Jean-Philippe Rameau

Long before he found fame as an opera composer, Rameau was a groundbreaking music theorist who published the "Traité de l'harmonie" in 1722. This treatise revolutionized Western music by establishing the fundamental principles of chord inversions and the concept that all chords are derived from the major triad.

Surprisingly, Rameau did not write his first major opera, "Hippolyte et Aricie," until he was nearly 50 years old, premiering it in 1733. Despite his late start, he quickly became the dominant force in French Baroque opera, eventually composing over 30 stage works for the Paris Opéra.

The "Querelle des Bouffons" was a massive intellectual and cultural controversy in 1750s Paris regarding the superiority of traditional French versus Italian opera. Rameau was widely viewed as the champion and pinnacle of the intricate French style, drawing fierce criticism from Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who favored Italian melody.

Rameau published three massive collections of harpsichord music, with his 1724 "Pièces de clavecin avec une méthode" being among the most famous. This collection includes iconic character pieces like "Les Tendres Plaintes" and "Les Sauvages," the latter of which he later adapted for his opera-ballet "Les Indes galantes."