Customer Reviews

Complete Works for Solo Keyboard (Dover Music for Piano)

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This edition "took such liberties with the original in the matter of ornaments" (cf. C. Girdlestone, Jean-Philippe Rameau; his life and work, rev. & enl. ed.). If you want a reliable and scholarly edition, find the Jacobi one.

This has all the Rameau keyboard works you could ever want. Good binding, good print. Over all, very good book.

How revolutionary Rameau is. Surely he was writing music without any kind of agenda and so his ideas shine without adulteration. This edition of his complete works for keyboard is a joy to own. If I could only have one book of music this would be it. I say this as a pianist. This is important because if I were to play this music on a harpsichord it would be unsatisfying and almost incorrect. It is clearly edited with the piano and it's sustaining abilities in mind. Saint-Saens edited this music and has romantic influence in his editing. I don't think the purist would like this edition very much. The ornamentation is handled with much liberty but only to more suit the piano. If you're a musician who plays everything and thinks you have heard it all you're in for a surprise when you play this music. Just when you think Rameau has started to settle into a typical, lifeless, established baroque styling of a motif he comes out of nowhere with such shocking revelation that you aren't sure what century the music came out of exactly; questioning if you're actually playing a French baroque composer or Scarlatti or Beethoven or Bach or some neo-baroque composer. It is best to not assign any labels to this music and just play it. It will speak directly to your musicality and emotional sense and provide a great deal of joy and satisfaction. You will wonder why you haven't been playing this music sooner or why no one is talking about it. My recommendation is when you first get this music, play the Sarabande on pg. 66 first. Those arpeggios are to die for and it speaks for the taste of the entire book, not to mention those brave and lush harmonies. You will instantly be hooked. Claude Debussy said "Rameau is the greatest french composer ever to live" and I agree. Rameau's music is all gold, no filler. You need to own this book.

More than acceptable condition and delivered within good time

I would not call Rameau a great composer, because I apply that title only to a composer who can be profound and melodious at the same time. The dance partitas are profound, but a first-time listener could not make heads or tails out of them. Most of the other pieces are melodious. For example, there is the celebrated Tambourin (pp. 32-33). However, the more melodious pieces tend to fall quickly into the 4-measure scheme and the cookie cutter instrumental forms.

But I'm not snobbish. These compositions are good enough for me, and I recommend this book to you.

Most of the pieces are easy enough to sightread. There are, however, some difficult passages, most of which involve hand-crossing. A notable example is "The Three Hands" on pages 67-71. On page 48, there is a passage which requires playing a trill and a countermelody with the same hand.

I played through the book in 4 1/2 hours. See how your keyboard velocity compares with mine.

I especially liked the a minor gavotte (pp. 76-80). See how your tastes compare with mine.

The pieces of doubtful authenticity (pp. 114-134) seemed authentic to me, but I don't know very much about French baroque music. See how your judgment compares with mine.

Rameau is the apex of french harpsichord music. He has an excellent mastery of chromatisism offset by a firm grasp of counterpoint.His music reflects a wide variety of styles,from a Couperinesque simplicity to an almost Bachian complexity.he often incorperates folk-like melodies,and elaborates them in a form of consumate mastery, bringing them up from their humble beginings and transforming them into works of consumate mastery. he is the fully worhty developement of three hundred years of french musical advancement,and certainly the successor to all the genius therin.