Jean Philippe-Rameau and the Corps Sonore

Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) is remembered today as a composer and music theorist. He contributed significantly to the harpsichord literature in his early years and gave us such grand dramatic compositions for the stage as Hippolyte et Aricie, Les Indes Galantes and Castor et Pollux in his later years. For his achievements he was granted the title Compositeur du Cabinet du Roi in 1745, which carried with it a handsome pension.1 He was also incredibly proud of his theoretical writings as evidenced by the fact that he spent much of his life revising, explaining and defending his theory of the basse fondamentale, which established the triad as the building block of harmony, and the principle of the corps sonore, which he established as the scientific basis for music theory. As the result of his groundbreaking accomplishments in music theory he was known as the Isaac Newton of harmony...