Rameau`s Imaginary Monsters: Knowledge, Theory, and

Transcription

Rameau's Imaginary Monsters: Knowledge, Theory, and Chromaticism in Hippolyte et Aricie
Author(s): Charles Dill
Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Winter 2002), pp. 433476
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological Society
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Rameau's Imaginary Monsters:
Knowledge, Theory, and Chromaticism
in Hippolyte etAricie
CHARLES DILL
dialectic existed at the heart of Enlightenment thought, a tension that
sutured instrumentalreasoninto place by offering the image of its irraJL A1tional other. Embedded within the rationalorder of encyclopedicenterpriseslay the threat posed by superstition,both religious and unlettered;
contained and controlled by the solid foundations of social contractswas the
disturbing image of chaos, evoked musicallyby Jean-FeryRebel and Franz
Joseph Haydn, and among the nobly formed figures of humankind and
nature there lurked deformity and aberration,there lurked the monster. As
eighteenth-centurystudies and Europeanstudiesin generalhave shown in recent years,monsterswere not a secondaryconcern, relegatedto the particularized interestsof naturalhistory,but ratherone of the figures of the irrational
that allowed thinkersto conceive orderlyuniverses.'In giving a name, if not a
An earlyversion of this paper was read as part of the musicology colloquium series at Stanford
Universityon 8 February1999. Among those who have generouslyoffered criticismsand observations in its development, I must express particulargratitude to Karol Berger, Thomas Grey,
BrianHyer, Ronald Radano,and, a debt of long standing,CynthiaVerba.
1. The dialecticI have in mind here parallelsthose outlined in Jean Starobinski,Jean-Jacques
Rousseau:Transparencyand Obstruction,trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press,1988), esp. 3-21; and TerryEagleton, TheIdeologyoftheAesthetic(London: Blackwell, 1990), 13-30. The literatureon monstrosityis extensive,coveringmore than the period and
principleswith which this essayis concerned. The following, however,have proven helpful in deLedebatsurl'originedes
veloping my thoughts for this project:PatrickTort, L'ordreet les monstres:
deviationsanatomiquesau xviiie siecle,2d ed. (Paris:Syllepse, 1998); idem, "La logique du deviant (Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaireet la classificationdes monstres)," Revue des scienceshumaines 188 (1982-84): 7-32; H&ene Merlin, "Ou est le monstre?Remarquessur l'esth6tiquede
l'age classique,"Revue des scienceshumaines 188 (1982-84): 179-93; BarbaraMaria Stafford,
BodyCriticism:Imaging the Unseenin EnlightenmentArt and Medicine(Cambridge:The MIT
Press, 1991); Lorraine Daston, "Marvelous Facts and Miraculous Evidence in Early Modern
Europe," Critical Inquiry 18 (1991): 93-124; Georges Canguihelm, La connaissancede la vie,
2d ed. (Paris:J. Vrin, 1992); Marie-H6elneHuet, MonstrousImagination (Cambridge:Harvard
University Press, 1993); Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, ed., MonsterTheory:Reading Culture (Minneapolis: Universityof Minnesota Press, 1996); and Andrew Curranand PatrickGraille, "The
Faces of Eighteenth-CenturyMonstrosity,"Eighteenth-CenturyLife 21, no. 2 (1997): 1-15. In
[JournaloftheAmericanMusicological
2002, vol. 55, no. 3]
Society
? 2002 by theAmericanMusicologicalSociety.Allrightsreserved.0003-0139/02/5503-0002$2.00
University
of California Press
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Journal of the American Musicological Society
stable shape, to the absence of reason, societies and individualsvalidatedtheir
concerns. Monsters lent urgency and purpose to intellectualpursuits.2This
implies, however, that a certain precariousnessof the Enlightenment project
must have been apparentto some of its participants,especiallyat those moments when an idea did not fit easilyinto the establishedschema of knowledge. Individualthinkersstruggled with less-than-pure,monstrous forms of
knowledge, whether as social constructs, contingent devices, agencies for
power, or threatsof failure.
In just this way, monstrosity allows us access to the anxieties plaguing
Frenchoperaduring the firsthalf of the eighteenth century.Criticalwriterson
opera embracedthe image of the monster not only to identifyinstanceswhere
they perceived genre to be ambiguous or to have failed, but even to lay out
casesfor and againstopera as a sisterart, comparableto paintingand literature;
they labeled opera itself as "monstrous"for aestheticand even ethicalreasons.
In what was surelyan ironic twist, criticsused this same notion as well to characterize their ambivalencetoward the compositions and theoreticalwritings
of Jean-PhilippeRameau, who contrary to all such accusations considered
himself an heir to Cartesianlogic and an apostle of Newtonian empiricism.3
Not only were his compositions monstrous, but he himself became by
metonymic extension the chimericalimage of his music: "I hear,I see the cannibal: neck of an ostrich, wrinkled eyes, jaundiced, spiky-haired,crooked
nose-the true mask of satire-mouth for murdering and not for laughing,
pointed head and lying heart, dried-up legs."4With the premiere of his first
addition, the following specialissues, devoted to the problem of monstrous epistemology,have
proven especiallyhelpful for this project:Revue desscienceshumaines188 (1982-84), entitled Le
Monstre;and Eighteenth-Century
Life21, no. 2 (1997), entitled FacesofMonstrosityin EighteenthCenturyThought,ed. Andrew Curran,Robert P. Maccubbin,and David F. Morrill.
2. PatrickTort shows that the very creation in the early nineteenth century of the field of
teratology-the biological study of monsters, their development, and their classificationinvolved preciselythe dialecticI am outlining here: "C'est ainsi que le retour marque de l'ordre
dans la teratogenese du debut du xixe siecle ... n'a pu effectivement avoir lieu que grace a la
mediation-bel exemple de dialectique-du desordrede Lemery,qui avaitassurea la monstruosite
de pouvoir etre considereecomme une pathologie organique"("Thus the markedreturnof order
in the genesis of monsters at the beginning of the nineteenth century effectivelytook place by
mediation-a fine exampleof dialectic-of the disorderof LImery,which had assuredmonstrosity
of being consideredas an organicpathology") ("Lalogique du deviant,"12). (All translationsare
mine unless otherwisenoted.) It is interestingto observe that Saint-Hilaire'ssuccessfulrehabilitation of monstrosityinvolvespreciselythe sort of table discussedbelow, which the Encyclopedists
derivedfrom FrancisBacon (see Tort, "Lalogique du deviant,"26-27).
3. On Rameauas rationalistthinker,see CatherineKintzler,Jean PhilippeRameau: Splendeur
et naufrage de l'esthetiquedu plaisir d lI'dgeclassique,2d ed. (Paris:Minerve, 1988), 15-40; and
Thomas Christensen, Rameau and Musical Thought in the Enlightenment (Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversityPress, 1993), 31-38.
4. "J'entends,je vois l'Anthropage/ Col d'Autruch,sourcil fronce, / Cuirejaune,et de poil
herisse, Nez creux, vray masque de Satire, / Bouche pour mordre, et non pour rire, / Teste
Rameau's Imaginary Monsters
435
operafor the AcademieRoyale de Musique, the tragedieen musiqueHippolyte
et Aricie (1733), Rameau became the focal point for criticalmisgivings. His
carefullyor, some would have said, overly wrought music symbolized the
common assumption that music per se could not convey semantic content
and was thereforeirrational.5
It is interesting in this context to observe that Simon-Joseph Pellegrin's
livretfor HippolyteetAricie fairlybristleswith monsters.While incrediblecreatures were a common, indeed controversial,featureof French opera, I would
arguethat Pellegrinhere createdsomething more. Following Racine'sfamous
tragedy Phedre,he used monstrosity emblematicallyto highlight tragic relationshipsin his story.In additionto the creaturethat killsHippolyte at the end
of act 4, monsters appearin speeches by the goddess Diane, the king Thesee,
and his queen, Phedre. The monsterwas a literarytrope of considerableforce,
a discomfitingimage familiarfrom most forms of artisticand criticalrepresentation. In using it, Pellegrin, perhaps by design, drew together and raised
social issuesregardedwith some urgency by the opera-goingpublic:the merit
of opera in general,its social relevance,its ascendancyor decline, and the importance of music to its conception. In turn, by setting this livret to music,
Rameau did much more than make his entrance into the world of the
Academie Royale de Musique; he also entered into and became metonymicallyattachedto these same public concerns. By working with and teasing out
Pellegrin'simagery,he inadvertentlyinvited public considerationof the value
of his musical ideas. In a criticalsense as well as a practicalone, the public
judged Rameau'stheories of music-that its propertiesarose in nature, that
these could be explainedand, moreover,used to createmore effectivemusical
entities-with referenceto operaslike HippolyteetAricie, and, to some extent,
his theories stood and fell according to perceptions of his operas and their
musicalefficacy.
This has ramificationsfor our perceptionsof Rameau'swork.The composertheorist becomes more than an organizerof musicalknowledge or a popularizer of variousstyles;he locates himself in that space where what is knowable
pointu, et cour Menton, / Jambes seches comme Ecriton" (Chansonnier Maurepas, Paris,
Bibliotheque Nationale, fr. 12634, 141-45). See also the appendixin GrahamSadler,"Patrons
and Pasquinades:Rameau in the 1730s," Journal of the Royal MusicalAssociation113 (1988):
314-37, esp. 335, lines 36-47.
5. This paragraph summarizes the argument found in Charles Dill, Monstrous Opera:
Rameau and the Tragic Tradition (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1998); see especially
pp. 3-56. Here, as in MonstrousOpera,it is not my purpose to assert an essentialstatus for the
trope of monstrosity,but rather to take advantage of the image's potency for framing certain
epistemological problems relevant to the period. Whereas in MonstrousOpera those problems
centered on creatinga plausiblenarrativeof Rameau'scompositionalcareer,I now wish to focus
on the statusof his ongoing theoreticalprojectas it pertainsto the intellectualand culturalclimate
of music discourse.In this respect, the present essay forms part of a largerundertakingthat will
considerthe earliestFrenchdiscursiveformationsinvolvingopera.
436
Journalof the AmericanMusicologicalSociety
and what isn't intersected. His struggles in the fields of music theory and
music composition limn its very terrain.In the case of his theoreticalwritings,
we know from Thomas Christensen'sresearchthat Rameau'sideas developed
in remarkableways throughout his career and that he adapted them in response not only to criticism,but to shifting intellectualfashions. We know,
too, that something similaroccurred with respect to his operas:he not only
rewrote his most important pieces, but altered their meaning and musical
ontology, occasionallyin ways contradicting those same theories.6 This, in
turn, holds out the possibilitythat both aspectsof Rameau'soeuvre-his theories and his operas-might each comment on the other, might even underscore the values, hierarchies,and compromisesorganizing his thought. They
can uncover the dialecticalprocess of knowing as it was practiced.Precisely
because shifting criticaland creativevalues were active in both fields, we may
understandthem better by noting where and how theory and music, along
with the epistemologicalvalorizationsthat bound them, intersected.
In what follows, I propose to collapsetogether these variousmanifestations
of monstrosity-the dialecticalaspect of instrumentalreason, Rameau'scomplicated reputation, and its basis in his musical and theoreticalpractices-to
give a clearerview of the composer'sdeveloping epistemology.First,I will survey Rameau'splace as individualtheoristwithin contemporaryconceptions of
knowledge, using the image of the monster to underscorethose aspectsof his
thought deemed problematicby critics.I will argue that perceiveddifficulties
in reading Rameau'stheories and relating them to musicalpracticearose, at
least in part, from the ways in which he structuredthem. Second, I will illustrate how these same issues may have played out practically,tracingthe values
informing Rameau'screativedecisions by observing how he figured musically
the monsters of Hippolyteet Aricie, what these figures said about theoretical
ideas he was concurrentlydeveloping, and how public opinion caused him to
reconsidersome of those cherishednotions. Here we will encounterRameau's
remarkableearlyuse of the chromaticmodulation to illustrateirrational,monstrous forces. Third, I will employ this latter musical example historicallyto
traceRameau'schanging theories of the chromaticgenus itself, firstas an irrational harmonicprogressionand then, later,as an altogethernatural,fully rationalized one. In this way, we can gather some idea of Rameau'sintellectual
and creativeformationin the 1730s and, more generally,how public opinion
was mobilized by the irrationalthreat of his music; we can also gain some
sense of music's own unstablerole in public debatesover the natureof knowledge. Finally,I will conclude by suggesting that Rameau'sfailureto articulate
6. On Rameau'sshifting approachesto his theories, see Christensen,Rameau and Musical
Thought,esp. 5-20; Marie-ElisabethDuchez, "Valeurepistemologique de la theorie de la basse
fondamentale de Jean-Philippe Rameau: Connaissance scientifique et representation de la
musique," Studieson Voltaireand the EighteenthCentury245 (1986): 91-130; and Brian Hyer,
"BeforeRameauand After,"MusicAnalysis15 (1996): 75-100. On the similarlyshiftingvaluesin
Rameau'soperas,see Dill, MonstrousOpera,esp. 57-105.
437
convincingly a stable systemic logic for his theories-one that could be expressedin simple terms and discussed-confirmed the widespreadbelief that
music existed over and against logical thought, epitomizing irrationaland
pleasurablepursuits.
Reason and Monstrosity
We can begin untangling these strandsby tracing the connections between
Rameau'smusic-theoreticalideas and more general epistemologicalconcerns
over monstrosity. In its very properties as a system, any given version of
Rameau's theories holds for modern readers an experience similarto what
contemporaryones may have encountered. His goals are not alwaysclear.To
some extent this experienceresulted from Rameau'sdifficultiesin expressing
ideas, and commentatorsfrequentlyobserved that his ideas outpaced his ability to convey them. Jeanle Rond d'Alembertnoted as much in his explanation
of Rameau'stheories, the Elemensde musiquetheoriqueetpratique,suivant les
principesde M. Rameau (1752), although he tactfullyremarkedthat he had
written his treatisefor those who were curiousbut knew little of music.7Later,
when defending Rousseau from Rameau's anonymous accusations in the
Erreurssur la musiquedans I'Encyclopedie
(1755), the editor of the Encyclopedieagainhinted at the problem: "M. Rousseau ... joins to his great knowledge of and taste for music the talent of thinking and expressing himself
clearly,as musicianshave not alwaysdone."8 The point is one with which any
readerof Rameaucan sympathize;nevertheless,problemswith his theories go
beyond mattersof clarity.
7. [Jean le Rond d'Alembert], Elemensde musiquetheoriqueetpratique, suivant lesprincipes
deM.Rameau(Paris:David,Le Breton,Durand,1752;facsimile
ed.,NewYork:Broude,1966).
In an undatedletter,probablyfromlate 1750, d'Alembertwroteto Rameauconcerningthe
Elemens:
avecsoin,& de mettreparecritvos remarques
"Jevouspriede l'examiner
afinquej'en
profite.un motsuffirapourme mettreaufait.j'aytachede composercetouvragede manierequ'il
withcare,andputyour
puisseetreentendude toutle monde"("Ibegyouexamine[theElemens]
remarks
in writingso thatI mayprofitfromthem.A wordwillsufficeto put me right.I haveattemptedto writethisworkin sucha mannerthatit canbe disseminated
widely")(see the comTheoretical
mentaryto Jean-Philippe
Rameau,Complete
Writings,ed. ErwinR. Jacobi[N.p.:
AmericanInstituteof Musicology,1967-72], 6:228-34 [hereafterCTW]).(Hereandthroughout thispaperI havepreservedeighteenth-century
Moregenerally,
see Thomas
orthography.)
Christensen,"Scienceand MusicTheoryin the Enlightenment:D'Alembert'sCritiqueof
Rameau"
(Ph.D.diss.,YaleUniversity,
1985).
8. "M.Rousseauquijointa beaucoupde connoissances
& de gout en Musiquele talentde
avecnettete,que les Musiciensn'ont pas toujours"(Encyclopedie,
ou
penser& de s'exprimer
Dictionnaire raisonnedessciences,desarts et des metiers..., ed. Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond
d'Alembert[Paris:variouspublishers,1751-72; facsimileed., New Yorkand Paris:Pergamon
Press,1969], 6:i). This commentwas also ratherdifferentin tone from that of the Discours
preliminaire(see Jean le Rond d'Alembert, PreliminaryDiscourseto the Encyclopediaof Diderot,
transRichardN. Schwab[Chicago:University
of ChicagoPress,1995], 100-101).
438
By attemptingto account fully for the theoreticalramificationsof his ideas,
Rameau'sthoughts ranged far afield. From recollectionsof ideas broachedin
his firsttreatise,the Traitede l'harmonie(1722), to the introductionof newer
propositions,from definitionsof key notions to elaboratedescriptionsof their
origins, from rules for part-writing to abstruse mathematicaljustifications,
Rameaufelt compelled to rationalizenot only musicalphenomena per se, but
also the small, seemingly trivialdetails resultingfrom his ideas. Otherwise he
would have failedin his attempt to account for music in its plenitude. This led
him into complicatedmaneuvers.9An understandingof the problems underlying the organization of Rameau's theoreticalworks will therefore take us
a long way toward understanding the relative importance of his individual
theoreticalideas.
In the sense that he struggled with, and thus focused on, systemicorganization, Rameaubehaved in a manner consistentwith contemporarythought.
This same impulseremainedstrong yearslater,when the philosophes
undertook
the composition of the Encyclopedie.
Perhapsthe best exampleof what I have
in mind is located at the end of that work, in the Recueildeplanches,sur lessciences,lesarts liberaux,et lesarts mechaniques.There one encountersa need for
thoroughness and level of detail that, mutatis mutandis, matches Rameau's.
Approximatelythree thousand engravedplatesrecordin detailthe innerworkings of industrialmachineryas well as minute variationsin the style and composition of materialgoods: implements, gadgetry, and kinds of shoes march
For the editors of the Encyclopedie,
howpast the readerin vertiginousarray.10
it
was
not
to
record
these
details.As d'Alembertshowed in his
ever,
enough
Discourspreliminaire,the factualdata of daily experiencerequiredsystematic
not
organizationas well. D'Alembert assumed as his task for the Encyclopedie
simply the alphabeticalarrangementof entries, but through this process the
orderingof knowledge itselfinto a recognizableand iterableform:
If one reflectssomewhatupon the connectionthatdiscoverieshavewith one
another,it is readilyapparentthatthe sciencesandthe artsaremutuallysup9. Take, for example, his notion of doubleemploias it is commonly understood. Rameau's
doubling of a single collection of pitches into two closely relatedharmonicidentitiesresultednot
only from the need to conceptualizea subdominantfunction per se, but also from the necessityof
working within definitionspreviouslyposited in the Traiti de l'harmonie.If, as stated there, the
tonic constitutesthe only fully consonant harmony,then by necessityone must find a conceptual
means of adding dissonancesto harmoniesbuilt on the fourth scale degree, which elaboratethe
subdominant function. As a result, Rameau conflated the second-inversionsupertonic harmony
with the subdominanttriadwith added sixth. Audibly,they form a single entity,but they can also
be viewed from two different root positions. On the famous example of the doubleemploiin
Rameau'stheories, see Matthew Shirlaw,TheTheoryof Harmony (London: Novello, 1917; facsimileed., New York:Dover, 1969), 147-51, 191-213; GrahamSadlerand Albert Cohen, "JeanPhilippeRameau,"in TheNew GroveFrenchBaroqueMasters,by H. Wiley Hitchcock et al. (New
York:W. W. Norton, 1986), 205-308, esp. 281-83; and Thomas Christensen, Rameau and
Musical Thought,193-99.
10. These were presentedas volumes 18 through 28 (and suite) of the Encyclopedie.
Rameau'sImaginaryMonsters
439
porting, and that consequentlythere is a chain that binds them together. But, if
it is often difficultto reduce each particularscience or art to a small number of
rules or general notions, it is no less difficult to encompass the infinitelyvaried
branchesof human knowledge in a truly unified system.
The firststep which lies before us in our endeavoris to examine,if we may be
permitted to use this term, the genealogy and the filiation of the parts of our
knowledge, the causesthat brought the variousbranchesof our knowledge into
being, and the characteristicsthat distinguishthem.1l
To ensure the clarityof what he was providing, d'Alembert included a diagram of this genealogy, a "systemefigure des connoissanceshumaines"based
on the outline of knowledge presented in FrancisBacon's Of the Proficience
and Advancement of Learning Divine and Humane (1605). His concern
with the systematicaspect of knowledge notably echoes the beginning of
Condillac'sTraitedessystemes:
A system is nothing more than the disposition of the differentparts of an art or
science in an orderwhere they sustaineach other mutuallyand where the latter
[parts] are explained by the first.Those [parts] that give account of the others
are called principles,and the system is all the more perfect when the principles
are fewest in number:it is even desirablethat they reduce to a single principle.12
The treelike or genealogical conception of knowledge was significant. As
Robert Darnton has noted, this fascinationwith la mappemonde("the map of
the world"), the projectof mapping out the very boundariesof knowledge itself, was at the core of undertakingsby the philosophes,
allowing them to cast
themselvesas the naturalinheritorsof reasonand logic.l3 The same task,albeit
on a more modest scale, awaitedRameauwith each new treatise.
The structureof meaning served as the guarantee against the absence of
meaning, and becauseRameauaspiredto be known as a philosopheras well as
a composer of music, his writingsnecessarilyaddressedthis issue. He noted in
11. D'Alembert, PreliminaryDiscourse,5. For the originalversion of this text, see Encyclopedie 1:i-li.
12. "Un systemen'est autrechose que la dispositiondes differentespartiesd'un art ou d'une
science dans un ordre oiu elles se soutiennent toutes mutuellement, et ou les dernieres s'expliquent parles premieres.Celles qui rendent raisondes autres,s'appellentprincipes;et le systeme
est d'autantplus parfait,que les principessont en plus petit nombre:il est meme a souhaiterqu'on
les reduise a un seul" (Etienne Bonnot, abbe de Condillac, Traiti des systemes[n.p.: Fayard,
1991], 1).
13. Encyclopidie1:i-lii. On Bacon's table, see for example FrancisBacon, TheAdvancement
of Learning,ed. WilliamAldisWright,5th ed. (Oxford:Clarendon,1963); the table is often missing or inconsistentlyreproducedin modern editions. On the appropriationof Bacon's table by
the philosophes,
see Robert Darnton, "PhilosophersTrim the Tree of Knowledge: The Epistein his book TheGreatCat Massacreand OtherEpisodesin
mological Strategyof the Encyclopidie,"
FrenchCultural History(New York:Vintage Books, 1984), 191-213, esp. 194-95. On the relationship between language and this kind of eighteenth-centuryvisualizationof knowledge, see
Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes:The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-CenturyFrench Thought
(Berkeleyand Los Angeles: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1993), 83-107.
440
the Generationharmonique:"To find a method for guiding the imaginationis
alreadya great deal, but to find one on which imagined things are necessarily
established-and by which the source of all these things rendersitselfpoint by
point in the order they are dictated-I believe this is the great knot."'4 The
challengeposed by nonmeaning and ignorancecan be perceivedin Rameau's
longstanding and ongoing need to structuremusic qua meaningful, natural
entity. Indeed, part of the difficulty one encounters in comprehending
Rameau'swritingslies in his desirefor and inabilityto achievesystematization,
to establishclearand orderlyrelationshipsbetween any given theoreticalitem
and the complex of issueswithin which it is embedded. His systemof musical
understandingrelied both on the soundness of its multiplyrelated,individual
partsand on their abilityto fit together into a rationalwhole. Yet this aspectof
Rameau's thought is the most difficult to apprehend and was also the one
dismissedby the philosophes.
Rousseau commented that "these variousworks
[of Rameau's]contain nothing useful and intelligent except for the principle
of the fundamentalbass," and d'Alembert ridiculed Rameau'sphilosophical
aspirationsin his encyclopediaarticle"Fondamentale":
Wewillpermitourselveshereonlyto saythis:thatthe consideration
of proportions andprogressions
is entirelyuselessto the theoryof musicalart. I think
I'vesufficiently
demusique,
whereI'vegiven,it seems
provenit withmyElemens
to me, a ratherwelldeducedtheoryof harmonyfollowingthe principles
of M.
Rameau,withouthavingmadethereanyuseof proportionsor progressions.'5
What d'Alembert idealized in the Discourspreliminaire, Rameau struggled
with throughout his careeras a theorist.The difficultyin readingRameaulies
not only with his difficultprose, then, but with his task of formulatinga consistent and convincing epistemologicalposition, one that would protect him
from chargesof unreason.Very often the systematic,philosophicalthought of
which Rameauwas so proud devolvesinto a steadyprocessionof chaptersand
musicalexamples,similarto each other in weight and thus difficultto generalize effectively.His theory of music must to a large extent be inferredby the
reader,while at the same time being subjectto constantrevisionby its author.
14. "Trouverune Methode pour guider l'imagination,c'est deja beaucoup;mais en trouver
une sur laquelleles choses imagineessont necessairementetablies,& parlaquellele fond de toutes
ces choses se rend de point en point dans l'ordre ou elles ont ete dictees, je crois que c'est-la le
grand noeud" (Rameau, Generation harmonique, ou Traite de musique theoriqueet pratique
[Paris:Prault,1737], 216; CTW3:122).
15. "Ces differensouvragesne renfermentrient de neufni d'utile que le principede la Basse
fondamentale"([Jean-JacquesRousseau], Lettrea M. Grimm au sujetdesremarquesajoutiesa sa
Lettresur Omphale[n.p.: n.p., 1752], 21; facsimilein Denise Launay,ed., La Querelledesbouffons
[Geneva:Minkoff, 1973], 1:87-117). "Nous nous permettronsseulement de dire ici, que la considerationdes proportions & des progressionsest entierementinutile a la theorie de l'art musical:
je pense I'avoirsuffisammentprouve par mes elemens meme de Musique, ouij'ai donne, ce me
semble, une theorie de l'harmonieassez bien deduite, suivantles principesde M. Rameau,sansy
avoir fait aucun usage des proportions ni des progressions"(Encyclopidie7:62). See also, more
generally,Duchez, "Valeurepistemologiquede la theorie," 114-20.
441
These problems were set in motion from the opening pages of the Traite
de l'harmonie.There Rameau offered a Cartesianrejectionof experiencethat
cannot be verbalized as the very opposite of philosophicalenterprise,effectively warning composers, performers, and audience members that their
experiencesof music were heretoforelackingin substance:
Howevermuchprogressmusicmayhavemadeuntilour time,it appearsthat
the moresensitivethe earhas becometo the marvelouseffectsof thisart,the
lessinquisitivethe mindhasbeenaboutits trueprinciples.One mightsaythat
reasonhaslostits rights,whileexperiencehasacquireda certainauthority....
Evenif experiencecan enlightenus concerningthe differentpropertiesof
music,it alonecannotleadus to discoverthe principlebehindtheseproperties
with the precisionappropriate
to reason.Conclusionsdrawnfromexperience
areoftenfalse,or at leastleaveus withdoubtsthatonlyreasoncandispel.16
Reason, and more specificallyits embodiment in the fundamentalbass,singlehandedly provided a purpose and obligation for understanding music that
listening alone could not. They served in the Traiteas what Tacanianscall a
"unarytrait," a master signifierthat holds together a broad collection of related but unstable signifiers; ideas like fundamental bass tied together
Rameau'svariousobservationsand the empiricaldetailsof musicalexperience,
organizingit into a tree or genealogy of what was known about music.'7
Despite Rameau's efforts, however, the pall cast by unreason extended
even to his "introduction"to the Traite,the Nouveausysteme,which appeared
four yearslater.(Indeed, one might argue that the need to compose an introduction to the earliertreatise,a preliminarydiscourse after the fact, captures
some of the author's struggle at formulatingthe overarchingsystem within
which his ideas could be contained.) In the prefaceto the laterwork, Rameau
16. Jean-PhilippeRameau, Treatiseon Harmony, trans. Philip Gossett (New York:Dover,
1971), xxxiii. The original reads: "Quelque progres que la Musique ait fait jusques a nous, il
semble que l'espritait ete moins curieux d'en apronfondirles veritablesprincipes,a mesure que
l'oreille est devenue sensible aux merveilleuxeffets de cet Art; de sorte qu'on peut dire, que la
raisony a perdu de ses droits, tandisque l'experiences'y est acquisequelque autorit ....
"Si l'experiencepeut nous prevenirsur les differentesproprietezde la Musique, elle n'est pas
d'ailleursseule capablede nous fairedecouvrirle principede ces proprietezavec toute la precision
qui convient a la raison:Les consequences qu'on en tire sont souvent fausses,ou du moins nous
laissentdans un certain doute, qu'il n'appartientqu'a la raison de dissiper"(Rameau, Traite de
l'harmoniereduitea sesprincipesnaturels[Paris:Ballard,1722], preface;CTW 1:1).
17. I have derivedthis semiotic notion of the unary traitfrom the theories of JacquesLacan,
who also uses the expressions"mastersignifier"and point de capitonto make similarpoints. Lacan
first developed this idea in the mid 1950s (see Jacques Lacan, The Psychoses,
1955-1956, ed.
Jacques-AlainMiller, trans. Russell Grigg [New York:W. W. Norton, 1993], 258-70). See also
Lacan, Ecrits:A Selection,trans.Alan Sheridan(New York:W. W. Norton, 1977), 306; and idem,
"Compte rendu d'enseignements,"Ornicar?29 (1984): 8-25. My discussionhere owes much to
that of SlavojZiiek, For TheyKnow Not WhatTheyDo: Enjoymentas a PoliticalFactor(New York:
Verso, 1991), 7-61.
442
emphasized the importance of the fundamentalbass as the idea that draws
together the loosely connected observationsbased on experience:
I have made [readers]see that, for want of having known the fundamentalbass,
reasonandthe earhavenot yet been ableto reconcilein music.Not thatthis
observationcandiminishthe meritof ourgreatmusicians;
I believeto the contrarythatit oughtto raise[theirmerit]higher,since,despitethe poorprinciples
they havereceivedfrom theirteachers,they havecarriedtheirart to a high
degreeof perfection.18
This admission, a response to criticismof the Traite, opened a chink in
Rameau'sproject: he had previouslyargued for the rationalizationof an experienceconsideredto be purelysensory.By the 1730s, other unary signifiers
-notably the corpssonorein the Generationharmonique (1737) and later
writings-bolstered or displacedthe fundamentalbass,even as other detailsof
Rameau'stheoreticalprojectremainedunchanged.As Christensenhas shown,
in recasting his theories Rameau was sensitive to developing philosophical
fashions, especiallymidcentury empiricalthought, and ultimatelyhe became
convinced that music provided a "unified field theory" for all the arts.
Significantfeaturesof Rameau'smusicalpractice,as theorized in subsequent
treatises, shifted in response to these developments. The justifications for
adding dissonancesto harmoniesor, as we will see, implementing both chromatic and enharmonic progressions and modulations, often changed with
each new treatise.Rameau'stheories thus offered the readera particularkind
of experience. They presented neither true introductions to nor overviews
of his work-this task was reservedfor d'Alembert'sElemens,which stripped
them of their philosophical trappings-but rather attempts at abstraction,
adumbrationsof the philosophical tone their author so obviously desired.
Each treatiseoffered a new genealogicalordering of music, which had to be
masteredin order for Rameau'ssystemto make sense.
From the late 1720s on, then, Rameaubecame concernedwith reconciling
music's rationaland empiricalfeatures.In typicallyconvoluted fashion, he reminded readersthat his theories described an existing musical practice, the
very sensory experienceshe had questioned at the beginning of the Traite,
ratherthan justifyingmore radicalforms of musical expression.For example,
in the Nouveausystemehe devoted a chapterto reassuringreadersthat a com18. "Enfin,je fais voir, que, faute d'avoir connu la Basse-Fondamentale,
la raison & l'oreille
n'ont encore pu s'accorderdans la Musique: Non que cette remarquepuisse diminuerle merite
de nos grandsMusiciens;je crois au contraire,qu'elle doit servira le relever,puisque malgre les
mauvaisprincipesqu'ils ont requsde leurs premiersMaitres,ils ont porte leur Art a un tres-haut
degre de perfection"(Jean-PhilippeRameau, Nouveau systemede musiquetheorique[Paris:JeanBaptiste-ChristophBallard, 1726], viii; CTW 2:10). In the context of the present discussion,
Rameau'suse of the word relever,with its traceimplicationsof restoration,is especiallyinteresting:
in effect, the unary power of the fundamentalbass "restores"these individualsto their former
glory.
443
poser did not need to know his music theory to compose. Instead,as he reiterated in the Generationharmonique,a composer's intuitive practice had its
source in natureand could only benefit from greatergenealogicalfamiliarity:
By means [of nature], the order,connection, and interdependenceof successive
toneswill be knownwhennothingis overlookedthere;but one hasusedit in
an entirelydifferentmanner,and this is likeabandoningthe roots [la racine]
andtrunk[of a tree]in orderto attachoneselfto a branch.
A procedureas naturalas what I proposewould open a composer'seyes,
andhe wouldquicklyrecognizetherethe sourceof allhis musicalperception,
the sureguideof his ear,in a wordthe fundamental
bassthatprovidesthe necsuccessionof fundamental
tones. Becauseultimately,
essaryand indispensable
eachuniquesound,whateversonorousbodyit maybe [located]in, alwayscarrieswithinit the sameoctave,the samefifth,and the samethirdfromwhich
harmonyis formed.19
By the appearanceof his aptly named Observationssur notre instinctpour la
musique(1754), Rameauwas devoting considerablelabor to the sensoryvalidation of musicalphenomena.20There was, however, more to this move than
meets the reader'seye or ear:when Rameaustepped outside his writtentheory
to justify it through aural experience, he implicitly admitted the necessity,
within his system, of a means of comprehensionbeyond rationalorder.As we
will see, he invoked, as a justificationfor his systemof thought, the very mode
of experiencefor which his system of thought compensated.The rationalorder for which Rameau strove tipped precariously.The problem was further
exacerbated by what audiences heard at performances of his operas. Encountering a more intense, sophisticatedmusic than they were used to hearing, they could only imagine Rameau's theories as a justification for his
musicallyradicalvoice, not as a descriptionof naturalphenomena.
It is here, at the juncturebetweenmeaningand certainformsofnonmeaning
-at the juncture between the broaching of systematicthought and the moment of its potential failure, when it collapsed into mutually conflicting
systems-that monsters lurked in eighteenth-centurythought, much as they
did on those maps of ages past where sea serpentsmarkedthe boundariesof
19. "Parce moien, l'ordre, les rapports,& les dependancesde tous les Sons successifsseront
pour lors connus, rien n'y echappera:mais on en a use tout autrement;& c'est ainsiqu'abandonnant la racine& le tronc, on ne s'est attachequ'a l'une des branches.
"Une conduite aussinaturelleque celle que je propose, auroitfait ouvrirles yeux au Musicien,
bien-t6t il y auroit reconnu la source de toutes ses sensationsen Musique, le vrai guide de son
Oreille, en un mot, cette Basse fondamentaleque donne la successionnecessaire& indispensable
des Sons fondamentaux:carenfin tout Son que l'on croit unique, dans quelque Corps sonore que
ce soit, porte toujours avec lui la meme Octave, la meme Quinte, & la meme Tierce, dont se
forme l'Harmonie"(Rameau, Generationharmonique,preface;CTW3:11-12).
20. On Rameau's turn toward empiricismand his attempts to reconcile it with his earlier
work, see Duchez, "Valeurepistemologique de la theorie," 102-13; and Christensen,Rameau
and Musical Thought,213-41.
444
uncharted waters. Helene Merlin, working with seventeenth-century French
literature, has observed that "the figure of the monster ... constitutes a liminal moment in the theory of representation at which, henceforth, representation is placed in peril and restored; [the monster is] the metaphor for a series
ofaporias regulated as inclusions and exclusions."21
The monster was the image of something that failed to conform to rational
order. As Aristotle had explained in his Generation ofAnimals:
Some [offspring] take after none of their kindred, although they take after
some human being at any rate;others do not take aftera human being at all in
their appearance,but have gone so far that they resemble a monstrosity,and,
for the matter of that, anyone who does not take after his parentsis reallyin a
way a monstrosity, since in these cases Nature has in a way strayed from the
generic type.22
But precisely because the notion of monstrosity mediated what was acceptable
and unacceptable, it could just as easily be applied to metaphysical judgments.
Horace had explained it this way:
Suppose a painterwished to couple a horse's neck with a man's head, and to lay
feathersof every hue on limbs gatheredhere and there, so that a woman, lovely
above, foully ended in an ugly fish below; would you restrainyour laughter,my
friends,if admitted to a privateview?Believe me ... a book will appearuncommonly like that picture, if impossible figures are wrought into it-like a sick
man's dreams-with the result that neither head nor foot is ascribedto a single
shape, and unity is lost.23
Similarly, in seventeenth-century France, writers like Rene Rapin, in his Les
reflexions sur la poetique de ce temps (1675), used the image of the monster to
argue for the Aristotelian unity of action:
Diversity has a vast foundation in heroic poetry: the enterprisesof war, peace
treaties, embassies, negotiations, voyages, embarkations, councils, deliberations, the buildings of palaces and cities, passions, unexpected recognitions,
surprisingand unlooked-for revolutions, and the different images of all that
happens in the lives of the great can be employed, provided that they proceed
to the same goal. Without this order, the most beautifulfigures become monstrous and similarto the extravagancesHorace ridiculedat the beginning of his
Arspoetica.24
21. Merlin, "Ou est le monstre?"181.
22. Aristotle, GenerationofAnimals, trans.A. L. Peck (Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,
1953), 401. This, along with the following discussionof monsterswith respect to opera, is based
on Dill, MonstrousOpera,especiallypp. 12-14, where one will find a fullerdiscussion.
23. Horace on the Art of Poetry,ed. Edward Henry Blakeney (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for
LibrariesPress, 1928), 41.
24. "Cette diversitea un fonds bien vaste dans la poesie h6roique:les entreprisesde guerre,
les traitez de paix, les ambassades,les negociations, les voyages, les embarquemens,les conseils,
les deliberations,les batimensde palaiset de villes,les passions,les reconnaissancesimpreveues,les
445
Taking Nicolas Boileau as her point of departure, Merlin observes that
monsters represented a critical mediator, violating the rules governing art
without overturningthe pragmaticgoal of pleasurethat had informed those
rules.And for this same reason,pleasureoften carriedalong with it the hint of
immoralitythat comes from foreclosing the rationalorder imposed by social
and culturalpractice. (Indeed, as Antoine Furetierenoted in his Dictionaire
universel,the monster was a "prodigycontraryto the order of nature,which
one either admires or fears.")25Boileau had opened the third chant of his
L'artpoetique(1674) by suggesting, paradoxically,a place for the unusual,but
only insofaras it could be brought into line with prevailingtaste:
IIn'estpointde serpent,ni de monstreodieux,
Qui,parl'artimite,ne puisseplaireauxyeux:
D'unpinceaudelicatl'artificeagreable
Du plusaffreuxobjetfaitun objetaimable
la Tragedieen pleurs.
Ainsi,pournouscharmer,
cannot
(Thereis neitherserpentnor odiousmonsterthat,imitatedartistically,
pleasethe eyes:with a delicatebrush,pleasantartificemakesof a frightfulobjectanobligingone. So it is thatthe sadtragedycharmsus.)
Stillmore to the point was his advicetwo stropheslater:
n'offrezriend'incroyable:
Jamaisauspectateur
Levraipeutquelquefoisn'etrepasvraisemblable.
Une merveilleabsurdeestpourmoi sansappas:
L'espritn'estpointemude ce qu'ilne croitpas.26
the truecansometimesbe im(Neveroffera spectatoranythingunbelievable:
probable.An absurdmarvelis withoutattractionfor me. The intellectis not
movedbywhatit doesnot believe.)
In effect, Boileau limits entertainment to what can be expressed rationally,
through language;as his famed didactictone suggests, anythingelse smacksof
the unseemly and immoral. Thus, whether one admiredopera or despised it,
one could not ignore its untraditionalplots, strangecharacters,and fascinating
music. Its discourse and its underlying epistemological assumptions were
framed as issues. Outright celebrationsof pleasure,to be sure, existed in this
revolutionssurprenanteset inopinees, et les differentesimages de tout ce qui se passe dans la vie
des Grandspeuvent y estre employees, pourvu qu'elles aillent au mesme but. Sans cet ordre les
figures les plus belles deviennent monstrueuses et semblables a ces extravagancesqu'Horace
traittede ridicules,au commencement de sa Pottique"([Rend Rapin], Lesreflexionssurla poetique
de ce tempset sur les ouvragesdespoetesanciens et modernes,ed. E. T. Dubois [Paris:F. Muquet,
1675; reprint,Geneva:Droz, 1970], 77).
25. "Prodige qui est contre l'ordre de la nature, qu'on admire, ou qui fait peur" (Antoine
Furetiere,Dictionaireuniversel[The Hague: Arnout & ReinierLeers, 1690], s.v. "Monstre").
26. Nicolas Boileau, Oeuvresclassiques,ed. Charles-MarieDes Granges(Paris:Hatier, 1914),
233,235.
446
culture-as they did openly in opera-but often they were relegatedto unofficial locations:the fairtheatersand the illegal book trade,to name two familiar
examples. Pleasure was a constant reminder that reason could not stand
alone.27
Simultaneouslythe source of fascinationand revulsion,the monster represented the point at which French culture had failed to symbolize its interests
adequately.The seventeenth-and eighteenth-centurymonster thus offers us a
version of the LacanianThing. Lacan employed this idea to characterizethe
"beyond of the signified"-an experiencelocated beyond systematicthought
as secured by the unarytrait.The Thing is the unidentifiedand unidentifiable
experiencethat begs one's attention, the tempting, liminal point that marks
the boundary for proper behavior;it is unknowable, discomfiting, and irresistible, a specter that haunts the symbolic ordering of language, society, and
culture.28In just this way, debates over whether operawas an acceptablepleasure or a matter for social reform had begun in Francein 1673 with the appearance of Lully's first tragedie en musique, Cadmus et Hermione, and by
Rameau'stime they representedfamiliarthemes in criticalwritings.As I have
argued elsewhere, Rameau'soperaswere considered monstrous not least because they overturnedthe traditionalbalancebetween poetry and music, and
hence between edificationand entertainment.
It was precisely at this same juncture that circumstancesworked against
Rameauas a theorist, for eighteenth-centuryFrench culturewas not one that
easily sanctioned music as an intellectualfield. Rather, it was a culture that
privilegedliterature,and, strangethough it may sound to modern observers,it
conceived its operatic interests in literaryterms.29To this extent, opera was
caught up within the legalisticsystem of rules and acceptablebehaviorsrepre-
27. Merlin, "Oiuest le monstre?"181.
28. Cf. Jacques Lacan, The Ethicsof Psychoanalysis,
1959-1960, trans. Dennis Porter (New
York:W. W. Norton, 1992), 43-70.
29. There is an extensive secondary literatureon this aspect of French aesthetics.See PaulMarieMasson, "Musiqueitalienneet musique francaise:La premierequerelle,"Rivista musicale
italiana 19 (1912): 519-45; idem, "La musique italienneen Francependant le premiertiers du
xviiiesiecle," in Melangesde philologie,d'histoireet de littirature offertsa Henri Hauvette (Paris:
Les Pressesfransaises,1934; reprint,Geneva:Slatkine,1972), 353-65; Georges Snyders,Legout
musicalen Franceaux xviie et xviiie siecles(Paris:J. Vrin, 1968); MariaRikaManiates," 'Sonate,
que me veux tu?'The Enigma of FrenchMusicalAestheticsin the Eighteenth Century,"Current
Musicology9 (1969): 117-40; Georgia Cowart, TheOriginsofModernMusical Criticism:French
and Italian Music, 1600-1750 (Ann Arbor,Mich.: UMI ResearchPress, 1981); John Neubauer,
The Emancipation of Music from Language: Departure from Mimesis in Eighteenth-Century
Aesthetics(New Haven, Conn.: Yale UniversityPress, 1986); and Belinda Cannone, Philosophies
de la musique, 1752-1789 (Paris: Klincksieck,1990). Catherine Kintzler's Poetiquede l'opera
franfais de Corneillea Rousseau(n.p.: Minerve, 1991) is an extended discussionof this issue as it
pertainsto French opera. See also, more generally,GloriaFlaherty,Operain the Developmentof
German Critical Thought(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); and Bellamy Hosler,
Changing AestheticViewsof Instrumental Music in Eighteenth-CenturyGermany(Ann Arbor,
Mich.: UMI ResearchPress, 1981).
447
sented by figureslike Boileau.30Saint-Evremond,for example,found the music of operarepugnantpreciselybecauseit distractedfrom the poetry: "The intellect, being incapableof conceiving a hero who sings, seizes instead on the
one who made the song, and that Lully is a hundred more times likelyto be
thought of than Thesee or Cadmus would be denied only at the [opera theater of the] Palaisroyal."31Later commentatorsmay have argued in favor of
opera, but they willingly acknowledged that continuous song was problematic, if not preposterous.Thus GabrielBonnot de Mablywould arguein 1741
that the mythicalnymphs, gods, and creaturespopulating opera justifiedmusic's presence:"These chimericalbeings, of whom the spectatorhas no precise
idea, all allow the composer the liberty of giving them a more musical language."32This attributeof opera-its inabilityto account fully for its musical
component-earned it the epithet "monstrous."The poet Pierre de Villiers
referredto opera as "a monstrousjumble" and complainedof its "monstrous
heroes."33For some audience members, music was the monster, and no
amount of reasoningcould rehabilitateit.
By longstandingtradition,then, the Frenchwere not interestedin hearing
about rules and reason as applied to music, and long before Rameau or his
theories became known, they greeted with the epithet geometrethose writers
and composerswho attempted to discuss such matters.For example, a 1713
comparisonof French music with Italian,publishedin the Mercurede France,
made the case that knowledge of the kind Rameauwould later espouse did
not solve the problem of music's relevance.Music could be understood only
through its proximityto language:
The rulesof harmonydo not showhow to makea beautifulsong,of whichit is
the soul;how to imaginea form,to renderthe expressionof the wordswell;to
knowwhereto placecadencesto completethe sense,as periodsand commas
do in discourse;to changethe modewhen the wordschangein character
and
sentiment:a good mathematician
fullypossessesthe rulesof compositionandis
a verybadcomposer.34
30. See Sima Godfrey,prefaceto TheAnxiety ofAnticipation, ed. Sima Godfrey,YaleFrench
Studies 66 (New Haven, Conn.: YaleUniversityPress, 1984), iii-ix; and, in the same volume, her
essay"The Anxietyof Anticipation:UlteriorMotives in FrenchPoetry,"1-26.
31. "L'espritne pouvant concevoir un Heros qui chante, s'attachea celui qui fait chanter,et
on ne sauroitnier qu'aux representationsdu PalaisRoyal, on ne songe cent fois plus a Baptiste,
qu'a Thesee ni a Cadmus" (Charles de Saint-Denis, Seigneur de Saint-Evremond, "Sur les
operas,"in Oeuvresenprose,ed. Rene Ternois [Paris:MarcelDidier, 1962-69], 3:152-53).
32. "Ces Etreschimeriquesdont le Spectateurn'a pas d'idee bien precise,laissentla liberte au
Musicien de leur donner un langage plus musical" ([Gabriel Bonnot de Mably], Lettresa
madame la marquisede P.... sur I'opera[Paris:Didot, 1741; facsimileed., New York:AMS Press,
1978], 49).
33. "Les Opera ne sont qu'un fatrasmonstrueux" ([Pierre de Villiers], "Epitre III. A un
Homme qui estimoit de mauvaisouvrages, & sur tout les tragedies de l'opera," Poesiesde D*
V*** rev.ed. [Paris:JacquesCollombat, 1728], 297; see also pp. 305, 308).
34. "Les regles de l'harmoniene montrent pas a faireun beau chant, qui en est l'ame, a imaginer un dessein, a bien rendre l'expressiondes paroles,a scavoirplacerles cadencesaux sens finis,
448
And, shortly after the premiere of Hippolyte et Aricie, an allegorical piece in
the same journal tarred all such composers with the same brush:
Everyone worked with the desire of composing music, each praisinghis work
and the efforts he put into it. Even the geometers joined in. They praisedthe
vast calculationsthey had made in order to find the means of traversingin violin airsall the differentcombinations of re or mi with the other tones. It is true
that this was not vocal music, and in this constrainedmusic, so difficultto compose, nothing flowed from the source: no genius animated [the composers];
they avoided nature and sentiment.35
Later, when the abbe Noel-Antoine Pluche advanced a place for rules and reason in the creation and appreciation of music, he did so grudgingly, with little
sense of detail and an abiding interest for maintaining the audience's power
over judgment:
There is no one who is not permitted to have taste [for music], and just as one
can, without being a poet, feel very well the difference between Virgil, who
paints nature, and Lucan, who depicts the intellect, one can also feel the true
beautiesof music and wiselyjudge the merits of musicianswithout being a musician.But let us not riskeither assigningany scorn to [musicians]or wishing to
give preferenceto one over the other without the aid of an enlightening rule,
avowed by musiciansthemselves,that decides the just value of their method.36
Rameau's ideas-and it is important to recall that when he undertook his first
official opera he was known principally through his theoretical writingssteered perilously close to being epistemologically inconsequential. For some
commeles points& les virgulesdansle discours;a scavoirchangerde mode quandles paroles
& de sentiment.Un bon Matematicien
changentde caractere
possedea fondsles reglesde la
sur la musiqueitalienne&
composition,& est un fort mauvaiscompositeur"("Dissertation
Mercure
deFrance,November1713, 3-62; seeespecially
francoise,"
pp.47-48).
35. "Toustravaillent
a l'envia composerde la Musique,chacunvantoitson travailet la pein
qu'ils'etoitdonnee,les Geometresmemes'enmelerent,ils loiioientles calculsimmensesqu'ils
avoientfaitpourtrouvermoyende parcourir
danslesAirsde violontoutesles differentes
combinaison;d'unreou d'unmi,avecles autresNotes:il estvraique cetAirn'avoitpointde chant,et
danscetteMusiquecontrainte
et si peniblea composer,rienne couloitde source,nulgeniene les
animoit,ils fuioientla natureet le sentiment"("Lettrede M.***a Mile.*** surl'originede la
et
musique,"Mercurede France,May 1734, 867-68). See also Paul-Marie
Masson,"Lullistes
Ramistes:
1 (1911):187-213,esp.201-2.
1733-1752,"L'anneemusicale
36. "Iln'y a personnea qui il ne soitpermisd'yprendrequelquegout:& commesansetre
poeteon peuttres-biensentirla difference
qu'ily a de Virgilequipeintla nature,a Lucainquifait
montred'esprit;on peutsansetremusiciensentirlesvraiesbeautesde la musique,& jugersainementdu meritedesmusiciens.
Maisne risquonsni de leurattribuer
aucunemeprise,ni de vouloir
donnera l'unaucunepreference
surun autre,qu'al'aided'unereglelumineusequi soit avouee
desmusiciensmemes,& quidecidede lajustevaleurde leurmethode"([Noel-AntoinePluche],
Le spectaclede la nature, ou Entretienssur lesparticularitesde l'histoirenaturelle,rev. ed. [Paris:
FreresEstienne,1755], 7:97-98).
449
readers, the musical knowledge he offered was irrelevant,unthinkable, and
unchartablewith respect to their own musical experiencesand to the social
orderthey imaginedin relationto opera.
Rameau thus found himself in an awkwardposition when he began work
on his first opera. He was known principallyas an intellectual,yet he worked
in a field where reasonwas not generallyrecognized. Further,he was entering
an area of composition where the public placed little value on intellectual
knowledge per se, assumingit could discernmusicalvalue insteadthrough an
inchoate and nonspecificsense of taste. Finally,in Hippolyte and Aricie'sstory
he was taking on a plot rifewith monsters, both literaland figurative.It was a
setting in which no single aspect of his theoretical and compositional craft
could remainunquestioned, either by the composer himselfor by the public.
The Monsters in Hippolyte etAricie
The collaborationbetween Rameau and Pellegrin on Hippolyteet Aricie was
unusual, and it is difficult to know how audiences regarded it. On the one
hand, Pellegrinhad enjoyed recent successwith his livretfor ephte(1732), the
culminationof an activecareerwriting livretsthat extended back twenty years
with Medeeet ason (1713), Telemaque(1714), and Theonoe(1715). It was
from the vantage point of those long yearsof experiencethat the poet could
demand of the fledgling opera composer Rameau a promissorynote for five
hundred livresas indemnity againstthe failureof HippolyteetAricie. (He tore
On the
up the note, so the story goes, upon hearingthe work in rehearsal.)37
other hand, Pellegrinwas not a poet favoredby the Parisianpublic. As a cleric
who had not taken holy orders, the abbe Pellegrinplaced himself in the position, awkwardfor a religiousfigureeven by the standardsof the day,of writing
for the theaterand composing poetry-compliments, birthdayodes, epithalamia, and epitaphs-for a living, and as the sometimes controversialtheater
critic for the Mercurede France,he faced ambivalence,not to mention outright scorn. (In Voltaire'scorrespondence,Pellegrinappearedas the epitome
of the poetaster:Voltairedisdainedhis livelihood as well as his literaryskill.)38
Pellegrin'sstatus in 1733 thus embracedthe same liminalposition, the same
aporia of success and failure, reason and nonsense, that would characterize
Rameau's operas after the premiere of Hippolyte.For the composer, there
would have been prestige in working with an establishedpoet, but he also
37. See, for example, the "Essaid'eloge historique de feu M. Rameau . . . ," Mercurede
France,October 1764, 182-99, esp. 187.
38. For a study of Pellegrin'scomplex relationshipwith his critics,contemporaries,Voltaire,
and Rameau, see Charles Dill, "Pellegrin,Opera, and Tragedy," CambridgeOperaJournal 10
(1998): 247-57. Little or nothing has been written about him as a reviewerfor the Mercure,but
there is some indication of his controversialstatus in defensive essayssuch as that found in the
December 1714 issue of Mercurede France(pp. 3-15), which he may havewritten.
450
therebyopened his music up to criticism.It was a seriouscommitment for him
to make in a society that assumedliteraryapproachesto opera.
We have every reason to believe that Pellegrintook HippolyteetAricie seriously,despitehis initialreservations.He had acquireda measureof respectability with Jephteand this at a time when truly successfulnew lyrictragedieswere
declining in number; to offer the public a less ambitious livret would have
been self-defeating.39
As his avertissementto the Hippolytelivretindicated,the
poet took the formidabletask of following in Racine'sfootsteps as a chance to
prove his own literaryand dramaticmettle. There, in a tone familiarfrom his
theatercriticism,he attempted to prove that his own version of the story was
raisonableby offering a critiqueof Racine'splay.Racine'sThesee had been too
quick to believe his son's guilt, and so Pellegrin recounted his attempts to
remedy this fault. He then anticipatedcriticismsof his emplotment. Though
an audiencewould not have assumedunity of place in an opera, Pellegrindefended his decision to set the second act in the underworld.Further,he summarizedhis rationalefor violating the protocols due variousgods in the story
and explainedthe odd pacing of the fourth and fifth acts. (In the 1733 version, Hippolyte dies in the fourth act while battlinga monster, leavingfor the
fifth only Thesee's remorse, along with Hippolyte's revivaland reunion with
Aricie.)And finally,Pellegrinjustifiedhis use of Diane (who renounced love)
to reunite the two lovers, citing Theocritus and recalling at the end of the
operaJupiter'sinjunctionto Diane from the prologue: "En faveurde Hymen,
faites grace a l'amour" ("On behalf of marriage,sparelove"). The poet's efforts to instill a high literaryquality in his work extended even to a subtle
appropriationof Racine:the trope of the monster, which he often based on
Racine'sverses.A brief look at Racine'splayis thereforein order.40
As Roland Barthesnoted some yearsago, Racine'sPhedreis redolent with
monstrous imagery:"At first,the monstrous threatensall the characters;they
are all monstersto each other, and all monster-seekersas well. But above all, it
39. On the declining number of successfultragediesin comparisonto other, newer genres,
see Robert Fajon, L'Operaa Paris du Roi soleila Louisle Bien-aime(Geneva:Slatkine,1984), esp.
70-71.
40. On the relationshipsbetween Racine's play and Pellegrin's livret, see Jacques Morel,
"HippolyteetAricie de Rameauet Pellegrindans l'histoiredu mythe de Phedre,"in Jean-Philippe
Rameau: Colloqueinternational organisepar la SociiteRameau, Dijon-21-24 septembre1983,
ed. Jerome de La Gorce (Paris:Champion, 1987), 89-99, reprintedin idem, Agriables mensonges:Essaissur le theatrefranais du xviie siecle(Paris:Klincksieck,1991); Edith Kern, "Tragedy
into Opera: Phedreand Hippolyteet Aricie," in Aestheticsand the Literatureof Ideas:Essaysin
Honor of A. Owen Aldridge, ed. FrancoisJost (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990),
122-33; Peter Low, "Credulity and Credibility: Pellegrin's Critique of Racine's Thesee,"
A. U.M.L.A.:Journal of the Australasian UniversitiesLanguage and LiteratureAssociation80
(1993): 81-92; Downing Thomas, "Racine Redux? The OperaticAfterlifeof Phedre,"L'esprit
createur38, no. 2 (1998): 82-94; and Buford Norman, "Remakinga CulturalIcon: Phedreand
the OperaticStage," CambridgeOperaJournal 10 (1998): 225-45. The appendixto Norman's
article,a comparisonof versesin the play and livretthat shareat least three importantwords, indicates those instanceswhere the word monstreis similarlyused.
451
is a monster, this time a real one, which intervenesto resolve the tragedy."41
The motif takes severalforms in the play. Notably, we find it in Hippolyte's
relationshipwith Th&see.Already in the very first scene, the son recalls his
father's exploits-"Monsters crushed and pirates punished, Procrustes,
Cercyon, Scirron, and Sinnis, the bones of the giant of Epidaurusscattered,
and Crete reekingwith the blood of the minotaur"-and, as a result,he questions his own worth-"Having to this day tamed no monsters, I haven't acquired the right to fail as he does."42And this same anxietyreturnsin act 3,
scene 3, when confronting his father.These monsters, like the one that kills
Hippolyte in the fifth act, are real within the context of the story, but as
Barthespointed out, there are other monsters as well. In act 2, scene 2, when
Aricie assumes that Hippolyte hates her, he in turn suggests that doing so
would make him a monster: "I hate you, Madame?Whateverthe colors that
have paintedmy arrogance,am I believedto be born of a monster'swomb?"43
Phedre echoes this theme when, in conversationwith Thesee in act 2, scene 5,
she callsHippolyte a monster;then, when her plans have failedin act 4, scene
6, she likewiserefersto her confidanteOenone in this manner.As the characters circle about the evil affectingtheir lives, Phedre'slargelyunspoken desire
for Hippolyte, they identify this unnamed-and in this sense, empty-space
with monstrosity.
Similarly,Pellegrin'slivretcontains a number of monstrous figures.Crucial
scenes in the prologue and act 5 referto the authorityof Le Destin, who, absent from the stage, servesas a legalisticfigure, demanding that characterslive
out the livespredestinedto them. In his preface,Pellegrinexplainsthat this allows Hippolyte to be brought backto life for a happyending; without this intervention,the plot would have let a subalterngod, Diane, overrulea superior
one, Neptune. The second act takes place in the underworld, the first entire
act in a tragedyto do so. Here, too, Pellegrinfelt compelled to defend his intervention: "I realize that unity of place has not been scrupulouslyobserved
in this tragedie, but my subject was of such a nature that one could not dispense with a privilegethat ought to be undisputed in the lyric genre and for
which the creatorof this genre in France[Lully] has given me more than one
example."44This setting necessitateda number of strange creatures,the best
41. Roland Barthes, On Racine, trans. RichardHoward (New York:Hill and Wang, 1964),
122-23. Barthes'snote 26 lists only five of the sixteen referencesto monsters occurring in the
play.
42. "Les monstres etouffes et les brigandspunis, / Procruste,Cercyon, et Scirron,et Sinnis,
/ Et les os dispersesdu geant d'Epidaure,/ Et la Crete fumant du sang du Minotaure./ ... /
Qu'aucuns monstres par moi domptes jusqu'aujourd'hui/ Ne m'ont acquis le droit de faillir
comme lui" (Jean Racine, Oeuvresde Racine, ed. Paul Mesnard [Paris:L. Hachette, 1865-73],
3:309-10).
43. "Moi, vous hair,Madame?/ Avec quelques couleurs qu'on ait peint ma fierte, / Croiton que dans ses flancsun monstre m'ait porte?"(ibid., 3:335).
44. "Jescaisque l'Unite de lieu n'est pas scrupuleusementobservee dans cette Tragedie,mais
mon sujet etoit d'une naturea ne pouvoir se passerd'un privilegedont on ne doit pas contesterla
452
known of which is the trio desparques,three female Fates whose prophesy
Rameaufamouslyset for tenor voices as a chain of enharmonicmodulations.
(As we will see, the setting involving the modulations was never performed
publicly.)And, finally,there is the creatureHippolyte must battle, to which we
will returnshortly.
Textualreferencesto monstersin the opera are more easilyoverlooked, for
only eight are explicit. Nevertheless, this has more to do with the necessary
compression of text and plot in livrets than with Pellegrin'sindifferenceto
Racine'smotif; as sourcesfrom the period frequentlypointed out, when it was
a question of musicalperformanceone simplycould not use a text as long or
complex as that of spoken tragedy.45Despite their relativescarcity,Pellegrin's
references to monstrosity articulate dramaticallythe concerns of the four
principalcharactersin the manner described by Barthes:Aricie must choose
between Hippolyte and religiousservice,Thesee must demonstratehis leadership by choosing whom to believe, Phedre must confront incestuous desire,
and Hippolyte must emulate his father'sbraverywithout adopting his flawed
character. We may therefore separate out appearances of the trope in
Pellegrin'stext by character.
Its first appearancebelongs to Aricie, though she herselfdoes not utter it.
During the first act of Pellegrin'slivret, she has confronted her commitment
to become a priestessof Diane and revealedher love to Hippolyte. When the
moment comes for her to pledge herselfto the goddess, requiringher to renounce love, she balks. (Diane's priestessesoffer little aid, arguing first that
one shouldn't be forced to serve the goddess, but that neither should one
challengeher.)When Phedre expressesoutrage at Aricie'shesitation,threatening to destroy Diane's altarand temple, the goddess herself appearsand remonstratesthe queen. At this point, in scene 6, Diane then turnsto Aricie:
Et toy,tristeVictime,a me suivrefidelle,
FaistoujoursexpirerlesMonstressoustes traits;
On peutservirDianeavecle memezele,
Dansson Temple& dansles Forests.46
(And you, sad victim, in following me faithfilly, may monsters ever fall beneath
your arrows.Diane can be servedwith the samezeal in the forestas in her
temple.)
de ce genreen France,m'ena donneplusd'unexampossessionaugenreLyrique;& le Createur
ple" ([Simon-JosephPellegrin], HippolyteetAricie; tragedie,representiepour la premierefoispar
I'Academieroyalede musiquelejeudypremieroctobre1733 [n.p.: J. B. C. Ballard,1733], v [hereafterabbreviatedHlivret 1733]).
45. See, for example,Mably,Lettressur 'opera,44-49; and [ToussaintRemondde SaintsurI'opera
Mard],Reflexions
(TheHague:JeanNeaulme,1741;facsimileed., Geneva:Minkoff,
1972),25.
46. Hlivret 1733, 10.
453
This monster may well carrya pointed referenceto Phedre, a momentaryventriloquism in which Diane again warns Phedre through Aricie, but it also
demonstratesthe goddess's benevolence. Given the importance of the scene
within the story as a whole, one might expect Rameau,who was so firmlyconvinced of music's expressivepower, to highlight the text in some manner,but
instead he italicizesthe word monstreswith a simple cadentialsuspension,the
conventional dissonance (in an accompanimentalinner voice) highlighting
the word in a one-to-one correlationthat suggestsgalanterie ratherthan danger (see Ex. 1).47
This interpretationmakesDiane's blending of strength,wisdom, and kindness a foil for Th6see'sviolent temper.The majorityof referencesto monsters,
a total of four, belong to the king, no surprisegiven that the second act revolves aroundhis sojournin the underworld:
Dieux!n'est-cepasassezdesmauxquej'aysoufferts?
J'ayvuiPyrithousdechireparCerbere;
J'ayvu ce monstreaffreuxtrancherdesjourssi chers,
Sansdaignerdansmon sangassouvirsacolere.
(Gods!HaveI not sufferedenoughevil?I haveseenPirithoustornto piecesby
Cerbere;I haveseenthisfrightfulmonstercut short[Pirithoiis's]
preciousdays
withoutdeigningto satisfyhisragewithmy blood.)48
Thesee's speeches allude to several Racinian themes. In his dialogue with
Pluton in act 2, scene 2, he mentions the monsters he has slain in his adventures, and in act 3, scene 8, he states that "dansun Fils si coupable, Je ne vois
qu'un Monstre effroyable"("in so guilty a son, I see only a frightfulmonster").49Pellegrin takes texts from Racine's Hippolyte and then his Phedre,
giving them both to Thesee, so that Thesee now dwells on monstrositymore
than the other characters.In this way Pellegrin separatesthe king from the
others, perhapsin preparationfor his reversalin act 5, scene 1 of the opera,
when he offers to returnto the underworld:"D'un Monstre tel que moi delivrons la nature" ("Let us deliver the world from a monster such as I").50
Rameau's setting indicates that he had turned his attention to the monster
trope; Thesee's statementsreferringto it employ expansive,plunging melodic
contours of the kind shown in Example2.
47. All musicalexamplesare drawnfrom Jean-PhilippeRameau, HippoliteetAricie; tragidie
mise en musiquepar Mr. Rameau, representee
par l'Acadimie royalede musiquele jeudypremier
octobre1733, partition infoliogravepar De Gland (Paris:L'Hauteur,[1733]).
48. H livret 1733, 15. Cf. entry 24 in Norman's appendix ("Remaking a Cultural Icon,"
240).
49. Hlivret 1733, 35. See also entries25, 26, 43, and 51 in Norman's appendix("Remaking
a CulturalIcon," 241-42).
244).
454
Example 1 Rameau,HippolyteetAricie (1733), act 1, scene 6
Faistou-jours ex - pi
: ?"-?#
-
rer
I|,-J
les Mons - tres soustes traits;
Ij
r
4
?
Since Hippolyte does not utter the word monstrein Pellegrin'slivret, we
may leave him aside momentarily to consider Phedre. Here again we find
evidence of the compressedimageryoflivret poetry.Where Racine'scharacter
can scarcelylet go of the word monstre,Pellegrin'ssavesit for a single important speech, her confrontationwith Hippolyte in act 3, scene 3:
sorsd'unhonteuxrepos;
Eclatte;eveille-toy;
Rends-toydigne-Filsd'unHeros,
Qui desmonstressansnombrea delivrela terre;
IIn'enest echappequ'unseula safureur;
Frappe;ce Monstreest dansmon coeur.
(Act!Wakeup!Leavethisshamefulstupor.Renderyourselftheworthyson of a
herowho hasdeliveredthe earthfrommonsterswithoutnumber.Onlya single
one hasescapedhisfury.Strike!Thismonsteris in myheart.)51
Once againthe rebukeis taken from Racine'sHippolyte and now deliveredto
him by anothercharacter.When next Phedre hearsof Hippolyte, he will have
been slain while defeating a monster. And once again Rameau'smusic suggests the emotional content of the scene, here setting the entire speech to an
overdotted accompaniment,without calling attention to the particulartrope
of monstrosity in some more self-consciously denotative way. Monstrosity
thus carriesin Pellegrinthe echo of Racine'stheme, but what is most striking
thus far is that Rameau, a composer known for overplayinghis musicalhand,
seems obliviousto its potentialas an overarchingmusicalmotif.
Indeed, Rameauwould seem unawareof the monster trope and its role as
mastersignifierin both Racine'sand Pellegrin'stexts were it not for the creature appearingat the end of act 4 in Pellegrin'sstory. If Hippolyte himself no
longer contemplatesmonsters in this version, Thesee and Phedre have both
questioned whether he is a worthy successor to his father in preciselythese
242).
Example 2
455
HippolyteetAricie, act 2, scene 1
(,[I] rrp
9'y.^
J'ay vi
IT
P(,
urp
ce monstreaf - freux
.q:vor
tran- cher des jours si
I
I
r
chers,
I i
terms, and now he must confront a monster that is dramaticallyand musically
tangible. In Racine's story, Theramene, Hippolyte's tutor, famously reports
the monster to Th6se in the conventionalmannerof the seventeenth-century
tragedy:
Cependantsurle dos de laplaineliquide
S'elevea grosbouillonsunemontagnehumide;
L'ondeapproche,se brise,et vomita nos yeux,
Parmidesflotsd'ecume,un monstrefirieux.
Son frontlargeest armede comesmenacantes;
Toutson corpsest couvertd'ecaillesjaunissantes;
taureau,dragonimpetueux,
Indomptable
Sacroupese recourbeen replistortueux.
Seslongsmugissements
fonttremblerle rivage.
Le cielavechorreurvoitce monstresauvage;
La terre s'en emeut, l'airen est infecte;
Le flot, qui l'apporta,recule epouvante.52
(Meanwhile, an enormous wave mounts and disturbsthe surfaceof the liquid
plain. The wave approaches,breaks,and vomits before our eyes a furiousmonster. His large brow is armed with menacing horns, his entire body covered
with jaundiced scales. Untameable bull, violent dragon, his croup twists into
tortuous coils. His long roarsmake the shorelinetremble. Heaven sees this savage monster with horror. The earth stirs;the air is infected by it. The flood it
bringswith it recoils frightfilly.)
In Pellegrin'slivret,the monster is no longer merelydescribed,but physically
present and visible to the audience. The gist of Theramene'sspeech is transposed to a chorus, where it looses its literarymoorings, becoming instead a
briefseriesof terrifiedejaculations:
Quel bruit! quels vents! quelle Montagne humide!
Quel Monstre elle enfante a nos yeux!
O Diane, accourez;volez du haut des Cieux.
52. Racine, Oeuvresde Racine 3:389-90.
456
(Whatnoise!Whatwinds!Whata mountainouswave!Whata monster[this
wave]bearsbeforeus!Diane,hurry!Fly[to us] fromthe heightof heaven.)53
We could find no example that more aptly illustrateshow poets worked to
streamlinetheir livretsfor the sake of operaticconvention. Theramene'sterrified speech is strippedof rhetoricalartificeand reduced to a combination of
action, emotion, and visual shock. But by shifting the center of gravityaway
from the rationalworld of language and towardthe merveilleux,Pellegrinalso
underscoresthe irrationalnatureof monstrosity.Unlike spoken tragedy,where
shocking events were narratedfrom a safe distance,in opera they provided a
pretext for much-anticipated special effects, both musical and mechanical.
Indeed, as Mably noted in the passage cited earlier, the incredible events
depicted in operajustifiedmusic'sirrationalpresence.
The nature of the dramaticmoment led Rameau-this time-to a striking
musical effect. As we see in Example 3, he sets the chorus's exclamations
against a flurryof orchestralactivity,suggesting the noise, wind, and mountainouswave mentioned in the text, though in this respectthe musicalsetting
is a conventionaloperaticdepiction of a tempete. The extraordinaryevent occurswhen the wavesvomit forth their contents, a stage monster accompanied
by an equally monstrous musical progressionmodulating from the tonal region of El major to Ab major.As we see in measure 4, at the words "Quel
Monstre elle enfante a nos yeux" ("What monster does [this mountainous
wave] give birth to before our eyes?"),both chorus and orchestralurchin fear,
yanking the music chromaticallyfrom its Bb-majorharmony (serving as the
dominant of El major)up to a harmonyon Db major,a wholly audiblegesture
that would still surpriseaudienceswhen Beethoven used it at the beginning of
the next century.This music is disruptivein a way the previouslycited examples are not, and the composer employs it to signify the unnaturalforce that
bringsabout the story'scalamity.Through this musicaleffect, Rameau'smonster becomes a unary figure in a way it never could have been for Racine.
Music per se, through the same irrationalintrusivenessaudiences found disquieting, suturestogether text, action, and visualimpactto createthe defining
moment in the story, an act of overdeterminationthat necessarilyrefines the
shifting meanings accruedin the course of the opera. As Phedre and Thesee
have, in Pellegrin'stelling, projectedtheir guilts and anxietiesonto Hippolyte,
leaving him no room to speak or explain, so too they have left to him this
single, suicidalact of battlinga monster,which wins him the qualitiesdenied.
Yet even with this assertionof music'spower to convey information,an assertion of musical authority that was new and potentially threatening to its
audiences, Rameau had not completed his symbolic task. In the very next
53. Hlivret 1733, 43. Cf. entries 64 and 65 in Norman's appendix ("Remakinga Cultural
Icon," 243).
etAricie,act4, scene3
Example3 Hippolyte
Ciel!
9: bl,
Ciel!
| b, r
...
rr
le
quel
9:~"
r
mon
r
P
le
quel
-
mon
ta
-
gnehu
-
gnehu-
r
-
ta
9: 1
-mi
-
-mi
9: ~-L=
c
I
'III
de!
Quel
de!
Quel
M-I
457
458
Example 3 continued
r
tre elle
Mons
vl f
-tre
- -
-fan
I
,
I
en
- -r
r
,
a nos
-te
-fnr
-fan
r
elle
:
I
en
r
Mons
9b:t
r
Ir
r
-
te
f
anos
SrtfC:rrfCC:rCff:F:fr:=rl
i
yeux!
1y?
yeux!
t
scene, Phedre approachesthe chorus, now mourning Hippolyte's demise, and
inquires what has happened. "Un Monstre furieux sorti du sein des flots,"
they reply,"Vient de nous ravirce Heros" ("A furious monster, from out of
the flood, has just torn this hero from us") (see Ex. 4).54The mood is quieter
here, devoid of the orchestra'snoisy tempete,but even so a similarchromatic
shudder ripples through the chorus on the word monstre.Moreover, this
version of the chromatic progression recalls similar progressions in earlier
tragic laments, notably the final scenes of Lully's Atys (1675) and MarcAntoine Charpentier'sAction (1683-85), suggesting a topical link as well.
The music, at this point, is in Bbmajor,but the move from F to F#in the upper
voices nudges it towardthe G minor of the precedingnumber by suggesting a
54. H livret 1733, 45. Cf. entries 64 and 65 in Norman's appendix ("Remakinga Cultural
Icon," 243).
Example 4
Un
HippolyteetAricie, act 4, scene 4
mon - stre fu- ri - eux
.:bir'I
Un
459
ir"rI
mon - stre fu - ri - eux
.9:',.,rVif' 7]
sor -
ti
du sein des
r'
i
sor
flots
-
ti
du sein des
flots
I'
[V]
dominant harmonyon D.55The tempetehas disappeared.The memory of the
beastlingers,but Hippolyte has vanquishedit as a physicalpresenceon stage.
Rameau's Chromaticism in Practice
My initial point-that Rameau produced and practiced forms of musical
knowledge-appears a small one. But Rameau's publications, correspondence, and polemics, notably with the Encyclopedists, point to an almost
painful concern that his music-theoreticalefforts went unappreciated,along
with a commensuratedesirefor acknowledgment.However successfulhis operaswere with respectto numbersof performances-and they were successful
by this measure,despite or because of controversy-he regardedhimselfforemost as a thinker.It standsto reason that such an individualwould experience
the familiardrive to put theory into practice,and in a field like music he possessed a laboratoryunavailableto those plotting the course of human, social,
and culturalinteractions.He could inscribe his ideas in musical notes, have
55. The passageis unfigured in earlysources, and, by the 1742 revival,the scene itself may
have been removed. The harmonyin question was interpretedin Vincent d'Indy's edition for the
Oeuvrescompletesas a fully diminished seventh harmony on F#, but this seems unlikely given
Rameau'stheories during the 1730s, as discussedbelow (see Jean-PhilippeRameau, Hippolyteet
Aricie, vol. 6 of Oeuvrescompletes[Paris:A. Durand et fils, 1900; reprint, New York:Broude
Brothers, 1968], 321). On the importance of and problems in the early sources, see Graham
Sadler,"Rameau,Pellegrinand the Opera:The Revisionsof 'Hippolyte et Aricie'During Its First
Season," TheMusical Times124 (1983): 533-37; and on d'Indy's problematicstatusas editor of
Rameau, see idem, "Vincent d'Indy and the Rameau Oeuvrescompltes:A Case of Forgery?"
EarlyMusic21 (1993): 415-21.
460
them performed,and observe the results.At the same time, however,this narrative by itself fails to account for Rameau's precariousposition within the
businessof Enlightenment,his uncomfortableproximitywithin that discourse
to the irrationaland unsound by virtue of working with music. In his attempt
to territorializethis space, to revealmusic as possessing system and logic, the
composer teetered at the very edge of reason as his audiencesunderstood it.
The resultswere not and never could have been what he hoped. As we have
seen, this meant that while the individualportions of his theory made sense,
he neverthelessmoved restlesslythrough fashionableepistemologies, searching for something that would ultimatelyunite his observationsinto a coherent
whole. It also meant that, even though his operas were profitable,audiences
still did not necessarilyrespond to them in the ways he intended. The trope
of the monster, especiallyas it playedout in act 4 of Hippolyte,allowsus to apprehend Rameau'sthought, his music, and his relationshipwith audiencesat
the precisepoints where each is most permeable,succumbingto the inevitable
intrusionof the other two.
In one respect,at least, Rameaurealizedwhat was necessaryfor his theories
to succeed:they would be most effectivewhen translatedinto language. This
requiredmore than jotting down his ideasinto texts. Rather,it involvedshowing that music operated on the listener in a manner analogous to language.
Alreadyin the Nouveau systemede musiquetheorique(1726) he had asserted
for music a grammarand syntax:"Justas a discourseis ordinarilycomposed of
severalphrases,so too a piece of music is ordinarilycomposed of severalmodulations,which can be regardedas so manyphrasesharmoniques"(emphasisin
sur notreinstinctpour la musique(1754),
original).56Later,in his Observations
he made this analogy with language an explicit feature of his thought:
"Harmonyis sounded ... before melody, which is the product of [harmony],
in order that it inspiresin the singer the sentiment with which he ought to
be affected independentlyof the words,a sentiment that will strikeall unbiased
[listeners]who willinglyentrustthemselvesto the pure effects of nature"(emphasis added).57In remarkssuch as these, Rameaurevealedhis confidence in
the Enlightenment task of bringing obscure mattersto light through knowledge. He was at one with a project of not simplyobservingthe irrational,but
56. "De meme qu'un discours est ordinairementcompose de plusieursPhrases;de meme
aussi une Piece de Musique est ordinairementcomposee de plusieursModulations,qu'on peut
regarder comme autant de PhrasesHarmoniques"(Rameau, Nouveau Systeme,40-41; CTW
2:50-51).
57. "On fait sonner ici l'Harmonie avantla Melodie qui en est produite, pour qu'elle inspire
au Chanteurle sentiment dont il doit etre affecte ind6pendammentdes paroles:sentiment qui
frapperatout homme sans prevention, qui voudra bien se livrer aux purs effets de la Nature"
(Jean-PhilippeRameau, Observationssur notreinstinctpour la musique,et sur sonprincipe[Paris:
Prault,Lambert,Duchesne, 1754], 99; CTW3:316). On this developmentin Rameau'sthought,
see Dill, "Rameau Reading Lully: Meaning and System in Rameau's Recitative Tradition,"
CambridgeOperaJournal6 (1994): 1-17; and idem, MonstrousOpera,57-105.
461
describing it-divesting it of its strangeness-that extended from Bacon
Music, he argued,resembledlanguagein
through the Discourspreliminaire.58
its abilityto signify or at least convey some form of meaning. For this same
reason, he could describein prosaicterms how chromaticprogressions,such
as those shown in Examples3 and 4, operatedas signifiers:
andyet
Perhapsone hasn'tyet thoughtmuchabout[chromaticprogressions],
one recognizesthemeverydayin thissense:whenthe sharpor naturalis cited
as a sign of forceor joy, it is similarto the voice elevatedin anger,etc.; and
whenthe flatis citedas a signof softness,feebleness,etc., the voiceis lowered
in the sameway.Everyonealreadynoticessomethingof thesedifferences,
however little experiencethey have with music, when the major mode and
minormodesucceedone anotheron a singletonic.59
Elucidatingmusic requirednot only explainingit in language, but indicating
how it resembled language. The musical monster that Hippolyte battled in
act 4 might not have been the equivalentof Pellegrin'spoetry, but it did supplement Pellegrin's text. It added something lacking there, and what was
58. Indeed, Bacon had taken up the notion of the monster in his Novum organumwith just
this context in mind: "For if nature be once detected in her deviation, and the reason thereof
made evident, there will be little difficultyin leading her back by art to the point whither she
strayedby accident.... For we have to make a collection or particularnaturalhistory of all prodigies and monstrous births of nature;of everything in short that is in nature new, rare, and unusual. This must be done however with the strictest scrutiny, that fidelity may be ensured"
(FrancisBacon, TheWorksof FrancisBacon,ed. JamesSpedding, Robert LeslieEllis, and Douglas
Denon Heath [London: Longmans, 1857-74; reprint, New York: Garrett, 1968], 4:169).
Similarly,at the end of his Discourspriliminaire,d'Alembertcalled for a rationalordering of the
monstrosity:"It is useless to expand on the advantagesof the historyof uniformnature. But if we
are askedwhat purpose the historyof a monstrousnature can serve, we will answer:to pass from
the prodigiesof nature's deviationsto the marvelsof art; to lead naturefurtherastrayor to put it
back on the right road; and above all to temper the boldness of generalpropositions, ut axiomatum corrigaturiniquitas"(PreliminaryDiscourse,146). (The originalFrenchreads:"I1est inutile
de s'etendre sur les avantagesde l'Histoirede la Nature uniforme.Mais si l'on nous demande a
nous repondrons,a passerdes prodiges de ses
quoi peut servirI'Histoirede la Nature monstrueuse,
ecartsaux merveillesde l'Art; a l'egarerencore ou a la remettre dans son chemin; & sur-tout a
corrigerla temerite des Propositionsgenerales,ut axiomatum corrigaturiniquitas"[Encyclopedie
1:20].) These observationsare based on Curranand Graille,"The Faces of Eighteenth-Century
Monstrosity,"1. For a discussionof the role of the monster in naturalhistory as mediatingfigure
in the creation of rationalsystems of classification,see Michel Foucault's discussion of natural
historyin TheOrderof Things:An Archaeologyof theHuman Sciences(New York:Vintage, 1973),
125-65, esp. 150-57. See also Tort, "La logique du deviant";and Canguihelm, "La monstruosite et le monstrueux,"in La connaissancede la vie, 171-84.
59. "On n'y a peut-etre pas encore bien pense, & cependanton donne tous les jours dans ce
sens, lorsqu'on cite le Dieze, ou le Bequareen signe de force, de joye, lorsqu'on elevela voix dans
les memes cas, dans la colere, &c. & lorsqu'on cite le Bemolen signe de molesse, de foiblesse, &c.
lors enfin qu'on rabaissela voix dans les memes cas. Chacun s'appercoitencore a peu-presde ces
differences,pour peu d'experience qu'on ait en Musique, lorsque le Mode majeur, & le Mode
mineur se succedent sur une meme Tonique"(Rameau, Observationssur notre instinct, 54,
emphasisin original;CTW 3:293).
462
missingwas not emotion, but more text: Rameau'smusic effectivelyreplaced
the lengthy, hyperbolicspeech uttered by Theramenein Racine's Phedrewith
music.
From a practicalpoint of view, the position that music could engage as a
semiotic relaywith language was difficult for the composer to maintain,not
least becausethe public claimedotherwise.Audienceswere more than willing
to agree that music dominated text in Rameau'soperas, but this was not the
same as receivinghis message that music was rationallygrounded or naturally
expressive.(It is telling, in this context, that the abbe Pluche's above-citedremarks on criticaljudgment asserted autonomy for neither music nor composer, but for the audience member.) More to the point were the remarksof
Jean-BaptisteDubos, who reflected a common assumptionwhen he claimed
that music divestedof words, drama,and situationmeant nothing:
These symphonies[i.e., large-scaleworksof purelyinstrumental
music]that
seem to us so beautifulwhen they are employedto imitatecertainsounds
would appearinsipidto us-they would appeardownrightbad to us-if employedto imitateothersounds.The symphonyfromthe operaIsse... would
seemridiculousif it wereplacedin the tomb sceneof Amadis.Thesepiecesof
music,whichmove us so sensiblywhen they formpartof a dramaticaction,
give rathermediocrepleasurewhen heardas sonatasor detachedsymphonies
by someonewho hasneverheardthemat the Operaandconsequentlycannot
judgethemwithoutknowingtheirgreatestmerit,thatis, the connectionthey
havewiththe action,wheretheyplaya role,so to speak.60
Poetry and plot, in the public mind, determined musicalmeaning. And even
Rameau had acknowledged that the rapport between music and words was
not easily obtained: "If it is not absolutely impossible to determine the
melodies, and consequently the harmonic progressions,that best agree with
the most markedexpressions[of poetry, then] it is, in other respects,an enterprise that demands more than the lifetime of a single individual."61His posi60. "Enfin ces symphonies qui nous semblent si belles, quand elles sont employees comme
l'imitationd'un certainbruit, nous paroitroientinsipides,elles nous paroltroientmauvaises,si l'on
les employoit comme l'imitationd'un autre bruit. La symphonie de l'Opera d'Isse dont je viens
de parler,sembleroit ridicule, si l'on la mettoit a la place de celle du tombeau d'Amadis. Ces
morceaux de musique qui nous emeuvent si sensiblement, quand ils font une partie de l'action
th6atrale,plairoientmeme mediocrement, si l'on les faisoit entendre comme des Sonates,ou des
morceauxde symphonies detaches, a une personne qui ne les auroitjamaisentendues a l'Opera,
& qui en jugeroit par consequent sans connoltre leur plus grand merite; c'est-a-dire,le rapport
qu'elles ont avec l'action, ou, pour parler ainsi, elles jouent un role" (Jean-BaptisteDubos,
Reflexionscritiquessur la posie et sur la peinture, 7th ed. [Paris: Pissot, 1770; facsimile ed.,
Geneva:Slatkine,1967], 1:483-84). See also the passagein Mably,Lettressur I'opera,cited in n.
32 above.
61. "S'il n'est pas absolument impossible de determinerles Chants, & les Modulationsen
consequence, qui conviendroientle mieux aux expressionsles plus marquees,c'est d'ailleursune
entreprisequi demanderoitpeut-etre plus que la vie d'un seul homme" (Rameau, Nouveau systeme,43; CTW 2:53). Like Descartes, Rameau was unwilling to formulate a theory of musical
463
tion within contemporary discourse on occasion lent itself more openly to
negotiation and equivocation than we are used to seeing in eighteenthcentury thinkers.
For these reasons, Rameau'smonstrous chromaticprogressionsent shudders through his theoreticalsystem, just as Pellegrin'sstage monster terrified
and delighted audiences.On the one hand, the progression'smusicaland dramatic effect derivedfrom its strangenessand unfamiliarityas a harmonic and
tonal progression;on the other, a theoreticalsystem would need to account
fullyfor such progressions.How was the composer-theoristto arguethat such
a progressionwas sensibleas music, that it possessedsignificancebecauseof its
placewithin a largertheoreticalsystem?The disjuncturebetween Rameauand
his audiences turned on music's ability to signify, and the monstrous chromatic progression of act 4 may be, and undoubtedly was, read in different
ways.We could easilytake it as a simple denotativegesture, painting the word
monstrethe same way this repertory painted flowing tears or a bird's flight
with melismaticruns. As we can see from Dubos's comments, audiencesregardedmusic per se as acceptableonly when it labeledsomething that was first
apprehensiblein visual or linguistic terms. For this reason alone, the use of a
chromaticmodulation to designate a monster would have been uncontroversial, except as a surpriseor perhapsfor the violence of its utterance.Rameau,
however, posed a more radicalpossibility.By assertingfor music systematic
propertieslocatable in nature, he argued as well that music itself bore some
form of discursivemeaning. This implied that music's signifiedwas located as
text or plot not only over and againstthe musicalsignifier-on the other side
of Saussure'sfamed piece of paper-but also as a signifierrelating to other
musicalsignifiers-on the sameside of the paper.It is thus difficultto delimit
Hippolyte's musical monster as a denotative gesture, because the music participatesin the dramaticmoment as an independent text. If we were to maintain for music the metaphorof painting,we would have to do so in the rather
differentsense employed by Rameau'spupil, Michel-Paul-Guyde Chabanon.
Commenting on the chorus "BrillantSoleil" from Rameau'sopera-balletLes
Indesgalantes (1735), Chabanon recognized the denotative tradition, but
regardedit as trivialwith respectto his teacher'soperas:
A descending diatonic series of notes no more paints the fall of winter than the
fallof anythingelse.But a nobleandsimplemelody,withoutdifficultytraversing modulationsdependentupon the key,likeso manybranchesshootingout
from the same trunk,opening up aroundit and crowningit-this is what
speaksto the sensesandthe soulin the chorusBrillantSoleil,andthisaboveall
expressionnot becausehe denied its existence, but becausethe sheer range of possibilitieslay beyond rationalcomprehension.Cf. CharlesDill, "Music,Beauty,and the Paradoxof Rationalism,"
in FrenchMusical Thought,1600-1800, ed. Georgia Cowart (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research
Press, 1989), 197-210.
464
is whatmustbe felt.If one of theseanalogiescalledpeinturesmustbe foundin
it, the followingwillsuffice:thischorusinspiresa feelingof exaltation,a kindof
ecstacywhichaccordswith thosewho worshipthe sun. The musicneededto
paintnothingmore.62
Presumably,one aspectof Rameau'sinstructionemphasizedthe discursivesituations motivatingscenes ratherthan the representationof isolatedwords and
phrases,and this, surely,is what Rameau had in mind in act 4 of Hippolyte.
Nevertheless,this was a loud and strikingmusicalevent, one sure to attractan
audience'sattention, and here Rameau ran a risk.Moving music from its accepted role as ground to that of rhetoricalfigure calledattention not to poetry
or drama,but to music. Audienceswere not capableof engaging the semiotic
relayon which Rameau'smusicaleffect depended, or, if they were, they were
not necessarilypreparedto accept it as a viable means of listening. To borrow
again from Lacanianterminology, Rameau's opera addressedaudiences not
only through the Symbolic order (the region of codified knowledge and culturalpractices)and the Real (the region of the unnamed and unsymbolized),
but also through the Imaginary(that point at which the subject makes sense
of the world). It asked audiences to reinvent their methods of listening and
thus, in the process, themselvesas audiencemembers.As we will see, Rameau
was uncomfortablewith his ordering of the chromaticprogression-his own
Imaginary-and remained unable to determine whether it inhabited the
Symbolicorder or the Real.
Rameau's Chromaticism in Theory
To understandhow Rameau'schromaticprogressionsoperatedand how they
fit into his largerintellectualschemes, we must reviewhis theoreticalwritings.
In present-daymusic theory, a chromaticprogressionis often conceived unproblematicallyas a melodic inflection, one raisingor lowering by half step an
existing note within a melodic line. In the yearsfollowing HippolyteetAricie,
however, Rameaurequireda more subtle explanation.63Because his principal
ideas comprehended music through an abstractsuccession of so-called rootposition harmonies-its fundamental bass-even a chromaticallyinflected
melodic line required consideration of the fundamental bass within
a given harmonic progression. In the Generation harmonique (1737), he
62. EdwardR. Reilly,"Chabanon'sEloge de M. Rameau,"Studiesin Musicfrom the
Universityof WesternOntario8 (1983): 1-24; see especiallypp. 6-7.
63. For importantdiscussionsof Rameau'stheorizationof the chromaticand enharmonic
genera,see E. CynthiaVerba,"TheDevelopmentof Rameau'sThoughtson Modulationand
Chromatics," this Journal 26 (1973): 69-91; idem, Music and the French Enlightenment:
Reconstructionof a Dialogue, 1750-1764 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 8-30; and Christensen,
Rameau and Musical Thought,199-208.
465
theorized that while ordinarydiatonic progressionsfollowed a geometrically
derivedprogressionof perfectfifths,in the chromatic"genus"(genre)the fundamentalbassproceeded by a geometricprogressionin thirds:
Takea pitchfundamental
to the thirdof another[pitch],eithermajoror minor,
above or below, and suppose there alwaysthe acute harmony drawn from the
harmonicproportion, where the major third alone is direct, as ought naturally
to be (since to have a direct minor third it would be necessaryto add art to
nature). You will alwaysfind between their harmonic sounds a new semitone
unknown up to this point.64
Leaving aside Rameau's elaborate and largely circumstantial justification for
this procedure-the kind of justification d'Alembert rejected-his point was
simple, and he had alreadyput it into practice.To return to Example 3, the
Bb-majorharmonyon the finaltwo syllablesof"humide" givesway to the Dbmajor harmony on "quel monstre";the distance between the two roots is a
minor third, allowing for the rapidmelodic shift from Dt to Db in the choral
parts (although the successionof Dt and Db in two differentchoralpartsconstitutes a form of the "cross relation" ordinarilyprohibited in eighteenthcentury practice).Similarly,if my reading of Example4 is correct (see n. 55),
the Bb-majorharmony on "un" presumablypasses to a second-inversionDmajor harmony on "monstre."Although the fundamentalbass has changed,
the principleremainsthe same;the root progressionby majorthirdcreatesthe
melodic progression from Ft to F#, a "new semitone unknown up to this
point." In its musicaleffect, then, the chromaticprogressionwas never simply
a melodic inflection, but also a harmonicallyand tonally disruptiveone well
suited for depicting a monstrouspresence.
At the same time, however, we find evidence among Rameau's ideas of
complications attending this musical practice. He observed in his Demonstration du principe de I'harmonie(1750) that "the [chromatic semitone]
never occurs without changing the mode [of the music], and this is precisely
what preventsinexperiencedpersons from apprehendingits sentiment."65In
hearingExamples3 and 4, the listenerdoes not and cannot immediatelycomprehendwhat has happenedtonally.The chromaticsemitone articulatesa musical space that is extramodal, a place from which nonmusical expression
emanates,and only in retrospectdoes one locate it with respectto a key.Thus,
64. "Prenez un Son fondamentala la Tierce d'un autre, soit majeure,soit mineure, soit audessus, soit au-dessous, & supposez-y toujours I'Harmonie sensible tiree de la proportion
Harmonique, ou la seule Tierce majeureest directe, comme cela se doit naturellement,puisque
pour avoirla mineure directe, il nous a fallujoindre l'Art a la Nature;vous trouvereztoujoursentre quelques-uns de leurs Sons Harmoniques un nouveau Demi-ton inconnu jusqu'ici. Voiez
l'ExampleXIX" (Rameau, Generationharmonique,146; CTW3:87).
65. "IIn'arrivejamaisque pour changer de Mode;& c'est justement ce qui empche les personnes peu experimentees,d'en avoir le sentiment present a l'oreille" (Rameau, Demonstration
duprincipede I'harmonie[Paris:Durand, Pissot, 1750], 91; CTW3:212).
466
Rameau appearsto be arguing that chromaticprogressionscan be obtrusive
under certain circumstances,distractingthe listener from the situationsthey
are meant to project;the chromaticprogressionsin act 4 of Hippolytemight
have raisedjust this kind of issue for some listeners.Nevertheless,it is an odd
argument, because it contradictshis case for the simplicityand naturalnessof
his theoreticalsystem:he assumedhis audiencecould perceivethat such a progressionwould not be suitablefor a goddess's benediction or even a father's
curse. Moreover, he assertedthat audienceshad a responsibilityto familiarize
themselves with chromatic progressions, yet this familiaritywould have reduced the surprisingeffects in act 4; worse, it was just the sort of intrusivedemand that the public found overbearing.In effect, by arguingfor music'sbasis
in nature,Rameauhad placed himselfin a double bind. He assumedthat audiences could simultaneouslyexperiencethe necessarydramaticjolt while rationalizing and accepting its musical source as a commonplace. This was asking
too much of them. While some commentatorsearnestlysuggested that audiences grew to love Rameau'soperas through repeated performances,others
offered this same observationas criticismof his complicatedmusic.66
There is evidence suggesting that Rameau'sown attitudetoward the chromatic progressionchanged as his theories evolved, both from the standpoint
of explanationor justificationand from that of its qualityand value in practice.
In its earliestform, as presentedin the Traitede l'harmonie(1722), the chromatic progressionwas more or less synonymous with the melodic inflection
we know today, occurringwithin standardharmonicprogressionsof the fundamentalbassby fifths:
occursin melodywhen a melodicline proceedsby semitones,
Chromaticism
ascendingor descending.This producesa marvelouseffectin harmony,becausemostof thesesemitones,not in the diatonicorderthemselves,constantly
whichpostponeor interruptconclusionsandmakeit easy
producedissonances
66. For example,in his articleon "expression"for the Encyclopedie,
Louis de Cahusacwrote:
"Les Indes galantes,en 1735, paroissoientd'une difficulteinsurmontable;le gros des spectateurs
sortoit en dedamant contre une musique surchargeede doubles croches, dont on ne pouvoit rien
retenir.Six mois apres,tous les airsdepuis l'ouverturejusqu'ala demiere gavote, furentparodiees
& sus de tout le monde" ("In 1735, LesIndesgalantesappearedinsurmountablydifficult;the majority of spectatorsdeparted [the theater] declaiming against a music overly charged with sixteenth notes, from which one can retainnothing. Six months later,all the airsfrom the overture
to the last gavotte were parodied and known by everyone") (Encyclopedie6:318). Rameauwas
unable to escapethis critiqueeven in his obituaries.See, for example,the "Essaid'eloge historique
de feu M. Rameau.. .": "IIest encore a remarquerque le zele des partis[pour et contre Rameau]
est moins officieux qu'on ne pense, puisqu'il est de fait qu[e] ... tous les Ouvragesque mit au
Theatrenotre illustreMusicien, n'ont jamaiseu dans leur nouveaute une affluencede Spectateurs
aussi soutenue & aussi continuelle que dans les reprises subsequentes & surtout dans les
dernieres"("It is yet to be remarkedthat the zeal of the partiesfor and againstRameauis less officious than is thought, since all the works placed in the theater by our illustriousmusiciannever
had, when new, an abundance of spectatorsas sustainedand continuous as in their subsequent
reprisesand, above all, in the most recent ones") (pp. 189-90).
Rameau's
Monsters 467
Imaginary
to fill the chordswith all theirconstituentsoundswithoutupsettingthe diatonic order of the [other] parts.67
Moreover, as Cynthia Verba has noted, Rameau's musical examples in the
Traiteoccasionallyemploy semitones, but pass by without commentaryfrom
the author.68These casesindicatethat chromaticisminflectedharmonyas well
as melody, though without necessitatinga larger,more disruptivetonal shift.
By this measure the passage shown in Example 3 should have been largely
without shock value. But only four yearslater,in the Nouveau systeme(1726),
Rameau first characterizedthe chromatic progression as a disruption of the
diatonic system's standardprogression.69Although he did not explain fully
how this disruptioncould occur, he had evidentlymoved beyond the explanation offered in the Traite.
When chromaticismformallyentered Rameau'swritingswith the Generation harmonique(1737), cited above, he pairedit with the even more shocking enharmonicgenus, a strategyhe would hold to from this point on in his
theoreticalwritings. In this context, however, Rameau'smessages regarding
the statusof the chromaticprogressionwere decidedlymixed;indeed, ifgenre
conveyed a category linking familyand species,it also carriedthe connotation
of a fashion, taste, or even gender apartfrom the ordinary.While referringto
chromatic progressions as a "nouveau genre d'harmonie," presumably because they derived geometricallyfrom the third progressions noted above,
he deemed them sufficiently clear not to include illustrationsdrawn from
repertory. The enharmonic genus, by contrast, employed fully diminished
seventh harmonies to create common-chord links between distantlyrelated
keys, and Rameau characterizedit as an abrupt, surprisingprogression. A
composer using it intended for it to shock, but, according to Rameau, "the
moment of surprisepasseslike a lightning bolt, and quicklythis surprisetransforms into admirationat finding oneself transportedfrom one hemisphereto
the other, so to speak,without having had time to think about it."70While at
an earliertime, the chromaticprogressionmight have characterizedthe decisive entrance of Pellegrin's monster, such was no longer the case. Whereas
67. Rameau, Treatiseon Harmony, 304. "Dans la Melodie, le Chromatiqueconsiste en une
suite de Chant qui procede par semi-Tons, tant en montant qu'en descendant;ce qui produit un
effet merveilleuxdans l'Harmonie, parce que la plupart de ces semi-Tons, qui ne sont pas dans
l'ordre diatonique, causent a tout moment des Dissonancesqui suspendentou qui interrompent
les conclusions, & donnent meme de la facilitea remplirles Accords de tous les Sons qui les composent, sansderangerl'ordrediatoniquedes partiessuperieures[sic]"(idem, Traitede I'harmonie,
286; CTW 1:316).
68. Verba,"Development of Rameau'sThoughts," 29.
69. See Rameau, Traite de I'harmonie,286-90; CTW 1:316-20; Rameau, Nouveau systeme,
35-36; CTW 2:45-46. On the importance of this shift in Rameau's thought, see Verba,
"Developmentof Rameau'sThoughts."
70. "Le moment de la surprisepasse comme un eclair,& bien-t6t cette surprisese toure en
admiration,de se voir ainsitransported'un Hemispherea l'autre,pour ainsidire, sans qu'on ait eu
le tems d'y penser"(Rameau, Generationharmonique,153; CTW 3:91).
468
audience members could familiarizethemselveswith the chromaticgenus, so
that they could appreciateits meaning in a dramaticcontext, the enharmonic
genus could only be experienced.Its source existed in nature, and knowledge
could preparea listenerfor its effect, but ultimatelythe surprisingqualitiesdeterminingits use lay outside the rationalorder.To drivehome its strangeness,
a list of examplesfollowed: the aria"O iniqui marmi"from the Italianopera
Coriolano,which Rameauused to show how much more acceptingItalianaudiences were than French, and two examplesfrom Rameau'sown Nouvelles
suitesdepiecesde clavecinpublishedin the late 1720s, "L'enharmonique"and
"La triomphante."71Significantly,he treated the examplesas foreign to standardFrenchmusicalpractices.
Rameau'sfinalillustrationlisted in the Generationharmoniquewas in many
ways his most important;he returnedto it severaltimes in his laterwritings.In
the second act of Hippolyteet Aricie, when These ventures into the underworld, the trio desparques,singing "Quelle soudaine horreur"("what unexpected horror"),warns of the hell that awaitshim at home. At this suitably
monstrous moment, revealing a future too hideous to articulate,the composer introduced the enharmonicgenus. The music begins on the dominant
of G minor and sinksthrough the keys of F# minor, F minor, E minor, Ebminor, and finallyD minor. It is a grotesque musical event, and one of which
Rameauwas inordinatelyproud, perhapsintending to depict the creaturesrecoiling in horror from the future they perceive, to illustrateThesee's homeward journey into tragedy,or even to describethe uncannyprocess whereby
predictedfuture becomes reality.Unfortunately,as Rameaucould not help reminding readers,some singerswere unwillingto learnthis difficultmusic or to
perform it to such plangent accompaniment.In the end, the composer was
obliged to substitutea simpler,less offensive, and less demanding number for
actualperformances.The trio continued to exist as a ghost, silentlyhaunting
subsequent editions of the opera, but present only to edify the public.72Like
the unusual figure of Le Destin mentioned above, it spoke with a certain
authority,in this case musical,but it did so from a point of enunciationoutside
the work proper, and like Le Destin, it requiredan explanationby its creator.
Both remainedmonstrous.
71. The Coriolanoin question appearsto be the version attributed by Oscar Sonneck to
the composer GiuseppeFabbrini;it was composed for the Collegio Tolomei di Sienain 1706, and
no music is extant (Libraryof Congress, Music Division, Catalogue of OperaLibrettosPrinted
Before1800, preparedby OscarSonneck [Washington,D.C.: GovernmentPrintingOffice, 1914;
reprint,New York:Burt Franklin,1967], 1:321). For a facsimileof Rameau'sedition of "La triomphante" and "L'enharmonique," see Jean-Philippe Rameau, Nouvelles suites de pieces de
clavecin(Paris:L'auteur,Boivin, Leclerc, 1728; facsimileed., New York:Broude, 1967), 11 and
26-27, respectively.
72. On the early history of this scene, see Sadler, "Rameau, Pellegrin and the Opera"
533-34. For a transcriptionof the passageand commentaryon it, see Christensen,Rameau and
Musical Thought,205-7.
469
Rameau's comparison of the chromatic and enharmonic genera in the
Generationharmoniqueleaves the readerunsure. Although this was the first
time he had laid out his theory of how the chromaticgenus worked, and even
though he did so in conjunctionwith the enharmonicgenus, the weight of his
argumentwas not evenly distributed.The chromaticgenus now appearsas a
routine and unexceptional event, meriting a scant four pages to the enharmonic genus's seven. What had served as a signifierof brute, unnaturalforce
in act 4 of HippolyteetArice has become in some sense rehabilitated,while its
unperformedenharmoniccounterpartin act 2, depicting a less significantdramatic event, grew still furtherin retrospect.Despite Rameau'sattemptsat explanation, the music-epistemologicalissues raisedby the monster in act 4 of
HippolyteetArice had deepened.
A telling discussionof the two generain Rameau'snext majortreatise,the
Demonstrationdu principede I'harmonie(1750), resolvessome of these issues
by treating the enharmonic genus as less of a rarity.He mentions using versions of it in act 4, scene 1 of his tragedyDardanus (presumablya referenceto
Venus'smonologue in the 1739 version), the depiction of a volcaniceruption
in the second entree of his opera-ballet Les Indesgalantes (1735), and, of
course, "Quelle soudaine horreur."The choices are interesting,because each
suggests some form of merveilleuxor spectacle.Now, however, Rameau also
offers an illustrationof the chromaticgenus, the monologue "Tristesapprets"
from the tragedy Castor et Pollux. No form of merveilleuxappearsin this
scene. The heroine Telaire sings in despairof Castor's death. Nor are there
shocking progressions to take into account: Rameau notes that the mode
"changes at every instant," but, as Verba has observed, this refers to wellspaced secondarydominant progressions,which cause no interruptionin the
piece's overall diatonic arc.73Again, one wonders, what has happened to
Hippolyte's monster?Rameau has introduced a hierarchyamong his genera,
and within it, he treatsthe chromaticprogressionas relativelyordinary:
The diatonichasits shareof pleasantry;
the chromaticvariesit and,in the minor mode,possessessome tendernessandevenmoresadness;the enharmonic
leadsthe earastray,carryingthe passionsto excess,frightening,terrifying,
and
puttingeverythinginto disorder,when one composesit in connectionwith
the diatonicand chromaticand sustainsit througha movementsuitableto
expression.74
The rehabilitationof disturbing genera continued four years later, in the
Observations
sur notreinstinctpour la musique(1754). Now contradictinghis
73. Verba,"Development
of Rameau's
Thoughts,"86-87.
74. "Lediatonique
a l'agr6able
en partage;le Chromatique
le varie,& dansle Modemineuril
tientdu tendre& plusencoredu triste;l'Enharmonique
deroutel'oreille,portel'excesdanstoutes
les passions,effraye,epouvante,& metpartoutle desordre,quandon scaitle composera propos
de diatonique& de chromatique,
& le soutenird'un mouvementconvenablea l'expression"
duprincipedeI'harmonie,
(Rameau,Demonstration
99; CTW3:216).
470
earlierremarks,Rameaunoted that the enharmonicgenus almost neveroccurs
in Italianopera, and that, for the most part, "[the fundamentalbass progression in fifths] is never interruptedexcept by a single chromaticor enharmonic
interval,which then serves to pass from one mode to another."75Citations
have dwindled to three. Rameauservesup the monologue from Dardanus as
the only example of the enharmonic genus in French opera-forgetting at
least the performanceof the second entree of LesIndesgalantes-while stressing that in "Tristesapprets"it is not a mannerof chromaticmelodic intervals,
but only of a fundamentalbass progressioninvolving thirds:"The sentiment
of a gloomy sadnessand lugubriousnessthat reign there possess [their effect]
from the chromatic [genus] furnishedby the [fundamentalbass], while not
a single interval of this genus [i.e., the chromatic semitone] occurs in the
[other] parts."76He adds, then, that chromaticsemitones abound in the preceding chorus, "Que tous gemisse," where the sentiment is different. There
they paint the fallingtearsand groansof mourners,in the mannerof a lament,
a topos that in no way threatensthe diatonicorder.The situationhas changed
drastically.The chromaticgenus now serves only the milder,denotative form
of signification.It is difficult not to read a composer's frustrationinto statements such as the following: "It ought necessarilybe concluded that, whatever
advantageis drawnfrom these intervals,all music can pleasewithout their aid,
and this reflectionought alwaysbe presentto the intellectso that grandwords
signifyingnothing are not allowed to impose themselves."77PerhapsRameau
meant only to warn against using the genera where they were not called for
textually,but given his examples, it seems just as likely he was abandoning
argumentsfor their naturaloccurrenceand practicalapplication.
Monstrosity
and Reason
A disjuncturethus occurs between the early,confident chromaticprogressions
in Hippolyteet Aricie and the almost apologetic tone for discussingthis category of progressionin the later Observations.To acknowledge this simply as
Rameauchanging his mind overlookshow the chromaticgenus became a different kind of musicalobject accordingto where he located and justifiedit in
his system of thought: sometimes ordinary and sometimes spectacular,the
75. "Au reste, comme on ne peut jamaisinterromprel'ordre Diatonique que par un seul intervalle Chromatiqueou Enharmonique,qui sert pour lors au passage d'un Mode a un autre"
sur notreinstinct,65; CTW3:299).
(Rameau, Observations
76. "Le sentiment d'une douleur morne, & du lugubre qui y regnent, tient tout du
Chromatiquefourni par la succession fondamentale, pendant qu'il ne se trouve pas un seul
intervallede ce genre dans toutes les parties"(Rameau, Observations
sur notreinstinct,67; CTW
3:300).
77. "On en doit necessairementconclure que quelque avantage qu'on puisse tirer de ces
derniersintervalles,toute Musique peut plaire sans leur secours: & cette reflexion doit toujours
etre presente a l'espritpour ne pas s'en laisserimposerpar de grandsmots qui ne signifientrient"
sur notreinstinct,65-66; CTW3:299).
(Rameau, Observations
471
chromatic genus was one thing when heard from the standpoint of the diatonic genus, quite another when heard from that of the enharmonic genus,
and something else again depending on which examplesof it Rameauconsidered as illustrative.This had strong implicationsfor his largerargument concerning music's naturalsystemicproperties.Moving back and forth acrossthe
boundaries of rationalization,the chromatic genus never altogether lost its
liminalstatus,and for anyone of the time evaluatingRameau'sthought as philosophy, it would have been emblematic of flaws in his thought. In passing
from root to trunk and from trunk to branch-from racine to rameau, as it
were-the tree of knowledge had grown awry:the genericlink between family
and species faltered;the referencesto ancient Greek music theory lost their
nerve. We cannot name this breakin a convincing manner, but we can measure its phantasmatictug on Rameau'sstructuringof knowledge. As a musical
markerfor the unnatural,the chromaticprogressionsin Hippolyteare, at least
to modern ears,plausible,even thrilling.But there was no consistentlocation
for them as signifierswithin the theoriesthat followed.
Within Rameau's own Imaginary register, the desire of the theorist to
systematizebecame confused with and dominated by the desire of the composer to be listenedto. As a result,the chromaticprogressiongrew into a true
eighteenth-centurymonster,something with no location, no place in the business of knowing. WhereasRameauwished to convince his readersthat music
inhabited a scientificallyaccessibleregion of nature, a carefulreading of his
music and his theoriessuggests that at its limits his thought shaded off quickly
into the mysteriousand irrational,into areasthat resistedlearning.His resulting discomfort is present throughout his work. While the nearer reaches of
musicalunderstandingveered from the purelyrationalto the intuitiveand empirical, those farthest reaches of the diatonic system likewise shifted from
shock to pleasureand then on into mattersof little theoreticalimport. In the
same way, actualmusical events that were at firstrife with potential signification graduallycame insteadto representdramaticmoments in the traditionally
denotative manner.When Rameau assertedthe connections between theory
and practicehere at the limits of his theoreticalsystem, he lost his grasp on
both.
More interestingly, Rameau's double bind underscores the limits of
Enlightenmentthought. Throughout his career,he began each new observation, each new musicalpiece, with a profound faithin the logic of his work:to
comprehend music was to experienceit at its fullest;to revealmusic's instrumental logic was to make it more widely availableto audiences.But as is so often the case in history, it is not entirely a matter of a thinker or composer
persuading.It is also a matter of a readershipor audience accepting, and no
amount of Enlightenment rhetoriccould persuadea significantportion of either that music theory, as opposed to music per se, was a part of nature. For
many, Rameau'smusic and his thought were the height of artifice,so that he
became the embodiment of unreason,the monstrouspresencethat would not
go away.
472
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Abstract
In recent years,historianshave begun studyingthe compromisesand semiotic
slippagesunderlyingEnlightenmentthought, what writersof the time characterized as, among other things, monstrosities.Monstersfailedto conform to a
perceivednaturalorder and as such became models for discussingeverything
from the limits of knowledge to departuresfrom genericpractices.Takingadvantage of both this criticaltrope and the presence of monsters in Rameau's
HippolyteetAricie (1733), the presentessaydescribesRameau'sstruggleswith
instrumentalreasonin his theorizationof the chromaticgenus. The composer
marked the climactic moment in act 4 of the opera with what is surely the
most strikingprogressionin the performedversion, a chromaticmodulation
that capturesthe characters'shock and registersthe monster's supernatural
presence.During the same period, he experimentedtheoreticallywith numerous descriptionsof the chromaticprogression,as both an ordinaryand an extraordinaryproperty of music. Working as composer and theorist, then,
Rameaulet chromaticismoccupy variedepistemologicalpositions in his work,
which in turn allows us to observe him dealingwith the limitationsof his theoreticalsystemand musicalrepresentation.

Rameau`s Imaginary Monsters: Knowledge, Theory, and

Transcription

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