Analytical essay - Homage a rameau Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Analytical - Homage a rameau - Essay Example r Jean-Philippe Rameau does not copy Rameau, but creates a textural analysis of his work, paying homage to his history, his life, his theories, and his compositional style. Jean-Philippe Rameau was a composer during the Baroque period whose music was marked by a technicality that expressed his desire to reflect music theory in his work. His work, â€Å"Hippolyte et Aricieâ€Å", was considered one of the best operas in the form of the tragedie en musique since the death of Jean-Baptiste Lully. Rameau desired to create new styles within new forms. â€Å"His harmonies were said to be more novel, his rhythms more skillful, his orchestrations more brilliant than Lully’s† (Arvey 101). Rameau In creating his work, Rameau also sought to develop the artistic side of the compositions. He said that â€Å"I try to conceal art by that same art†(Arvey 101). In creating his theory that harmony was derived from a natural sense of sound, he was reaching into the philosophical realm and extracting a way of thinking about music that was elevated above the pragmatism of the mathematical equations of harmony. He wrote with an â€Å"impressionistic palate† (Girdlestone 571) that was dramatic and emotional, however because of his time period, he was unable to break through the binding forms that Client’s diminished the brilliance of his construction. The way in which Rameau devised is theory allowed for the concept of the chord to be defined by the nature of the harmonic development. â€Å"Rameau brought theory into line with practice: realizing that the days of melody were over and much of the expressive power even of counterpoint was due to significant clashes of sound, he began his investigations with the chord given by the vibrating stringâ€Å" and in searching for the place to find that sound, he searched â€Å"in the sound of which can be detected the upper octave, the twelfth, the second octave, the major seventeenth, and higher harmonics† (Girdlestone 519-520). The way in