Music of the Week
Le Rappel des Oiseaux
Jean-Philippe Rameau
February 21, 2025
Music of the Week, February 21, 2025
Le Rappel des Oiseaux
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Like few other pieces, “Le Rappel des Oiseaux” struck a nerve in French Baroque music history. Everything that developed later through Debussy, Ravel, or Messiaen was forecast in these few phenomenal minutes of sound.
According to Camille Saint-Saëns, Rameau was France’s greatest musical genius, a verdict not shared by many of his contemporaries. Rameau revolutionized French music theory with his Treatise on Harmony (1722) and the New System of Musical Theory (1726) which attempted to put music on a mathematical and geometrical footing, laying much of the foundation of harmonic theory today.
Listen to Víkingur Ólafsson, the exceptional pianist from Iceland, hands flying over the keyboard like birds’ wings barely touching the keys.
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