  jean-philippe rameau (;  â ) was one of the most important french composers and music theorists of the baroque era.new grove p. 243: "a theorist of european stature, he was also france's leading 18th-century composer." he replaced jean-baptiste lully as the dominant composer of french opera and is also considered the leading french composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside franÃ§ois couperin.girdlestone p. 14: "it is customary to couple him with couperin as one couples haydn with mozart or ravel with debussy." little is known about rameau's early years, and it was not until the 1720s that he won fame as a major theorist of music with his treatise on harmony (1722) and also in the following years as a composer of masterpieces for the harpsichord, which circulated throughout europe. he was almost 50 before he embarked on the operatic career on which his reputation chiefly rests today. his debut, hippolyte et aricie (1733), caused a great stir and was fiercely attacked for its revolutionary use of harmony by the supporters of lully's style of music. nevertheless, rameau's pre-eminence in the field of french opera was soon acknowledged, and he was later attacked as an "establishment" composer by those who favoured italian opera during the controversy known as the querelle des bouffons in the 1750s. rameau's music had gone out of fashion by the end of the 18th century, and it was not until the 20th that serious efforts were made to revive it. today, he enjoys renewed appreciation with performances and recordings of his music ever more frequent. ==life== the details of rameau's life are generally obscure, especially concerning his first forty years, before he moved to paris for good. he was a secretive man, and even his wife knew nothing of his early life,beaussant p. 21 which explains the scarcity of biographical information available. ===early years, 1683â1732=== thumb|right|the cathedral of saint-bÃ©nigne, dijon rameau's early years are particularly obscure. he was born on 25 september 1683 in dijon, and baptised the same day.date of birth given by chabanon in his Ãloge de m. rameau(1764) his father, jean, worked as an organist in several churches around dijon, and his mother, claudine demartinÃ©court, was the daughter of a notary. the couple had eleven children (five girls and six boys), of whom 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 cla
1683_births 1764_deaths 18th-century_classical_composers Ballet_composers Ballets_by_Jean-Philippe_Rameau Baroque_composers Burials_at_Aglise_Saint-Eustache,_Paris Composers_awarded_knighthoods French_classical_composers French_music_theorists Opera_composers People_from_Dijon