“With Jean-Philipe Rameau, the golden age of French classical opera is at hand. Lully was the founder of the French opera, and in essence Rameau’s operas were an extension of Lully, and not a departure. This fact makes all the more ridiculous the bitter war raged against Rameau by the Lully faction, which came to regard Rameau as an arch enemy, the negation of what Lully stood for and accomplished.”—David Ewen, The Complete Book of Classical Music
“Top early French harpsichord genius, theorist, and opera specialist”—Phil Goulding, Classical Music
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. 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 François Couperin.
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). He was almost 50 before he embarked on the operatic career on which his reputation chiefly rests. His debut, Hippolyte Et Aricie
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. He lived from September 25, 1683, to September 12, 1764.—Excerpted from Wikipedia
On Baroque 