Piano Music - Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau


1683 - 1764
Jean-Philippe Rameau was a French composer and music theorist of the 18th century.


📖 "The expression of thought, of sentiment, of the passions, must be the true aim of music."


📖 "Nature endows us with the feeling that moves us in all our musical experiences; we might call her gift instinct."


📖 "I try to conceal art with art."


📖 "We must have recourse to the rules of music when our genius and our ear seem to deny what we are seeking."


📖 "Music is a science which should have definite rules; these rules should be drawn from an evident principle; and this principle cannot really be known to us without the aid of mathematics."
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1971). “Traite de l'harmonie reduites a ses principes naturels”, p.35


📖 "Rhythm and sounds are born with syllables."


📖 "When reason and instinct are reconciled, there will be no higher appeal."


📖 "Emphasis on the common emotive or affective origins of music and words in the first cries of humankind undermines words."


📖 "Verse, singing, and speech have a common origin."

Quotes by Jean-Philippe Rameau


🔔 Reload the page a few times if you see orange widgets instead of books and music.









Recordings of Rameau's Keyboard and Other Music


Pièces de clavecin - Complete Works for Harpsichord
Pieter-Jan Belder, harpsichord



L'Oeuvres pour Clavecin - Complete Works for Harpsichord
Scott Ross, harpsichord
Recorded in 1975 at Château d’Assas



Nouvelles Suites
Alexandre Tharaud, piano




Documentary about Rameau


Jean Philippe Rameau, le maître du baroque, l'incompris magnifique (Documentaire/ Documentary ENG SUB)
By Olivier Simonnet, ARTE




Keyboard works by Jean-Philippe Rameau


Premier livre de pieces de clavecin (Paris, 1706, repr. 1741 as Pièces de clavecin … oeuvre premier): Prélude, a; Alemande, a; 2e alemande, a; Courante, a; Gigue, a; 1ère sarabande, a; 2e sarabande, A; Vénitienne, A; Gavote, a; Menuet, a; Jc, G

Pieces de clavessin avec une methode pour la mechanique des doigts (Paris, 1724/R, rev. 1731 as Pieces de clavecin avec une table pour les agrémens): Menuet en rondeau, C; Allemande, e; Courante, e; Gigue en rondeau, e; 2e gigue en rondeau, E; Le rappel des oiseaux, e; lr rigaudon, e; 2d rigaudon, E; Double du 2d rigaudon, E. Musette en rondeau, E; Tembourin, e; La vilageoise, rondeau, e; Les tendres plaintes, rondeau, d; Les niais de Sologne [with 2 doubles], D; Les soupirs, D; La joyeuse, rondeau, D; La follette, rondeau, D; L’entretien des Muses, d; Les tourbillons, rondeau, D; Les cyclopes, rondeau, d; Le lardon, menuet, D; La boiteuse, d; Jc, G

Nouvelles suites de pieces de clavecin … avec des remarques sur les différens genres de musique (Paris, c1729–30, rev. 2/after 1760/R): Allemande, a; Courante, a; Sarabande, A; Les trois mains, a; Fanfarinette, A; La triomphante, A; Gavotte [with 6 doubles], a; Les tricotets, rondeau, G; L’indifferente, g; Menuet, G; La poule, g; 2e menuet, g [intended to be paired with the previous menuet]; Les triolets, G; Les sauvages, g; L’enharmonique, g; L’egiptienne, g; Jc, G

Les Indes galantes, balet, reduit à quatre grands concerts (Paris, c1736), symphonies arr. Rameau for hpd [28 movts in G (which mistakenly includes movts from the entrée Les sauvages); 24 movts ed. G. Sadler: Rameau, Les Indes galantes: the Composer’s Transcriptions for Harpsichord (London, 1979)]

Five pieces arr. solo hpd in Pieces de clavecin en concerts (Paris, 1741): La Livri, rondeau gracieux, c; L’agaçante, G; La timide, 1er rondeau gracieux, a; 2e rondeau, A; L’indiscrette, rondeau, B; Jc, G; facs. (Geneva, 1982)

La Dauphine, g, ?c1747 or later, 

Les petits marteaux [attrib. Rameau, Pn Vm72108, anon. in Pa MS6820] (?before 1754)

facs. in Fuller (1983)





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