Lully versus Rameau
The great debate of the French Baroque

Jean-Philippe Rameau‘s first opera in 1733 unleashed a culture war. Was the future of opera to remain in the hands of Jean-Baptiste Lully, who had dominated the French musical scene for more than sixty years? Or did Rameau’s bold harmonies and  refined orchestral writing herald a new dawn?

Before we delve any further into a discussion of the controversy between the supporters of Lully and those of Rameau – the lullystes and the ramistes – , we need to recall that Rameau was four years old when his ostensible adversary died. A total of forty-seven years lie between Lully’s last opera, Armide (1686), and Rameau’s first, Hippolyte et Aricie (1733). As is often the case, this altercation was more of an argument between followers. Where was opera heading? The debate between the lullystes and the ramistes sparked by the early performances of Hippolyte et Aricie must be seen within the context of a wider and older debate which had been going on since the 1630s, and which continued until the end of the seventeenth century: the “Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes”.

The eponymous quarrel was not just between conservatives and modernists, as its title might imply. It also raised the question of whether classical antiquity could remain a model for French contemporary literature and the arts. The “anciens” numbered among their ranks those writers and poets who admired classical antiquity and whose moral humanism was concerned with the rigour and immortality of a work of art.

Classicism versus Catholicism

One result of this duality was a tendency on the part of great French poets and dramatists like La Fontaine, Corneille and Racine to base many of their works on mythological themes; these then became the starting-point for opera libretti. Ranged against these “anciens” were scholars who were members of the Catholic clergy and of the Académie Française, together with those poets who wanted to maintain the bienséances – the decency, propriety and good manners – of galant courtly society, while the critics of Classicism appealed to the current taste of Parisian audiences. In the background, political and religious debates centred on the question of which ideal might best be suited to any Catholic ruler.

On the one hand, there was the Greek and Roman model, with pagan gods, permitting an element of confusion and internal division in its depiction of human life. And on the other hand, there was the question of whether artists should turn to Christian heroes and French epics, which would, it was suggested, provide French society with better models for “decorous” behaviour. In the longer term, history conceded that the “anciens” were in the right: even today, Pascal and Descartes continue to be regarded as the most authoritative voices in philosophy, Molière in comedy, Corneille and Racine in tragedy. But in the shorter term, it was the “modernes” who claimed the upper hand.

Similar debates about the role of music were conducted in the field of opera, even if these arguments erupted only after the death of the Sun King in 1715. By 1733, the world of music in Paris was ripe for revolution, and the first performances of Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie triggered responses ranging from excitement and admiration to bafflement and disgust, resulting in the “Querelle des Lullystes et des Ramistes”. The two opposing parties in this debate were, on the one hand, the champions of the official musical culture of the Académie royale de musique, who remained loyal to Lully’s aesthetic and who dismissed the style of Rameau as too “Italian” and, on the other hand, the followers of Rameau, who praised the wealth and complexity of their hero’s music.

“Rameau is insane!”

During his lifetime, Lully had been the Surintendant de la musique de la chambre du roi, the music master to the royal family, the director of the Académie royale de musique and a close friend of the king, in the process overseeing every aspect of the court’s musical life. But within barely fifty years of his death he was being seen as a conservative force. For decades the model of court opera that he had established remained so dominant that new developments were almost impossible even after his death in 1687, and even beyond the end of the reign of Louis XIV in 1715.

The only composer who was able to challenge Lully artistically was Marc-Antoine Charpentier, whose Médée (1690) was arguably the most significant opera to be written during the interregnum between Lully and Rameau. On the whole, however, Charpentier focused his attention on church music, a genre relatively neglected by Lully. A study trip to Rome left his music profoundly influenced by the Italian style, elements of which are clearly audible in his output – much to the dismay of the traditionalists.

It was Rameau who finally succeeded in freeing French opera from the iron grip of Lullyste convention. He too was fascinated by the melodic style of the Italians and, even more than the Italians, he was keen to give greater prominence to the orchestra and to explore an often bolder harmonic language, even if his contemporaries often failed to appreciate this innovative quality of his work. “Rameau is insane!” Voltaire, for example, exclaimed.

Or take the Abbé de Mably, who declared: “I hate these new operas, which make such a terrible noise. All the voices are drowned out by the orchestra, and how is it possible for me not to be bored by an opera when I can’t understand a single word of it?” But Rameau clung to his beliefs, underscoring them theoretically and publishing his pioneering Treatise on Harmony in 1722. He also integrated extended orchestral recitatives and expansive chorale movements into his operas, both of them elements that the Lullystes had rejected.

Ballet in opera – an aria in dance

Rameau also reassessed the role of dance in opera. In Lully’s day, the ballet episodes had been stylized court dances. But Rameau now expanded their expressive scope. Even today, the central role of dance in French opera remains controversial, and the ballet is often dismissed as a purely decorative extra. But dance has always had a dramatic function in French opera, and even if it does not advance the action, it still serves to comment and reflect on what is happening on the stage, functioning like a danced aria. This is especially true of the music theatre of Rameau, and, as such, was a further element that was lambasted by the Lullystes.

Rameau himself declared that he admired Lully and that he always tried to imitate him – not as a subservient copyist but as part of his attempt to take nature as his model in the same way that Lully had done. Lully’s followers objected that this was precisely what he was not doing. His music, they claimed, was difficult, artificial, grotesque, unnatural and “Baroque”. The philosophe Denis Diderot offered a succinct summation of the differences between these two central figures in the firmament of the French Baroque: “Old Lully is simple, natural, even – sometimes too even – and this is a defect. Young Rameau is singular, brilliant, complex, learned – sometimes too learned – but this is a defect on the public’s part.”

Soon he was just as controversial as Lully

Rameau tapped into a deeper vein. His enemies were afraid that he might suddenly destroy everything that Lully had spent decades building up. There had seemed to be a firm conviction that the masterpieces of Lully and his inspired librettist Philippe Quinault had invested the native musical tradition with its definitive, optimal form, but this conviction was now undermined. It is therefore hardly surprising that Rameau’s early works, such as Hippolyte et Aricie, Castor et Pollux and Les Indes galantes, triggered veritable scandals when they were first performed.

The more the ideals of the Enlightenment gained a foothold among French intellectuals, the easier it was for Rameau’s works to find acceptance. Ironically, Rameau finally became as dominant a figure on the Paris stage as Lully had been several decades earlier. And soon he was just as controversial as Lully, especially when the lighter, more elegant, more popular opéra comique became fashionable, and Rameau’s views suddenly seemed out of date. But the ensuing debate, which exercised minds in the early 1750s as the querelle des bouffons, is a subject for another occasion.