Treatise on Harmony

The Traité de l'harmonie of Jen-Philippe Rameau is one of the most important books in the history of Western music. Written while Rameau was still a relatively obscure organist and music master at Clermont-Ferrand, the book received but one printing during Rameau's life, in 1722, shortly before he settled in Paris. The Traité was immediately recognized as a profound advance in musical theory, however, and it established Rameau's reputation as a theorist. His book was the first to codify tho...