rousseau, rameau

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Rousseau, Rameau, and Enharmonic Furies in the French Enlightenment Author(s): Alexander Rehding Source: Journal of Music Theory, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Spring, 2005), pp. 141-180Published by: on behalf of the Duke University Press Yale University Department of MusicStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27639393Accessed: 01-11-2015 23:35 UTC

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ROUSSEAU, RAMEAU, AND

ENHARMONIC FURIES IN THE

FRENCH ENLIGHTENMENT

Alexander Rehding

Gluck 's Furies

Late in life, Jean-Jacques Rousseau returned to the topic of music the

ory one last time. At that time, ca. 1774, the embittered musical debates with Jean-Philippe Rameau of the midcentury, which had ended inconclu

sively in a standoff, had all but faded into history?indeed, the best part of a decade had passed since his opponent's death in 1764, and since his own

Dictionnaire de musique (1768) had become the authoritative source on the musical knowledge in the French enlightenment. In an extraordinary essay, with the long and ironic title Extrait d'une r?ponse du petit-faiseur ? son pr?te-nom sur un morceau de l'Orph?e de Gluck (where the desig nations petit-faiseur and pr?te-nom are untranslatable puns that can mean

"underlaborer" or "prankster," and "front worker" or "straw man," respec

tively), Rousseau tried to work out a musical passage in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice that did not cease to fascinate him.1 In an analytical reading, in which he invites his imagined reader to reexperience the effects of this

Journal of Music Theory, 49:1

DOI 10.1215/00222909-2007-004 ? 2008 by Yale University

141



Dehpla- ca - te - vi con

Vn+Va (pizz.)

me, Fu- r?e, lar- ve, om - bre sde - gno- se ! Vi ren - da al-men pie

No ! No !

to- se il mi? bar - ba-ro do - lor, vi ren-da al-men pie - to - se il mi?

Example 1. From Gluck, Orfeo ed Euridice, act II, scene 1 : Orpheus placates the Furies

passage at the keyboard under his guidance, the aging Rousseau offered one final reflection on the old battles and the chief preoccupations of

music theory of his age. The scene that so captivated Rousseau was the opening scene of act

II, in which Orpheus, having ventured into Hades, pleads with the furies for mercy.2 With his lyre and his supplicating song, Orpheus gradually

142



bar - ba - ro_ do - lor !

Chorus (tutti): No ! No!

Deh_ pla - ca-te-vi, p?a ca te vi con me!

Fu-rie, lar-ve, om - bre sde - gno-se! Vi ren - da al-men pie

Example 1 (continued)

succeeds in appeasing them. This crucial point in the story is, of course, the moment of truth in any musical work on the Orpheus myth: Orpheus on stage gives a practical demonstration of music's power to move some

of the most terrifying creatures that Greek mythology could dream up, while at the same time the no less daunting task of the composer is to

prove the same to his skeptical audiences and to lend credence to the

143



to- se il mio bar -ba-ro do - lor! Fu -rie, lar-ve,

N?! N?!

om - bre sde-gno- se! Vi ren - da al - men_ pie - to - se il mio

N?! N?!

bar -ba-ro do - lor, il_ mio bar - ba-ro do lor !


action on stage. By listening closely to this scene, we can observe how

Gluck and Orpheus both go about this task. As Example 1 shows, the furies initially interrupt Orpheus's counter

tenor voice with an emphatic unison '

Wo/" punctuating Orpheus's cadences

on the tonic or the dominant each time he tries to address them. While

Orpheus is tastefully accompanied by the harp and pizzicato strings of the second orchestra, the terrifying noise that the furies make is underscored

144



by the first orchestra, with its strings, cornets, bassoons, and trombones

making a truly infernal racket. These interruptions gradually cease until, at the end of the first section at m. 17, the Furies collect themselves and

reject Orpheus's pleas in a defiant threefold "No!" on Bb, in what we could

call, somewhat anachronistically, the tonicized dominant key. Orpheus tries again, starting his song from the top, this time, however, with

increased harmonic and melodic daring. And once again, the Furies inter

ject their relentless "No!" this time with heightened opposition on the

strongly dissonant B^, but Orpheus succeeds in leading his song back to E\? major. The Furies still act defiantly, screaming their incessant "No!"

starting at m. 32. But by this stage we, the audience, know that the Furies are starting to waver and that Orpheus has already won them over. When

Orpheus starts his song a third time in abridged form, the Furies, now as tame as lapdogs, simply follow Orpheus as he leads them up the Et-major scale, only to "melt into harmony," as Tovey (1939, 17) put it, into a fully voiced Et-major triad. As Orpheus concludes his song, the Furies have fallen completely silent.

For Rousseau, this interchange between Orpheus and the Furies con

stituted one of the most sublime moments in all opera. At the perfor mance of Gluck's opera, he reports, "no one could stop shaking each time

this terrifying no! was repeated" (Scott 1998, 506) [J'ai ou? dire que dans l'ex?cution de cet Op?ra, l'on ne peut s'emp?cher de fr?mir ? chaque fois

que ce terrible no se r?p?te (Rousseau 1774, 462)]. Rousseau showed himself particularly impressed by the sound of the middle section, at m.

24, and invited his imaginary interlocutor, the pr?te-nom of the title, to sit down at a keyboard instrument, to play through the passage in ques tion, and to convince himself of the effect of the scene:

Mais au moment qu'on s'y attend

le moins, cette dominante di?s?e

forme un glapissement affreux

auquel l'oreille et le c ur ne peu vent tenir, tandis que dans le m?me

instant, le chant d'Orph?e redouble

de douceur et de charme, et ce qui met le comble ? l'?tonnement est

qu'en terminant ce court passage, on se retrouve dans le m?me ton

par o? l'on vient d'y entrer, sans

qu'on puisse presque comprendre comment on a pu nous transporter

si loin et nous ramener si proche avec tant de force et de rapidit?.

(Rousseau 1774, 462)3

But, at the moment when one least

expects it, this sharped dominant

forms a frightful screeching, which

the ear and the heart cannot bear,

while at the same time Orpheus's

song doubles in sweetness and in

charm; and what is most astonish

ing is that in ending this short pas

sage, we find ourselves in the same

key by which we just entered it, almost without being able to com

prehend how we have been able to

be transported so far and brought back so close with so much power and speed, (trans, modified from

Scott 1998, 507)

145



A firm believer in the primacy of melody, for Rousseau the key to this

passage lay in the fact that the two voices, Orpheus's sweet sounds and

the Furies' screeching, engage in separate concurrent melodic processes.

He explained each of them in turn by closely analyzing the scales on

which the melodies operate: Orpheus's descending minor third from Ab to F on "Furie, Larve," Rousseau argued, could belong to either Eb major or minor, but with "ombre sdegnose" at m. 26 Orpheus reaches Cb, which indicates a momentary change from the key of Eb major to the parallel

minor mode, only to return to the home key at the end of the sung phrase, as indicated by the G^ of the final descent of the phrase. The underlying harmony supports this important change: the bass repeats the move

from Bb to Cb and introduces the diminished-seventh chord, which in

eighteenth-century French music theory is typically associated with the minor mode.

Against this diminished chord in third inversion with Cb in the bass, the Furies sing their screeching 'Wo/" on B^. The startling effect, Rous seau explained, comes about because the B^ is not part of the Eb-minor

mode that Orpheus and the second orchestra have moved to; instead, it functions as a leading note to yet another key: that of C minor, the relative

minor of the home key of Eb major. This extraordinary passage, Rous seau concluded, results in the harsh dissonance between the augmented seventh between the Cb and the B^. The Furies and Orpheus are pulling the same music in two different directions. In other words, the extra

ordinary effect of the scene, which so delighted Rousseau and which never failed to set audiences trembling, is based on a discernible music theoretical cause.

It is questionable, however, whether Rousseau's pr?te-nom at the key board would also have trembled?the subtle enharmonic dissonance that Rousseau detected in the passage is based on the flexibility of singing voices, which simply cannot be reproduced on keyboard instruments with their fixed and limited pitches. Or is there more to enharmonicism? Is it an effect that works only in vocal music, or can there be instrumental enharmonicism as well?

Rameau's Enharmonic Shudder

Even Rousseau's erstwhile musical enemy, the composer and theorist

Jean-Philippe Rameau, would have concurred with at least the funda mental explanation of the miraculous passage, as an effect of the enhar

monic genus. As Rameau had asserted half a century earlier, in 1737, the enharmonic genus was inextricably connected with precisely those effects that Rousseau described in the audience reactions at the first performance of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice:

146



L'Enharmonique d?route l'oreille, The enharmonie derails the ear, it

porte l'exc?s dans toutes les pas- brings excess into all the passions,

sions, effraye, ?pouvante, & met it frightens, it terrifies, and it puts

partout le d?sordre, quand on s?ait disorder everywhere when one knows

le composer ? propos de diato- how to compose it in connection

nique & de chromatique, & le sou- with the diatonic and chromatic

tenir d'un mouvement convenable genera, and to sustain it by mo ve

al'expression. (Rameau 1750, 99 ment fitting to the expression, (trans.

[Jacobi 1968, 3:216]) modified from Briscoe 1975, 176)

Rameau explains the terrifying effect of the enharmonic with reference to its capacity to confuse the ear: in its excessive nature, it steps beyond

the realm of what is aurally acceptable. At first, Rameau's assessment of

the enharmonic can hardly be thought of as positive, but it seems that these traits can be put to a perfectly legitimate use in an accomplished composer's emotional palette. In this sense, Rameau's psychological depic

tion of the enharmonic genus complements Rousseau's aesthetic descrip

tion of the phenomenon: the enharmonic shudder that Rousseau reported

is a physiological response to an intellectual problem, to a progression that goes beyond our musical comprehension.

In terms of Rameau's theoretical system, the enharmonic genus is a

consequence of the quintuple proportion, which particularly comes into its own after Rameau's exploration of the corps sonore in his second

treatise, Nouveau syst?me (1726). Besides the more immediate triple pro

portion, as Figure la shows, which generates the chords on the upper and

lower fifths, Rameau became particularly interested in the chords gener

ated on the upper and lower major thirds, which he now regarded as

directly related to the son g?n?rateur but which yield more complicated tonal relations than the fifth-related purely diatonic chords of the triple proportion. While the quintuple proportion, shown in Figure lb, is no

less natural than the triple proportion, Rameau contends, the appreciation of these more complex relations requires a more experienced ear.4

Figure lb generates an Eb-major triad and a B-major triad around the tonic G. As these major-third relations follow quintuple proportion,

Rameau assigned to the central G the numerical value 5 (or, to be math

ematically precise: 51), while El? is assigned 1 (or 5?), and B, 25 (or 52). What is remarkable about these two outer chords, Rameau observed, is

that the B-major triad uses as its third the D|, which is the enharmonic

equivalent of the El? of the lower major third. His calculations reveal that

El?, as the octave of the lower major third (275?), is not exactly the same as the major-third Dtt of the upper major third (5*52). The difference between them is 128 to 125, or what is called a quarter-tone (quart de

ton). Strictly speaking, this name is somewhat misleading, because the ratio between them does not correspond to half a semitone (which in

147



Rameau's time was generally calculated as 15:16 for the major semitone,

or 24:25 for the minor semitone). But the name "quarter-tone" had its

own age-old tradition, adopted as it was from ancient Greek usage.5 With the introduction of the quintuple proportion, Rameau effectively

ventured into the realm of microtones. Rameau's central theoretical tenet

held that no pitch exists for itself but that all are consequences of harmonic

events,6 so it is only consistent that he continued to pursue the calculations

for all possible exact pitches, as the results of harmonic progressions, fall

ing between the semitone of B^ and 0. The results are shown in Figure 2. His calculations yield no fewer than six subdivisions of the major semi tone (Rameau erroneously wrote "major tone"). It seems that these calcu

lations mainly fulfilled the purpose of raising his scientific profile as a

music theorist?in this he followed in a long and venerable tradition of theorists who have sparred with the mathematical intricacies of the enhar

monic genus.7 Rameau's calculations, meanwhile, were of no immediate

importance for his harmonic thinking, since he immediately went on to state categorically that the semitone is the smallest interval our ear can

perceive in context. He conceded that it is possible to discern smaller pitch

PROPORTION QUINTUPLES

^ 3*?

triple proportion

e^

quarter tone

$ \>t\ 128

^ ^^ P

125

quintuple proportion

13 9 1 5 25

Figure 1. Rameau's triple and quintuple proportions (after 1750, 89, 92)

148



C OMPOMTIONOl DIVIMOX 1)1 ION MAJM K

KA NKl'K COMMA KT DFJX SEMI ( OMM A

Figure 2. Rameau calculates the minute tuning differences in the semi

tone between B and C (1726, 28)

differences as successive intervals but not as components of harmonic

entities. Smaller intervals, he implied, do not matter because they are not

used in music.

In other words, the introduction of the enharmonic genus in Rameau's

system leads us into a realm where aural perception and mathematical

reason part company: Rameau's calculations on the corps sonore?and,

ultimately, his aspirations for music theory to assume the status of an

exact science (see Christensen 1993)?make it inevitable that a differ ence between Djt and El? exist. But if he were to acknowledge the enhar

monic quarter-tone as an appreciable difference, the derivation of the

closed system of harmony and melody from "one natural principle," Rameau's supreme theoretical achievement, would inevitably be a lost

cause.8

Rameau, usually reluctant to acknowledge a discrepancy between the

acoustical data given in the corps sonore and the cognitive information

the listening subject derives from it, here has to resort to the activity of the ear to keep the problem of enharmonicism under control (on the issue of the "ear," see Cohen 2001; Moreno 2004, 85-127; and Duchez 1986, 91-130). All Rameau can do, therefore, is assert that the enharmonic dif

ferences, while mathematically and acoustically real, are imperceptible to the ear, and should therefore be discounted:

Outre que le quart de ton est inap- Beside the fact that the quarter

pr?tiable, son expression, si elle tone is inappreciable, its expres

?toit possible, d?routeroit encore sion, if it were possible, would lead

149



plus l'oreille qu'elle ne l'aideroit ; the ear astray rather than assist it;

aussi est-il exclu de nos instrumens therefore it is excluded from our

?Touches. (Rameau 1750,100 [Jacobi keyboard instruments, (trans, mod

1968, 3:216])9 ified from Briscoe 1975, 177)

Throughout his theoretical writings Rameau vacillated between Carte sian and empiricist epistemologies, and consequently his object of study? sound as physical acoustics, or music as heard?was never defined unam

biguously (Kintzler 1983; Duchez 1989, 475-96; Christensen 1993, 5-42). However, the dubious argument Rameau resorted to, in referring us to the keyboard as the final proof, indicates the magnitude of the prob lem of enharmonicism.

As an argument, Rameau's claim that the quarter-tone is not appreci ated by the ear is easily disproved: it is not difficult to show that the ear is

perfectly capable of perceiving differences smaller than the keys of a harp sichord can play (Rousseau, for one, vehemently disagreed). But Rameau's

fear was that the ear might be confused by minute changes; keyboard instruments (and fretted string instruments, for that matter), with their

pregiven minimum intervals of semitones, therefore ensure that the ear

stays on track, where "quarter-tonal" enharmonic dangers might other

wise lead it into unchartered microtonal regions. The keyboard becomes an emblem not of what the ear can appreciate but of what Rameau consid

ered musically admissible. Given his stance on enharmonicism with its "instrumental reason," in

a literal and figurative sense (see Chua 1999, 15), it is only consistent that Rameau would be very interested in questions of musical temperament,

and that he would also eventually, with his G?n?ration harmonique of

1737, come round to become a proponent of equal temperament.10 Rameau's

important French theoretical forebear, Marin Mersenne, had led the way when he argued in his Harmonie universelle that in equal temperament "composing will be more easy and agreeable, and a thousand things will be permitted that many people believe to be forbidden" [la composition en sera beaucoup plus ays?e & plus agr?able, & mille choses seront per

mises que plusieurs croyent estre defiendu?s (Mersenne 1636, 1, 41; trans. Cohen 1989, 112)].

In fact, the famous enharmonie passage from the "Trio des Parques" from act II, scene 5, of his opera Hippolyte et Ariele (1733) could almost be a practical commentary on Mersenne's dictum. It is no exaggeration to consider this music as employing the singers as a kind of keyboard

made up of three voices.11 In this extraordinary piece of music, the three

Fates are called upon by Pluto to pronounce on Theseus, who has fool

ishly entered the underworld and could only be saved by Neptune's inter vention. The prediction the Fates make for Theseus is so horrific that the Fates themselves start trembling:

150



Quelle soudaine horreur

Ton destin nous inspire. O? cours-tu, malheureux?

Tremble, fr?mis d'effroi! Tu quittes l'empire infernal

Pour trouver les enfers chez toi.

What sudden horror

Your destiny inspires in us.

Whither are you running, unhappy one?

Shudder, tremble with fear!

You leave the infernal empire

Only to find hell at home.

Rameau's musical setting for the frighteningly frightened Furies is what he calls the diatonic-enharmonic.12 Figure 3 shows the prototypical diatonic-enharmonic progression: a descending fourth in the fundamental bass followed by an ascending major third, which results in the descent of a major semitone overall (Rameau 1750, 93-94 [Jacobi 1968, 3:213], trans. Briscoe 1975, 172). And the harmonic reduction in Example 2 pre sents this principle in action in the trio.

Starting on the phrase "O? cours-tu, malheureux?" the Fates sing a chro

matically descending common-tone progression beginning on a D-major triad down to an A-major harmony. (To step out of the historical frame

work for a minute, modern analysts would not hesitate in dealing with this

analytical problem: voice-leading-based approaches would treat this pas

sage as a 5-10 linear intervallic progression that connects the tonic with its dominant, while neo-Riemannian approaches would recognize in this

progression a repeated L-RLP transformation.) For Rameau's own theory of harmony, meanwhile, which relied on the consistency of the fundamen

tal bass, the situation that presented itself in this passage was rather more

complicated. Every fourth step in this progression, in particular, poses a

problem for the uninterrupted continuation of the fundamental bass. This coincides with chords in the sung parts that no longer strictly follow the

principle of stacked-up thirds on which Rameau based his theory of triads. The chords above the two boxes in Example 2 show this: what sounds like an F-minor triad above the first box is actually spelled C-Ett-Gtt, and what sounds like an El?-minor triad above the second is actually spelled

Bb-Dtf-Ftt. In both cases, each individual vocal part, when read horizon

tally, continues smooth and uninterrupted through these strange chordal

configurations. Yet it would be problematic if we tried to use this order? and notational spelling?to establish the fundamental bass on this basis: we could hardly say in good conscience that these chords, on C and on Bl?, are in root position. Their bottom interval, the augmented third, is treach

erous, because according to Rameau's theoretical position it is indistin

guishable by the ear from its enharmonic equivalent, the perfect fourth. While Rameau was evidently proud of this compositional music-the

oretical experiment and continued to refer to it in his treatises at every opportunity, he could not help but acknowledge also that it actually failed in practice, because the singers could not keep the pitch with music of this complexity.13 (Nor, for that matter, did Rameau's opponent Rousseau

151



^PRODUIT DIATONIQUE ENHARMONIQUE Ta. tierce majeur?. âsse^cmdarnentale en, succession alternative de l'im dc?

mes de la proportion bip le et de la azanzupk

major semitone

fifth

major

third fifth

PRODUIT CHROMATIQUE ENHARMONIQUE

C7mn\ /Tierce rna/\

?* w?. la. Mtr.# jit*

jâsseônda/nentule qui

descend

d'itne Hercemineure ?/?

ynonte ensxa?e d'une* IS?rce- Tnajenre >

minor semitone

minor semitone i

minor third major third

Figure 3. Rameau's diatonic-enharmonic and chromatic-enharmonic

progressions, from Rameau 1750, 93. (The chro matic-enharmonic progression is shown for the

sake of comparison but is not discussed in the text.)



mal - heu - reux ?_

Orch

ble ! fr? - misd'ef - froi !_

Orch.

Trem ble !fr? - misd'ef - froi !

Orch

Example 2. The diatonic-enharmonic genus at work in the "Trio des Parques" from Rameau's Hippolyte et Ariele (1733); followed by a

fundamental bass reduction of the same passage.

153



Fates 1,2,3

Orch.

? |, ^rfrfrfrfrfrfrfjF fe

fr? - mis d'ef - froi !

Fates 1,2,3

Orch.

'W * J> J

#0^ 4 #? ufe fe

FB ^ ^^^^

-?- itity ?& ^-' ff=

FB ^^


154



ever pass up an opportunity to remind his readers of this failure.) Rameau's

singers, it seems, simply did not have the same kind of precision as the instruments that guided Rameau's musical conception of this passage. The

crux at the bottom of this passage was temperament?and it is important to underline that we do not know exactly in what temperament Rameau

envisioned this scene to be sung. From a theoretical vantage point, the

neatest results?the greatest flexibility?would doubtless be obtained if we assumed equal temperament, as Mersenne suggested a hundred years

previously, but we should take care not to leap to this conclusion: in dra matic terms, an equally convincing case could be made for the highly expressive out-of-tuneness that this chromatic passage would necessarily evince in another tuning system, such as Rameau's modified mean-tone

temperament, as he advocated in Nouveau syst?me of 1726. In any case,

the chronological proximity of Hippolyte et Ariele (1733) right between Nouveau syst?me and G?n?ration harmonique (1737), the treatise not

only in which Rameau came down firmly in favor of equal temperament but also in which he discussed this scene, strongly suggests that this pas sage was an important stepping-stone in his considerations of the impor tance of temperament within his theory of harmony.

In any case, we can see how the divergence between just intonation

and temperament causes the delicate problem in this passage: the melodic and harmonic dimensions get progressively out of joint in this passage. The problematic boxed triads of Example 2 are nothing but the result of the disarticulated quarter-tone between major and minor semitones. If we

continued, for the sake of the argument, the fundamental bass accurately in just intonation, that is, without enharmonic changes, we would end the

chromatically descending passage on ?%%%% instead of A, to cadence into

Btftti14 Following Rameau's exacting calculations, these continued "quarter tones" would in fact add up to an interval in the region of three-quarters of a semitone. It is the presence of temperament that holds this passage together and prevents it from derailing into microtonal regions. Rameau

sagaciously defined temperament in exactly those terms, as "a necessary

modification of the intervals, so that the same harmonic sound may belong to different fundamental sounds" (Hayes 1968, 101) [une modification n?cessaire aux intervals, pour que le m?me Son Harmonique puisse y

appartenir ? differens Sons fondamentaux (Rameau 1737, 75 [Jacobi 1968, 3:52])].

It is in its reliance on temperament?irrespective of which system we

presuppose?then, that Rameau's example differs sharply from Rousseau's

discussion of Gluck's Orfeo; in other words, the enharmonic progression of Rameau's Fates was made possible only by precisely undercutting the subtle intervallic inflections that would cause the terrifying "screeching" of Gluck's Furies. In this scenario, however, there would seem to be a

problem: if there is no "microtonal" screeching for Rameau, we must ask

155



what the frightening effect of the enharmonic genus?to which, as we

have seen, he unquestionably subscribed?is based on for him. For Rous

seau, the case was quite clear: it is the harsh dissonance of the justly intoned augmented seventh Cb/B^ that causes the special effect. But for

Rameau, no such dissonance exists, because the quarter-tone has been

declared inaudible. So, we might ask more pointedly, does the enharmonic

genus actually exist for Rameau if the subtle distinctions on which it is based are inappreciable by the ear?

Feeling the Enharmonic

Following Rameau's convictions, it "belongs to harmony alone to stir

the passions" (Scott 1998, 175) [C'est ? l'Harmonie seulement qu'il appar tient de remuer les passions (Rameau 1754, vi [Jacobi 1968, 3:260])]. If

we look at the way the fundamental bass works in the passage from Hip poly te et Ariele, we find that at precisely those points where the Fates'

parts come together in the shape of enharmonically respelled chords, the fundamental bass must also undergo enharmonic changes if it is to orient itself by the music as written. These moments are shown inside the boxes

of Example 2. It is impossible to pin down unambiguously whether Etf or

F, and Dtt or El? in the second case, are operative: the Et (and later D?) is needed to establish a well-formed fundamental bass interval from the pre vious bass note, Ctt and B, respectively, which would preserve the interval

pattern. But for the simplest continuation to the next note, an enharmonic

exchange is required (to F and El?, respectively). Bearing in mind that Rameau's conception of the fundamental bass is

based on intervals, not pitches themselves, it would seem advisable to consider the impact such enharmonic changes have on intervals. And in

fact, written as they are, the enharmonic notes of the fundamental bass do

not break any rule?not even the most basic one, that the elements that

make up the corps sonore also guide the motion of the fundamental bass.

In fact, Rameau's derivation of enharmonicism, as shown above, by means

of the extremes of the quintuple proportion, ensures that the fundamental

bass interval of the diminished fourth, albeit complicated and indirect, as

Rameau observes, relates back to the corps sonore and is a permissible interval. If we return to Rameau's representation of the quintuple propor

tion of Figure 1, we note that the bass interval between El? and B forms a

diminished fourth (or augmented fifth). The derivation of the diminished

fourth, however, its enharmonic equivalent, is markedly different from the interval of the major third, to which it sounds identical.15 The major third is a direct interval, while the diminished fourth is only very indirectly related. It is not surprising that Rameau refers to the double emploi in his

explanation of the enharmonic genus: admitting the diminished fourth as an interval in which the fundamental bass may move requires a similar

156



singing voice

<> ^g<? ?

FB

singing

FB

ftp ^ m

gif# ?

*> CT~

?? ^s =? fr

Figure 4. Types of semitones (from Rameau 1737, 82). The acciaccaturas in the example indicate the chromatic neighbor the singer

should imagine to aid intonation of the semitone.

amount of mental gymnastics and interpolative license as the double emploi does (see Rameau 1737, 149-51 [Jacobi 1968, 3:89-90]; trans. Hayes 1968,175-76). The significance of the complex diminished fourth for the fundamental bass is therefore a very different one from the rather simpler

major third.16

Rameau provided an intriguing example, reproduced here in Figure 4, to prove that the ear does not primarily orient itself by the precise (justly intoned) size of the melodic intervals but rather by the (implied) harmo nies of the fundamental bass, which, he argued, provides the fine distinc tions major and minor semitones even when they are not sounded. For this

reason, Rameau supplied the same melody in two enharmonic variants,

which would sound identical if played on a keyboard instrument, and added the appropriate fundamental bass progressions in each instance.

What is changed between both versions is the type of semitone employed. In just intonation, these would be subdivided into major or minor, a quar

ter-tone apart, but any such difference has been erased here by the pres ence of temperament. The sole guide to preserving the enharmonic differ

ence, as Rameau emphasized tirelessly, is given through the fundamental bass. By supplying the appropriate bass, Rameau indicated how the dis tinction between major and minor semitone is conceptually preserved, even though there is no sounding difference between them.

It is against this technical background that we can better understand the psychological-physiological effects of enharmonicism, as Rameau envisioned them in a passage in G?n?ration harmonique:

157



Mais ne cro?ons pas d'ailleurs que

l'Oreille en soit la dupe, elle sent

dans ce d?faut de rapport toute la

duret? qu'il occasionne, on y est

frapp? du quart de Ton, sans qu'on

puisse s'en rendre compte, on en

est r?volt?, parce qu'il n'est pas

naturel, parce que l'Oreille ne peut

1'appretier; cependant l'Harmonie

commune, par laquelle ce passage

d'un Mode ? l'autre a lieu, en

modifie la duret?, le moment de la

surprise passe comme un ?clair, &

bien-t?t cette surprise se tourne en

admiration, de se voir ainsi trans

port? d'un H?misph?re ? l'autre,

pour ainsi dire, sans qu'on ait eu le

tems d'y penser. (Rameau 1737,

153 [Jacobi 1968, 3:91])

But let us not believe that the ear

will be fooled [by enharmonicism]. It senses in this lack of relationship all the harshness that is there. One

is struck by the quarter-tone with

out being aware of it, and one is

shocked by it because it is not natu

ral, because the ear cannot perceive it. However, the common harmony,

by which you pass from one mode

to the other, modifies the harshness

of the quarter-tone. The moment of

surprise passes like a flash, and soon

this surprise turns into admiration,

as seeing yourself transported, from one hemisphere to the other,

as it were, without having had the

time to think about it. (trans, modi

fied from Hayes 1968,178-79)

The enharmonic in this explanation reveals itself as a mode of percep

tion that is not based on interval discrimination as much as on a feeling of transportation?harmonic and spiritual?which is not underpinned by intellectual reflection. This description resonates very closely indeed with the "delightfull horrour" that Edmund Burke (1757) was to formulate some

twenty years later in his writings on the sublime and makes it clear why the shudder is the appropriate physical response to the frightening effect.17

Following Rameau's description, in the enharmonic a common har

mony offers access to a different mode that would not be accessible oth erwise. The quarter-tone does not sound, but we still feel its effect, simply

by virtue of pursuing a harmonic progression that would not be possible without it. What this would mean for the passage in Hippolyte et Ariele is the following: the quarter-tone, while in itself inaudible, still determines the fundamental bass progression by maintaining the enharmonic differ ence in the fundamental bass intervals. If the status of the fundamental bass hovers between being an empirical paraphrase of an actual harmonic

progression and being an interpretive model of an idealized progression, as Alan Keiler (1981, 83-100) has suggested, then this enharmonic differ ence requires different listening strategies. Depending on whether the interval is a diminished fourth or a major third, the listener needs to adapt his or her percept of the harmonic motion in this diatonic-enharmonic

passage. The confusing and cognitively terrifying effect of the passage would then reside in the inability of the ear to decide on the precise mean

ing of the passage: while its structure seems perfectly regular, it simply

158



cannot be listened to in the way it appears?the intervallic patterns seem to be constantly shifting, the listener is "transported from one harmonic

hemisphere to another" in a flash.

In other words, Rousseau hears enharmonicism as a physical-acoustical

dissonance, while for Rameau it becomes a cognitive dissonance. That is

to say, for Rameau even a quarter-tone that is inaudible can nonetheless

wreak havoc with the simple logic of the fundamental bass.

Rousseau's Deafness

Strictly speaking, the passage we hear in Hippolyte et Ariele is not enharmonicism in Rameau's narrow sense. Whenever Rameau described

the "Trio des Parques," he was careful to specify that the piece is in the diatonic-enharmonic mode. In Rameau's understanding, the enharmonic

is not a mode, in the way major and minor are, but a genus. As such, the

enharmonic can momentarily impinge on the diatonic mode, but cannot

in itself be the basis of a composition.18 In modern music, the pure enhar

monic genus, Rameau explained, manifests itself most prominently in

the guise of the diminished-seventh chord. As the diminished-seventh chord consists of three minor thirds, mark

ing a symmetrical division of the octave (as Rousseau 1755a, 688 [Scott 1998, 219] added to Rameau's explanations), the chord can be presented in any inversion without changing the sounding interval structure. Minor thirds change into augmented seconds, but on tempered instruments there is no audible difference between these two intervals. Rameau asserted

that the root of the diminished-seventh chord is invariably heard as a

leading note to the tonic. As a consequence of the uniquely invertible interval structure of the diminished-seventh chord, any of the compo

nents of the chord may therefore function as the leading note. This spe cial feature, which produces an arbitrary leading note, can be success

fully employed in the pursuit of enharmonicism.19 One diminished-seventh chord can be resolved into twelve different

keys, as Rameau explained (1755,56-57 [Jacobi 1969, 3:225], trans. Scott

1998, 234). Figure 5, taken from Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique, which matches exactly Rameau's explanations, shows these twelve pos

sibilities. With each component of the chord functioning as the leading note to a mode, four different leading tones are possible; and each inver

sion can resolve in three ways: to the major tonic, the minor tonic, or the

dominante-tonique, and from there to the tonic a fifth below. Strictly speaking, the first three of the twelve models should not count as enhar

monic, because no change in mode takes place (Rousseau 1768, 805-6; Scott 1998, 397-98).

Rameau juxtaposed three different explanations as to how the dimin ished-seventh chord should be derived (1737,150-51 [Jacobi 1968, 3:88

159



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of the diminished-seventh chord (1768, Figure L)



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Figure 6. Rameau's three derivations of the diminished-seventh chord

89], trans. Hayes 1968, 175-76). These are represented in Figure 6. The first explanation introduces the chord as a hybrid between dominant and subdominant chords. Its minor-third structure is explained as elements

taken from both fifth-related triads surrounding the tonic. The second

explanation takes this notion further and argues that the diminished sev

enth can stand in for the dominant (whose root it drops). This explanation is in line with the function of the chord as carrying the leading tone: as a

dominant-ninth chord without a root, the diminished-seventh chord would fulfill that function precisely. And third, Rameau explained that the diminished-seventh chord can be taken as a dominant seventh chord that has exchanged its root for its upper chromatic neighbor. This explanation is a little harder to fathom, given that it seems irreconcilable with the

previous model. But as Rameau insisted that the diminished-seventh chord belongs inextricably to the minor mode, we can see how the domi nant seventh chord of a given major key can raise its root chromatically, thus turning into the diminished-seventh chord on the leading tone of its relative minor.

In any case, Rameau concluded, this form of enharmonicism "is a sure

way for making two modes immediately succeed one another when no

relationship exists between them" (Hayes 1968,178) [Ainsi voil? un mo?en s?r de faire succ?der imm?diatement deux Modes, qui n'ont aucun rap

port entr'eux (Rameau 1737, 153 [Jacobi 1968, 3:91])]. It comes into

being only thanks to temperament, which greatly increases the number of common harmonic sounds, as Rameau added (ibid.).

The consequences for the fundamental bass deriving from the intro duction of the enharmonic genus are considerable. It is simply not pos

sible to follow the fundamental-bass motion through the enharmonic

161



fia

^m

\>mrm 1

J?

Jllj?

Example 3. From Rameau, "L'enharmonique" {Nouvelle suite de pi?ces

de clavecin): enharmonicism in action

because, in sounding the diminished-seventh chord, the root impercepti bly moves by a minor third or its multiples along the lines of the enhar

monic changes described above. The sound remains the same, but the

significance of the chord changes inaudibly. This great harmonic flexibil

ity opened up by the enharmonic, Rameau added, is authorized not by nature directly, but rather by license. (Here again, the conceptual paral lels to the double emploi, mentioned above in the third section, come to

the fore.) Rameau explored the realm of the enharmonic in his enigmatic pi?ce

de clavecin, "L'enharmonique" (1728), which shows a progression so

strange that he felt compelled to append an explanatory note to the pub lished edition. The musical passage in question is shown in Example 3.

Oddly, and in contradiction to what he had written elsewhere, Rameau

asserted that these harmonies were "founded in reason, and authorized by

nature herself" (1728, n.p.)?probably to reassure his readership that he

had not written musical gibberish.20 For the connoisseur, he continued,

they have the most piquancy to offer, while less experienced listeners

might first have to get used to this outlandish figure (especially when

played in Rameau's modified mean-tone temperament) before they find a taste for it.21 The right effect depends on the performer, Rameau added, who should approach the crucial passage before the fermata "by soften

ing the touch and by suspending the appoggiaturas more and more"

(1728, n.p.) [En attendrissant le toucher, et en suspendant de plus en plus les Coulez (my translation)].

The reprise, as Rameau's note explains and Example 3 shows, traverses

a progression of diminished-seventh chords in close succession. A mod

162



ern analysis might well identify the entire chordal passage as a version of a chromatic 5-6 progression, with the chromatic bass descending rather

than the upper voice ascending. For Rameau, however, this passage was

something of an enharmonic kaleidoscope. Measure 11 of the second part

("reprise") shows the diminished-seventh chord on Ctt. Rameau's tenet

that the diminished-seventh chord always indicates the leading tone of the

key gives rise to a resolution on D, as shown hypothetically under (a) in

Example 3. This impression is even enhanced by the melodic continuation to A and G, implying a dominant-tonic chord on A, as shown in (b). But

instead of what Rameau would call a tonic chord on D minor, we hear

another diminished-seventh chord, this time on B. For a smooth connec

tion we have to rehear the previous diminished-seventh chord as if it had

been notated Att-Ctt-E-G, as shown in (c), so as to spell out the leading note to B as the root of the chord.

To be sure, this second diminished-seventh chord is a mere passing event in this complex passage, and its importance should not be over

stated. The continuation of this passage, however, carries on with this

exploration of thwarted expectations: after the diminished-seventh chord on B, Rameau's rules would require a C chord to follow, hypothetically shown in (d), but we are denied this resolution; instead, he cadences?if

that's the right word here?on yet another diminished-seventh chord,

sliding down to Bb in the bass, though the notation suggests that the

melodic part, E, is the leading note. We have indeed arrived at the same

chord we started out with, but it is hard to recall any likeness between the

initial Ctt in the bass and its enharmonic equivalent in the fermata chord, the Db as the third of the chord under the fermata.22

In other words, this moment is the point when enharmonicism most

palpably undermines any sense of stability. If we follow the two lower lines

of the passage, which have been descending in parallel thirds throughout, we would expect them to continue as Al and Ctt into m. 12 of the reprise. Instead, by changing enharmonically to Bb and Db, they "transport us," as Rameau put it earlier, "from one hemisphere to the other," in a rather

literal way?"without having had the time to think about it." Rameau

evidently savored the harmonic confusion that this moment elicits, when

he instructed the player to dwell on the extremely dissonant double sus

pension that leads into the final diminished-seventh chord.

The continuation after the pause, leading to F minor, simply takes up where the previous chord left off: if we hypothetically replaced the enhar

monic note Db with the C, which we may have expected to sound instead, as shown in (e) of Example 3, the progression would work beautifully

with a dominant seventh chord, as Rameau's third derivation suggested.

Using the same thought experiment, we can see what Rameau had in mind

when he explained that the diminished-seventh chord contained elements

of the dominant and the subdominant, added in (f ): inserting the C instead

163



of the Db (and Bl?) would simply mean to replace the subdominant com

ponents with a clear-cut dominant. (For other analyses of this passage, see

Christensen 1993, 203-5; and Hayes 1968, 179.) We can see from this example how the three derivations of the dimin

ished-seventh chord that Rameau provided?shown in Example 3 under

(b), (e), and (f)?can all be applied. We have also seen how the enhar monic realm is opened up thanks to the greater harmonic flexibility that

temperament can provide, making the enharmonic quarter-tone fully

obsolete. At the same time, mean-tone temperament is intriguingly?or

piquantly?stretched to its limits in a complex passage like this. Like

wise, the fundamental bass, as the temporal consequence of the corps

sonore offered by nature, has indeed led us astray. In this sense, Rous

seau, writing in Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclop?die?the summa of

Enlightenment knowledge?denies that cadences involving diminished seventh chords can be considered to be real cadences. "In this transition,"

he concluded bluntly, "no harmonic connection is found" (Scott 1998,

212) [Dans ce passage, il ne se trouve aucune liaison harmonique (Rous seau 1768, 679)].

In principle, Rousseau is not saying anything that is radically different from Rameau when he explained, as he had done many times before, that

we can "feel" but not hear "the effect of the quarter-tone" and that "this

effect has no other cause than the change of mode occasioned by the fundamental succession" (Briscoe 1975, 177) [cet effet n'a d'autre cause

que le changement de Mode occasionn? par la succession fondamentale,

dont l'harmonie exige un pareil produit (Rameau 1750, 100-101 [Jacobi 1968, 3:216-17])]. And, in fact, this is also how Rousseau imagined the

enharmonic. He continues:

A la faveur donc de ces deux diff?

rentes manieres d'envisager suc

cessivement le m?me accord, on

passe d'un ton ? un autre qui en

paro?t fort ?loign?, on donne aux

parties des progr?s diff?rens de celui qu'elles auraient d? avoir en

premier lieu; & ces passages m?na

g?s ? propos sont capables, non

seulement de surprendre, mais de

ravir l'auditeur quand ils sont bien

rendus. (Rousseau 1755a. 688)23

Thanks, then, to these two different

manners of successively consider

ing the same chord, one passes

from one key to another one which

seems quite remote, one gives to the

parts progressions different from

the one that they ought to have had

in the first place, and these transi

tions, when properly handled, are

capable not only of surprising but

of delighting the listener when they are well Hone f Sr.ntt 1 QQR ??(Tl

Considering Rousseau's above criticism in the light of this quotation, we come closer to what characterizes the enharmonic: what we hear in the

enharmonic is nothing. No harmonic connection, nothing, is all that we

164



hear, and it is precisely this lack of a harmonic connection in the funda mental bass that makes the enharmonic special.

Rameau would in fact have to agree, except that for him the notion of

"hearing nothing" was a positive feature, one that would actually alert us

to the presence of the enharmonic. (To fully understand the double mean

ing of "nothing," remember the old joke: Question?which is better: eter nal bliss or a cheese sandwich? Answer?the cheese sandwich. Nothing is better than eternal bliss, but a cheese sandwich is better than nothing.)

For Rameau, this "nothing" is exactly how we recognize the enhar

monic; in fact, this is precisely what he said earlier, when he insisted that the ear "hears in this lack of relationship all the harshness that is there."

Elsewhere, Rameau explained that harmonic effects in all three genera?

diatonic, chromatic, enharmonic?reside in "le plus ou le moins de rap

port," as he was fond of phrasing it (1750, 98, 102 [Jacobi 1968, 3:215, 217], trans. Briscoe 1975: 176-77). And of the three, the enharmonic shows by far le moins de rapport. It is in a similar sense that he went on to explain the effect of the enharmonic in his D?monstration:

Pour ce qui est de Y Enharmonique, il ne rappelle rien. C'est le produit

de deux extr?mes tr?s-dissonans

entre-eux, auxquels m?me la nature

a d'abord refus? la succession

imm?diate, d'o? il n'est pas ?ton

nant que l'oreille ne puisse 1'appre tier. (Rameau 1750, 96-97 [Jacobi 1968.3:214-151)

The ear recalls nothing from the

enharmonic genus. It is the product of the two extremes, very dissonant

between each other, to which even

nature has at first refused immedi

ate succession. Therefore, it is not

astonishing that the ear cannot

detect it. (Briscoe 1975, 175)

Given the conclusion above from the examination of diatonic enhar

monicism in Hippolyte et Ariele, it is not difficult to see how Rameau envisioned the cognition of the enharmonic as a progression that is unde

tectable by the ear in this textual passage. He reverted to the explanatory model of the quintuple proportion, given above under Figure 1, but here it is taken in a slightly different direction. Again, we notice the conflation between justification by means of acoustical properties?the striking dis sonance that complicates any natural succession?and the ability of our

ear to hear it. But in pure enharmonicism, the harmonic connection is

made possible only by the sound of the diminished-seventh chord itself and the ambivalence of its components.

What is curious about this quotation, however, is that it may also con

tain a covert historical dimension that is not usually present in Rameau's theoretical explanations. When Rameau claims that the ear "recalls"

(rappeler) nothing of the enharmonic genus, there is a sense that suggests that there might have been a time when it did.24 More strongly, perhaps,

165



what does it mean that nature "at first" (d'abord) demurred and refused a connection, but then, presumably, changed her mind?

Resonances from Ancient Greece

The hard-fought debates between Rameau and Rousseau in the wake of Rousseau's entries on music for the Encyclop?die, which resulted in furious pamphleteering on both sides, are well known (see, e.g., Didier

1985; Verba 1993; Christensen 1993, 209-50; O'Dea 1995,7-43; Dugan and Strong 2001, 329-64). Less well noted is the curious fact that one of the longest rebuttals Rameau wrote for any of Rousseau's explanations

was on the entry "Enharmonique" (Rameau 1756, Rousseau 1755a), where

the rebuttal is about five times as long as the text it criticizes. What is surprising about Rameau's long rebuttal is that he did not seem

to disagree much with any of the substantive points that Rousseau made; in fact, Rousseau seems to have taken over many of Rameau's theoretical

explanations wholesale. This could, of course, in itself be a bone of con

tention?given the self-evidently historic importance of the commission,

it must have been difficult for Rameau to take this intellectual theft in the more generous spirit of the maxim "imitation is the highest form of flat

tery." And indeed, we do see Rameau take particular issue with Rous

seau's seemingly innocuous opening and linking tags, such as: "As the

enharmonic genre is rather poorly known, and as our authors have con

tented themselves with giving too general notions of it, we believe we

should explain it here a little more clearly" (Scott 1998, 219) [Comme ce

genre est assez peu connu, & que nos auteurs se sont content?s d'en don

ner quelques notions trop g?n?rales, nous croyons devoir l'expliquer ici un peu plus clairement (Rousseau 1755a, 688)].25 But what is most curi ous is that both Rameau and Rousseau keep reassuring each other (and themselves) again and again that the modern enharmonic genus, which

they are discussing, has nothing to do with the enharmonic mode of the ancient Greeks.26

Which is to say, it has everything to do with the ancient Greeks. The main difference between ancient and modern music was, both Rousseau

and Rameau concurred, the predominantly melodic nature of Greek

music. Modern harmony did not exist; ancient accompaniment was lim

ited to "a series of perfect chords, wherein the accompanist substituted from time to time a sixth for the fifth, as his ear led him" (Scott 1998, 199) [une suite d'accords parfaits, dans lesquels l'accompagnateur sub

stituoit de tems en tems quelque sixte ? la quinte, selon que l'oreille le conduisoit (Rousseau, 1751, 75)]. And the ancient enharmonie genus

was based on precisely the subsemitonal divisions whose aural cognition Rameau so vehemently and consistently denied.

Rameau could hardly argue that the Greeks did not possess the quarter

166



tone, but instead he tried to pick holes in the appreciation of the ancient

genus. Whereas Rousseau reported, on the basis of his study of the sources,

that the enharmonic was considered the "sweetest" and the "most ancient"

of the three Greek genera, whose great art was soon lost, Rameau dispar

aged precisely these assessments.27 In his view, the purported "sweetness"

of Greek enharmonicism consisted in little more than "meowing," and the fact that the genus was soon given up only proved the lack of viability and "bad taste" of the enharmonic genus.28 The fact that they gave up on enhar

monicism is proof for Rameau that the ancient Greeks finally came to their senses and moved on to better things.29 It is, of course, in these vastly

divergent assessments of the same sources that their underlying world

views come to the fore: Rousseau's nostalgic sense of the loss of ancient

music?and his attempt to show sensitivity to its fundamentally different character?clashes sharply with Rameau's unshakable faith in the univer

sality and perfectibility of music.30 What Rameau considered the greatest weakness of Greek music was

its reliance on the quarter-tone: given that he prided himself on having built a theoretical system entirely on a natural principle, it was hard for him to believe that the self-same principles would not have been available to the ancient Greeks. If they chose to calculate the major third, following the Pythagorean tradition, as the complex interval of the fourth fifth, and did not recognize as the simple consonance that it was in Rameau's eyes,

then the ancient Greeks simply built their music on an insufficient under

standing of nature. Or, which would be worse, they were simply not using their ears: "It is not understood how the Greeks could have dispensed with

consulting the ear in their systems of music, while it is by its canal alone that the effects of this art could have been judged" (Scott 1998, 252) [On ne comprend pas comment les Grecs ont pu se dispenser de consulter l'oreille sur leurs syst?mes de Musique, pendant que c'est par son seul

canal qu'ils ont pu juger des effets de det Art (Rameau 1756, 5 [Jacobi 1969, 5:313])]. Their lack of harmony was, in Rameau's view, nothing to

be proud of but simply the proof of the superiority of the achievements of modern music?and modern music theory.

And yet, it seems that Rameau became the victim of its own success in

penetrating the nature of enharmonicism, and in reestablishing the ancient effect on the modern basis of triadic harmony. The row about enharmoni

cism was so public, and its intricacies were so arcane, that even Diderot

had the protagonist in his satire Le neveu de Rameau proclaim during a

rendition of an Italianate piece at the keyboard:

Enfin, vous voyez, dit-il en se redres- "Now you've seen for yourself" said

sant et en essuyant les gouttes de he straightening up and wiping the

sueur qui descendaient le long de drops of sweat from his face, "that

ses joues, que nous savons aussi we too can correctly use a tritone,

167



placer un triton, une quinte super

flue, et que l'encha?nement des

dominantes nous est familier. Ces

passages enharmoniques dont le

cher oncle a fait tant de train, ce

n'est pas la mer ? boire, nous nous

en tirons. (Diderot 1772, 443-44)31

an augmented fifth, and that the

handling of dominant progressions is familiar to us. Those enharmonic

modulations about which the dear

uncle has made so much fuss are

by no means superhuman: we man

age, we manage." (trans. Barzun

and Bowen 1956, 26)

The complexity and harmonic achievement of Rameau's modern music

might well be superior to that of the ancient Greeks, yet the philosophes soon turned away from their erstwhile darling. We might even be tempted to read the physical exertion of Rameau's nephew at the harpsichord as an

indication of his position in the debate about whether music was based on

scientific principles or human passions. At any rate, the heavy theoretical

weather that Rameau tended to make about this arcane part of his theory was no longer de rigueur in an age where Italianate simplicity was win

ning the day?exactly of the kind Rousseau heard in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice.

Rameau's and Rousseau's Furies

Against this background, we can understand the covert historical dimension that Rameau conjured up in his above explanation: the ear

"recalls" nothing of the ancient enharmonic genus, to which nature "at

first" refused immediate succession?which opens up the enticing pos

sibility that the quarter-tone used to make an acoustic difference. In other

words, modern music for Rameau became fully functional only with the standardization of temperament, which opened up the possibility of har

monic flexibility beyond the diatonic range. To achieve this, however, it was necessary to forget the quarter-tone, or rather, to relegate it to an

unconscious murmur at the level of the fundamental bass.

For Rousseau, by contrast, the dropping of the enharmonic quarter tone was a much greater loss:

La m?lodie en l'imposant, en s'im

posant de nouvelles r?gles perdoit insensiblement de son ancienne

?nergie, et le calcul des intervalles

fut enfin substitu? ? la finesse des intonations. C'est ainsi, par exem

ple, que la pratique du genre enhar

monique s'abolit peu ? peu. . . .

(Rousseau 1755b, 337)32

Melody, by imposing on it?by imposing on itself?new rules,

imperceptibly lost its ancient energy,

and the calculation of intervals was

ultimately substituted for the sub

tlety of intonations. It is in this way,

for example, that the practice of the

enharmonic genre was gradually eliminated. (Scott 1998, 265)

168



For Rousseau, for whom melodic flexibility was tantamount to emo

tional richness, there is no real progress in music in any absolute sense:

the invention of harmony was to the detriment of melody. He acknowl

edged the achievements of harmony as a "gain of combinations," but its

introduction simultaneously meant a "loss of energy" ("[Des composi

teurs] gagnaient de combinaisons en perdant de l'?nergie" [Rousseau 1768, 803]). By this Rousseau meant that effects of the passions that used to be carried by melody alone, expressed through subtle inflections below the semitone, are now simplified in the service of harmony, which is now

the principal carrier of the emotional effects that music is capable of

conveying.33 And Rousseau laconically concluded his musings on the decline of

melody: "Let us therefore not think that the empire of music has over our

passions is ever explained by proportions and numbers"?by which he meant Rameau's quasi-scientific music-theoretical speculation?"All

these explanations are only nonsense. ... A more subtle metaphysics is

needed in order to explain its great effects" (Scott 1998, 269-70) [Toutes ces explications ne sont que du galimathias et ne feront jamais que des incr?dules. ... Le Principe et les r?gies ne sont que le mat?riel de l'art, il

faut une m?taphysique plus fine pour en expliquer les grands effets

(Rousseau 1755b, 343)].34 It is this subtle metaphysics, harking back to the mythical music of

ancient Greece, that Rousseau believed could be found in the sublime enharmonicism of Gluck's Orfeo late in life.35 While the passage was

clearly written in eighteenth-century tonal harmonies (not ancient Greek

melos), the orchestral parts really are largely written in such a way as not

to force the vocal parts into equal-tempered alignment during the enhar

monic passage. (The exception is the Cl? in the cellos at mm. 25 and 26, which clashes with the Furies' B. It is highly doubtful, however, that such a performance in immaculate just intonation as Rousseau imagined it ever took place in reality.) Moreover, unlike the other examples exam

ined, the enharmonic moment does not introduce a harmonic shift; the

enharmonic notes merely mark an implication without cadencing in any new key. It was therefore possible?at least in Rousseau's musical

imagination?that the voices of the Furies and of Orpheus might diverge into Cl? and B^, to intone precisely the enharmonic quarter-tone that

Rameau had been careless enough, in Rousseau's view, to let slip out of

use in his harmonic system.

So Gluck's Furies can screech enharmonically: if we can extrapolate from this example, the musical epoch following Rameau's French Baroque did come closer again to an ideal that was modeled on Rousseau's ancient

Greek music, while retaining, but subtly setting back, the achievements of modern harmony. It should be borne in mind that Rousseau's explanation of the Furies' screeching as based on the shrill enharmonic quarter-tone

169



must already count as a deviation from his ideal of a purely melodious

music. The power that melody once carried on its own is conceded here to a vertical effect, albeit one that undermines the tempered, instrumental

harmony that Rameau advocated.

Indeed, Rousseau could not resist the temptation of including a swipe

against the late Rameau when he added that the whole effect of the pas

sage is based on the fact that it is in the major mode. In this, Rousseau

may have echoed Gluck's own explanation of his decision to set Orpheus's lament, "Che faro senza Euridice," in the major mode.36 But more than

anything else, this point gains significance against the background of

Rameau's insistence that the enharmonic genus was possible only within

the minor mode. Just in case there might still be any doubt about who is

meant, Rousseau?himself, famously, a citizen of Geneva?added a Franco

phobic note: "I would wager everything in the world that a Frenchman,

having had this piece to compose, would have treated it in the minor

mode" (Scott 1998, 509) [Je parierois tout au monde qu'un Fran?ois, ayant ce morceau ? faire, l'e?t trait? en mode mineur (Rousseau 1774,

464)].37 And yet, much of this seems to have simply gone on in Rousseau's

imagination. As he eventually confided to his pr?te-nom in his notes, all

his explanations on Gluck's Orfeo were written down from memory

(Rousseau 1774, 464; Scott 1998, 509).38 It is in this sense that he could

advise his pr?te-nom to play the passage on the keyboard?which, tuned as it necessarily is in some system of temperament, cannot faithfully

reproduce the enharmonic quarter-tone on which the Furies' screeching

hinges. Yet, for him, no less than for Rameau, the keyboard instrument

stands emblematically for the effects music can produce in us.

For Rameau, as we saw, the keyboard instrument stands for a barrier

demarcating what our "ear" is capable of perceiving, or rather, a safe

guard to protect what Rameau considered harmonically admissible. For

Rousseau, by contrast, the keyboard sound seemed to be enough to trig ger the memory of an ancient musical culture where melodic inflection was still possible and music still possessed its sublime orphie powers, as

well as the recollection of a much more recent past, where the meaning

of enharmonicism had been furiously debated.

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NOTES

I thank Thomas Christensen, David E. Cohen, Martin Kirnbauer, Kate van Orden,

Tobias Plebuch, Mary Ann Smart, Tracy Strong, and Cynthia Verba for their help ful suggestions and comments. I particularly wish to thank Justin Hoffman for a

very thoughtful response, parts of which made their way into the third section of

this article.

1. The essay, published posthumously in 1781, is difficult to date precisely. Rous

seau's English translator suggests 1774 (Scott 1998, 602), the year that Gluck's

French Orfeo ed Euridice premiered in Paris, and we know that Rousseau saw it

on numerous occasions. This seems likely, especially given its temporal proximity to Rousseau's other writing on Gluck, the letter to Burney containing the frag

ments on Gluck's Alceste. It is noteworthy, however, that Rousseau exclusively discusses the Italian version, Orfeo ed Euridice, and nowhere mentions the French

version. Given his well-documented pro-Italian bias, this would not be particu

larly surprising, but in the French version the scene in question is transposed into

another key, so his detailed remarks apply to the Italian version exclusively. There

are a number of possible explanations: Rousseau may have been unaware of this

difference, he may have knowingly ignored it, the French version of the score may not have been available, or the French version did not exist at the time he wrote

the text. (See also n. 37.) 2. Strictly speaking, of course, the figure explaining this effect should be the petit

faiseur, the other speaking character in Rousseau's essay. However, I take the

liberty of short-circuiting this play of characters, as the views of the petit-faiseur can be seen as identical with those of Rousseau.

3. Rousseau's description of Gluck's music here has strong resonances with his

analysis of Lully's Armide from the Lettre sur la musique fran?aise (Rousseau

1753), and particularly Rameau's response to it (see Dill 1994). While it would

clearly be misguided to equate the pr?te-nom, an ill-informed but presumably

sympathetic character, with Rameau, it is clear that the late French composer is

practically the absent third interlocutor in this imaginary monologue. 4. See Rameau 1754, 12 (Jacobi 1968, 3:272): "& ce tout consiste simplement dans

la Quinte pour les moins exp?riment?s, & dans la Tierce encore lorsque l'exp?rience a fait de plus grands progr?s" [And this all consists simply in the fifth for the less

experienced and in the third as well when experience has made greater progress

(trans. Scott 1998, 180)].

5. See the entry "Quart-de-ton" in Rousseau 1768, 1002:

Intervalle introduit dans le Genre Enharmonique par Aristox?ne, et duquel la raison

est sourde. . . . Nous n'avons, ni dans l'oreille, ni dans les calculs Harmoniques, aucun principe qui nous puisse fournir l'Intervalle exact d'un Quart-de-Ton; et

quand on consid?re quelles op?rations g?om?triques sont n?cessaires pour le d?ter

miner sur le Monocorde, on est bien tent? de soup?onner qu'on n'a peut-?tre jamais entonn? et qu'on n'entonnera peut-?tre jamais de Quart-de-ton juste, ni par la Voix, ni sur aucun Instrument. Les Musiciens appellent aussi Quart-de-ton l'Intervalle qui, de deux Notes ? un Ton l'une de l'autre, se trouve entre le B?mol de la sup?rieure et

le Di?se de l'inf?rieure ; Intervalle que le Temp?rament fait ?vanouir, mais que le

calcul peut d?terminer. Ce Quart-de-ton est de deux esp?ces; savoir, l'Enharmonique

majeur, dans le rapport de 576 ? 625, qui est le compl?ment de deux semi-Tons

171



mineurs au Ton majeur; et l'Enharmonique mineur, dans la raison de 125 ? 128, qui est le compl?ment des deux m?mes semi-Tons mineurs au Ton mineur.

6. See, for instance, Rameau 1737, 28-29 (Jacobi 1968, 3:28-29): "le Son appr?cia ble n'est pas unique de sa nature, il est Harmonieux, & son Harmonie donne cette

proportion 1 1/3 1/5, qui se reproduit dans celle-ci 1, 3, 5, par la puissance r?ci

proque des Vibrations plus lentes & plus promptes les unes sur les autres" [A

sound which has a perceptible pitch is not singular in its nature, but harmonic. And

the harmony of the sound gives this proportion, 1, 1/3, 1/5, which is reproduced in the proportion, 1: 3: 5, by the reciprocal power of slower and faster vibrations

(trans. Hayes 1968,55)]. 7. In many ways, the arcane problem of enharmonicism with its strong ties to ancient

Greece was the jewel in the crown of humanistically inspired music theories and

enjoyed particular prominence in sixteenth-century Italy (see Berger 1980 and

Walker 1978). Rameau does not talk much about his sources; he was probably

hoping to play up their own originality by largely ignoring the historical prece dents. He cites Zarlino's tetracordo enharmonico as his main source (see also n.

26); moreover, Zarlino's debates with the "chromaticists" around Vicentino and

the Florentine Camerata would have been important reference points for Rameau.

On the complicated intellectual relationship between Rameau and Zarlino, see

Gosman 2000.

8. See Rameau 1750, 19-20 (Jacobi 1968, 3:176): "Le corps sonore, que j'appelle, ? juste titre, son fondamental, ce principe unique, g?n?rateur & ordonnateur de

toute la Musique, cette cause immediate de tous ses effets, le corps sonore, dis-je, ne r?sonne pas plut?t qu'il engendre en m?me tems toutes les proportions contin

ues, d'o? naissent l'harmonie, la M?lodie, les Modes, les Genres, & jusqu'aux moindres regles n?cessaires ? la pratique" [The sonorous body (which I justly call

the fundamental sound), this unique source, generator, and master of all music,

this immediate cause of all its effects?the sonorous body, I say?does not merely

resound, rather it engenders at the same time all the continuous proportions from

which arise harmony, melody, modes and genera, and everything down to the least

important rules necessary to practice (trans, modified from Briscoe 1975, 122)]. 9. Experimentation with alternative keyboard instruments, which would produce

purer intervals, was a popular scientific enterprise, greeted with great interest at

the French Royal Academy of Sciences (see Cohen 1981). Joseph Sauveur, from

whose work Rameau had taken the idea of the harmonic series, had recently cal

culated the intervals for a microtonal harpsichord. Other important enharmonicists

within Rameau's reach include Marin Mersenne, Christian Huyghens, and Mon

sieur de Saint Lambert, who all experimented with octave divisions below the

semitone level. Cohen 1981 (96) mentions in passing a treatise by Charles Henri

de Blainville of 1765, titled "De l'enharmonique," which I have not been able to

consult. See also Kirnbauer and Drescher 2002.

10. For a discussion of Rameau's changing views on temperament, see Hayes 1968,

314-22; Chandler 1975, 93-107; and Machabey 1964, 113-22.

11. This trio has been discussed several times; see Girdlestone 1957, 149-54; Dill

2002, 468; Thomas 2002, 161-69; and Christensen 1993, 205-6. Hayes (1968,

180) provides a fundamental bass analysis of the passage, but she disregards the

special problems resulting from the enharmonicism of the passage. In her forth

172



coming article, Cynthia Verba draws particular attention to the perfectly regular context in which the highly chromatic passage occurs.

12. This contrasts with the chromatic-enharmonic genus, which Rameau claims to

have used in the earthquake scene of Les Indes galantes, act II, but it is unclear

whether the piece he describes has survived. See Rameau 1750, 95 (Jacobi 1968,

3:214; trans. Briscoe 1975, 174). 13. The question of why Rameau would keep on referring to this incident, despite its

failure in performance, is somewhat puzzling: it is possible that Rameau was try

ing to tap into the long tradition of "impossible" enharmonic music that was

prominent in such Italian authors as Vincenzo Galilei (see Palisca 1985, Chua

2001). It seems, however, that Rameau had not counted on the circumstance that

the specific context would play into his opponents' hands: the failure in practice was grist for Rousseau's mill.

14. In Nouveau syst?me (Rameau 1726)?our terminus post quern?Rameau is highly

particular about such minute differences and draws up vast tables in which he

calculates the exact ratios for such differences. By the time of G?n?ration harmo

nique (Rameau 1737)?our terminus ante quern?these are no longer necessary. 15. See Rameau 1754, 12 (Jacobi 1968, 3:272): "Ce guide de l'oreille, n'est autre, en

effet, que l'harmonie d'un premier Corps sonore, dont elle n'est pas plut?t frap

p?e, qu'elle pressent tout ce qui peut suivre cette harmonie, & y ramener" [That

guide for the ear is in fact none other than the harmony of a primary sounding

body, by which it is no sooner struck than it drives forward everything that can

follow this harmony, and lead back to it (trans. Scott 1998, 180)]. 16. See also the relevant equivalent argument that Rameau makes in G?n?ration har

monique (1737, 82 [Jacobi 1968, 3:55], trans. Hayes 1968, 107) in the context of

equal temperament about the difference between subintervallic differences: "The

ear only perceives a difference between the major and minor semitones, or between

the minor third and the augmented second, through the help of the fundamental

succession. The ear understands the harmony of this succession even if it does not

hear such harmony." 17. While the concept of the terrifying-sublime might give us a familiar and workable

category within which to place the enharmonic, this term must be taken with a

further pinch of salt: in Enlightenment France, unlike in England, the sublime

followed the tradition of Longinus, which was much closer to an extension of the

beautiful?the "very beautiful," as Gustave Flaubert is to quip a century later (see Riethm?ller 1983, 38-39). This superlative applies also to the musical entries

from the Encyclop?die, where Louis de Cahusac appends the following addition

to the entry on "Chorus": "Almost all of [Rameau's] choruses are beautiful, and

many of them are sublime" (Scott 1998, 214). It seems, rather, that Rousseau and

Rameau approached this nexus from different perspectives. Rousseau, on the one

hand, approaches the enharmonic from the vantage point of the fashionable sym

pathy movement, which particularly values emotional sensitivity (see Zelle 1987,

171-73). Rameau, on the other hand, follows in the Cartesian tradition, whereby even pain and horror can be sources of pleasure, provided control over the pas sions is not lost (see Descartes 1650; Kintzler 1983; Zelle 1987, 119 and 170). As

I showed above, this caveat played a big part in Rameau's understanding of the

psychological effects of the enharmonic.

173



18. Rameau 1754, 65 (Jacobi 1968, 3:299): "on ne peut jamais interrompre l'ordre

diatonique que par un seul intervalle Chromatique ou Enharmonique, qui sert pour lors au passage d'un Mode ? un autre, dont le rapport est plus ou moins ?loign?"

[one can never interrupt the diatonic except by a single chromatic or enharmonic

interval, which then serves for the transition from one mode to another, whose

relation is more or less remote (trans. Scott 1998, 183)].

19. Rameau 1737, 152 (Jacobi 1968, 3:90): "Cette diff?rence qu'abolit le Temp?ram ment fait que toutes les Tierces de l'Accord ?tant en m?me proportion, chacun des

Sons peut y ?tre pris indiff?remment pour Note sensible, en y changeant le nom

de quelques-uns, sans que pour cela leurs rapports avec les autres y souffrent la

moindre alt?ration" [This difference [between minor third and augmented second]

is abolished by temperament, so that, as all thirds in the chord are in the same

proportion, any note may be taken indifferently as the leading tone, by changing the name of some notes, but without having their ratios with the others suffer the

smallest alteration (trans. Hayes 1968, 177-78)]. 20. The context in which "L'enharmonique" occurs is intriguing: surrounded by pieces

with such evocative titles as "Les Sauvages" or "L'?giptienne," it seems very likely that the purpose of this pi?ce is not a mere representation of a music-theoretical

term but should rather be read in the overall context of femininity and exoticism

that surrounding titles suggest. In these contexts, the question of the "passions," which Rameau stressed throughout his writings on the enharmonic, becomes per tinent again.

21. As in the case of Hippolyte et Ariele, it is no coincidence that this piece was pub lished in 1728 (as part of the Nouvelles suites de pi?ces de clavecin), that is to say,

between the modified mean-tone temperament Rameau espoused in Nouveau sys

t?me (1726) and the equal temperament he embraced from G?n?ration harmo

nique (1737) onward. It is likely that this composition?as well as "La triom

phante" from the same volume, which also introduces an enharmonic passage, albeit a less striking one?helped him rethink the basic parameters of the tuning issue. The curious fact that tuning is not at all mentioned in the introductory note,

despite its evidently crucial role, would seem to suggest that Rameau had not

made up his mind on this complicated issue and was at pains not to draw attention

to the matter.

22. See Rameau 1728: "Cet effet na?t de la difference d'un quart de ton qui se trouve

entre l'Ut di?ze et le R? b?mol. . . , et bien que ce quart de ton n'y ait pas effec

tivement lieu ; puis que Ut di?ze et R? b?mol ne sont qu'une m?me note, un m?me

son, une m?me touche sur le clavier, l'effet n'en est pas moins sensible par la suc

cession inattendue des diff?rents modulations, qui dans leur passage exigent n?cessairement ce quart de ton."

23. Obviously, the view of diminished-seventh chords Rousseau takes here, which in

this instance is virtually identical with Rameau's, does not correspond to his later

interpretation of the diminished seventh in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. As I

have shown, the later Rousseau radicalized his outlook on intonation and on

diminished-seventh chords, as he fully thought through his position on music and

enharmonicism.

24. It is important, though, also to consider other contexts in which Rameau uses the

verb "recall" (rappeler). In Observations (Rameau 1754, 9-10 [Jacobi 1968,

3:271]), he explains: "Il y a plus: & pour peu qu'on ait d'exp?rience, on trouve de

174



soi-m?me la Basse fondamentale de tous les repos d'un chant... ce qui prouve encore bien l'empire du principe dans ses produits puisqu'en ce cas-ci la marche

de ces produits rappelle ? l'oreille celle du principe qui l'a d?termin?e, & sugg?r?e

par consequent au Compositeur" [Furthermore, no matter how little experience we have, we can identify by ourselves the fundamental bass of every cadence, in

a melody. . . . This proves still further the power of the principle in everything it

produces, since in this case the progression of its products recalls to the ear that of

the principle (trans. Verba 1993, 121)]. 25. The fact that Rameau reacts so strongly to this slight suggests that he considers

himself crucial in "discovering" the workings of the modern enharmonic genus. See also n. 7.

26. Our contemporary understanding of Greek music is most fully represented in

Mathiesen 1999. Rameau (1756, 33 [Jacobi 1967, 2:327]) cites Zarlino 1573,

2:16, as his source for enharmonicism in Greek music. Rousseau, on the other

hand, studied Greek music in some depth for his article on "musique" for the

Encyclop?die. (His claim that he studied Greek just for the purpose of reading the

sources on music in the original is more doubtful, given the extreme time restric

tions he worked under.) An important source of information for Rousseau seems

to have been Pierre Jean Burette's writings on music in antiquity (see Burette

1735). On Rousseau and Greek music, see Didier 1985, 41-59.

27. Rousseau 1755a, 688: "Le genre enharmonique ?toit le plus doux des trios au

rapport d'Aristide Quintilien; il passoit pour tr?s ancien, & la plupart des auteurs

en attribuent l'invention ? Olympe. Mais son t?tracorde, ou plut?t son diatessaron

de ce genre, ?toit compos? seulement de trois cordes; & ce ne fut qu'apr?s lui

qu'on s'avisa d'en ins?rer une quatri?me entre les deux premieres, pour faire la

division dont je viens de parler. Ce genre si merveilleux, si lou? des anciens

auteurs, ne demeura pas long-tems en vigueur. Son extr?me difficult? le fit bient?t

abandonner les musiciens, & Plutarque t?moigne que de son tems il ?toit enti?re

ment hors d'usage" [The enharmonie genre was the sweetest of the three, accord

ing to Aristide Quintilianus' report; it passed as very ancient, and the majority of

authors attributed its invention to Olympus. But his tetrachord, or rather his diates

saron of this genre, was made up of only three pitches, and it was only after him

that they thought of inserting a fourth one between the first two in order to make

the division of which I was just speaking. This genre, so marvelous, so praised by the ancient authors, did not long retain its vigor. Its extreme difficulty soon caused

it to be abandoned by musicians, and Plutarch testifies that it was entirely out of

use in his time (trans. Scott 1998, 219)]. 28. Rameau, 1756, 16 (Jacobi 1969, 5:319): "si donc les Grecs ont donn? ? ce dernier

genre le titre de doux, apparemment qu'ils en faisoient consister la douceur dans

le miolement, suel moyen par lequel ils en ont pu faire l'?preuve: aussi ce mauvais

go?t n'a-t-il pas subsist? longtems parmi eux, & bient?t en a-t-il ?t? banni tout-?

fait" [If, then, the Greeks have given to this last genre the title of soft, apparently because they made its softness consist in the meowing, the sole means by which

they could have experienced it. And this bad taste: didn't it not long endure among them and was it not soon entirely banished? (trans. Scott 1998, 254)].

29. This was in fact a dangerous conclusion: Rameau's universalizing premise for

music theory was by no means the inextricable correlate of the superiority of

modern music. Amid the complexities of the Querelle des anciens et des mo

175



dernes, Rameau's theory could be adopted by the side of the anciens just as easily. Abb? Pierre-Joseph Roussier (1770, xvi-xvii), a card-carrying proponent of the

anciens, appropriated Rameau's system in an extraordinary hypothesis arguing that Rameau's music-theoretical system merely recaptured the musical knowl

edge that the ancient Egyptians had possessed all along and that had merely been

forgotten by the Greeks. Intriguing though Roussier's hypothesis is, perhaps the

nicest thing that can be said about it is that there was not a shred of evidence to

refute his idea (or to support it, for that matter). 30. It is also possible to locate this clash in Rameau's and Rousseau's views of nota

tion. Rousseau considered the source of the problems of modern music in the rise

of pitch notation on staves, for putting the free flow of melodies in notational

straight]ackets. He railed against Guido of Arezzo in particular: "Il rendit un fort

mauvais service ? la musique" (Rousseau 1743, 168). The same bias was noted by the Acad?mie in its report on Rousseau's early proposal for a reform of musical

notation, which observed that the reform was useful for monodic vocal music but

inadequate for instrumental harmonies. It is ironic that the peculiarity of enhar

monicism in modern notation would seem to play much more into Rousseau's

hand than into Rameau's.

31. Diderot (1771) was further interested in related issues in his Le?on de clavecin

et principes d'harmonie, par M. Bemetzrieder, trans, in excerpts in Verba 1993,

147-52.

32. Rousseau adopts the same paragraph, almost verbatim, as the opening of his

chapter 19, "How music has degenerated," of the Essai sur Vorigine des langues

(1763). 33. Rousseau 1768, 342: "[l'harmonie] sert ? soutenir la m?lodie, ? determiner la

modulation avec la precision la plus exacte; ? en rendre le sentiment toujours

pr?sent; ? rendforcer ou d?rober les sons par des intervalles plus ou moins sensi

bles; ? bien marquer la mesure et le rhythme; enfin ? rendre plus sensible ? ce

piano-forte qui est l'ame de la m?lodie ainsi que du discours qu'elle imite; et c'est

de cette mani?re que l'harmonie rend en partie ? la musique ce qu'elle ?te de son

?nergie par Y exclusion d'une multitude d'intervalles irr?guliers" ([Harmony] serves to sustain melody to determine the modulation with the most exact preci

sion, to render the feeling always present in it, to strengthen or conceal sounds by more or less perceptible intervals, to mark the measure and the rhythm clearly,

finally, to make more perceptible that piano-forte, which is the soul of melody as

well as of the discourse it imitates; and it is in this manner that harmony renders

in part to music what it takes from its energy by the exclusion of a multitude of

irregular intervals [trans. Scott 1998, 269]). 34. The view of music as degenerate is a principal concern of Rousseau's, as explored

particularly in the Essai sur l'origine des langues (1763), and its tremendous

social and cultural ramifications, which link it?far beyond mere musical

concerns?with the social contract and the political issues explored in the Second

Discourse.

35. The enharmonicism of this scene both represents and engenders the dangers of

loss of control, the immediate correlate of the excess of passions always associ

ated with the enharmonic genus. On the question of passions and order, see van

Orden 2002, 17-38.

36. Even during Gluck's lifetime, the controversy about the aria was such that he was

176



moved to address this decision in the preface to his later opera Paride ed Elena

(see Finscher 1967, 96-110). 37. Rameau repeats his claim that the enharmonic genus works only in the minor

mode in 1756, 14 (Jacobi 1969, 5:318; trans. Scott 1998, 254). Obviously, this

anti-French sentiment would also help explain why Rousseau would use the Ital

ian version of the opera, even in the event that Gluck's French revision may

already have been completed at the time (see n. 1). 38. The important question of music and memory is taken up further in some of the

reflections presented at key moments in Rousseau's autobiographical Confessions

(1782) and has come under increased attention in the many chiefly deconstructive

readings of the past years.

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