RAMEAU, Jean-Philippe
b Dijon, 25 September 1683
d Paris, 12 September 1764, aged eighty

His father was a church organist. Jean-Philippe was meant to be a lawyer, but he showed such promise in music that he was allowed to leave the Jesuit College of Dijon and find his own musical education in Italy. In 1702 he was organist at Avignon Cathedral, then similarly at Clermont-Ferrand. In 1706 he was in Paris making a further study of the organ, and in 1709 he took over his father's post as organist at Dijon. In 1713 he went to Lyons to organise the musical celebrations of the Treaty of Utrecht, returning to Paris in 1722. After 1749 he wrote nothing of importance.

1706 (23)

p Harpsichord Works, Book I

1728 (45)

p Harpsichord Works, Book II

1733 (50)

Hippolyte et Aricie, opera

1735 (52)

Les Indes galantes, opera-ballet

1737 (54)

Castor et Pollux, opera-ballet

1739 (56)

Dardanus, opera

Les Fêtes d'Hebe, ballet

1741 (57)

p Harpsichord Works, Book III

1745 (62)

Platee, ballet

1748 (65)

Pigmalion, ballet

Zais, ballet

1754 (71)

Zephyre, ballet

1760 (78)

Les Paladins, opera-ballet

Rameau composed more than twenty operas and opera-ballets, church music, chamber music, cantatas, etc.