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Jean-Philippe Rameau
1683 - 1764 

French composer and music theorist. As the son of an organist, he held the post of organist until he was 49 years old.

 

His treatise on harmony (1722) made him an important music theorist. In it, he claimed that harmony is the foundation of music and that chords that were primarily understood as collections of intervals above a bass should instead be viewed as inversions of more fundamental harmonic units.

 

From 1733 he wrote a number of very successful operas, including Hippolyte et Aricie (1733) and The Gallant Indies (1735), which secured his place as the most important French opera composer since Jean-Baptiste Lully.

 

He also became known for his many piano pieces, most of which were composed for harpsichord.

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