill. Financial security came late to him, following the success of his stage works and the grant of a royal pension (a few months befor e his death, he was also ennobled and made a knight of the Ordre de Saint-Michel ). But he did not change his way of life, keeping his worn-out clothes, his sing le pair of shoes, and his old furniture. After his death, it was discovered that he only possessed one dilapidated single-keyboard harpsichord[29] in his rooms in Rue des Bons-Enfants, yet he also had a bag containing 1691 gold louis.[30]