Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683 - 1764)

Premier Livre de Pièces de Clavecin (1706)
Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin (c. 1728)

Named by his friend Voltaire 'le premier musicien de France', Jean-Philippe Rameau remains possibly the most elusive of all the pantheon of Europe's "first musicians". Born in Dijon, the son of a parish organist, Rameau set out to follow in his father's footsteps as a church musician. As a young man he lived a rather itinerant life as an organist in a restless succession of posts in several cities. Near the age of forty Rameau settled in Paris, establishing himself as the leading French musical theorist in 1722 with the publication of the Traité de l'Harmonie. Following the great success of his first opera, Hippolyte et Aricie (1733), at the ripe age of fifty he became the foremost French composer, a position he held until his death in 1764.

Rameau is the musician of the Enlightenment