Yale University Department of Music

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. 141-180
Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of the Yale University Department of Music
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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 themidcentury, 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 and pr?te-nom are untranslatable puns that can mean
petit-faiseur
"underlaborer" or and "front worker" or "straw man," respec
"prankster,"
tively), Rousseau tried towork out amusical passage inGluck'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 byYale University

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 - -
Dehpla- ca te vi con

Vn+Va (pizz.)

Fu-r?e,
me, lar-ve, om - bre sde - gno- se ! Vi ren - daal-menpie

No ! No !

to- se ilmi? bar - ba-ro do - lor, vi ren-daal-menpie - to - se ilmi?

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 Rousseau was the opening scene of act
captivated
II, in which Orpheus, having ventured into Hades, pleads with the furies
for mercy.2 With his lyre and his supplicating song, Orpheus gradually

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 bar - ba -ro_ do - lor !

Chorus (tutti):
No ! No!

Deh_ - ca te vi con me!

pla ca-te-vi, p?a

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 a demonstration of music's power to move some
stage gives practical
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

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

N?! N?!

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

N?! N?!

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

Example 1 (continued)

action on to this scene, we can observe how

stage. By listening closely
Gluck and Orpheus both go about this task.
As Example 1 shows, the furies initially interrupt Orpheus's counter
'
tenor voice with an unison Wo/" cadences
emphatic punctuating Orpheus's
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

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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, inwhat 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 the Furies inter
again,
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 to waver and that Orpheus has won them over. When
starting already
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 and the Furies con
Orpheus
stituted one of the most sublime moments in all opera. At the perfor
mance of Gluck's opera, he reports, "no one could each time
stop shaking
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 But, at the moment when one least
le moins, cette dominante di?s?e expects it, this sharped dominant
forme un affreux forms a frightful which
glapissement screeching,
auquel l'oreille et le c ur ne peu the ear and the heart cannot bear,
vent tenir, tandis que dans le m?me while at the same time Orpheus's
instant, le chant d'Orph?e redouble song doubles in sweetness and in
de douceur et de charme, et ce qui charm; and what is most astonish
met le comble ? l'?tonnement est ing is that in ending this short pas
terminant ce court passage, sage, we find ourselves in the same
qu'en
on se retrouve dans le m?me ton
key by which we just entered it,
par o? l'on vient d'y entrer, sans almost without able to com
being
qu'on puisse presque comprendre prehend how we have been able to
comment on a pu nous transporter be transported so far and brought
si loin et nous ramener si proche back so close with so much power
avec tant de force et de and (trans, modified from
rapidit?. speed,
(Rousseau 1774, 462)3 Scott 1998, 507)

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 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" atm. 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 thatworks 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 of the miraculous passage, as an effect of the enhar
explanation
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:

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 L'Enharmonique d?route l'oreille, The enharmonie derails the ear, it
l'exc?s dans toutes les pas- brings excess into all
the passions,
porte
sions, effraye, ?pouvante, & met it frightens, it terrifies, and it puts
le d?sordre, on s?ait disorder everywhere when one knows
partout quand
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

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

al'expression.
[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
emotional palette. In this sense, Rameau's psychological depic
composer's
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 of the corps sonore in his second
exploration
treatise, Nouveau syst?me (1726). Besides themore immediate triple pro
as Figure la shows, which generates the chords on the upper and
portion,
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 relations a more ear.4
complex requires experienced
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

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Rameau's time was generally calculated as 15:16 for the major semitone,
or 24:25 for the minor semitone). But the name had its
"quarter-tone"
own tradition, as it was from ancient Greek
age-old adopted 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 fall
progressions,
ing between the semitone of B^ and0. 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 themathematical intricacies of the enhar
monic Rameau's calculations, meanwhile, were of no immediate
genus.7
importance for his harmonic thinking, since he immediately went on to
state that the semitone is the smallest interval our ear can
categorically
perceive in context. He conceded that it is possible to discern smaller pitch

PROPORTION QUINTUPLES

quarter tone

\>t\ 128
^ $ ^
125

3*? ^^ P
triple proportion quintuple proportion

e^

13 9 1 5 25

Figure [Link]'s triple and quintuple proportions (after 1750, 89, 92)

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 COMPOMTIONOl 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 do not matter because are not
implied, they
used in music.
In other words, the introduction of the enharmonic genus in Rameau's
leads us into a realm where aural and mathematical
system perception
reason company: Rameau's calculations on the corps sonore?and,
part
his aspirations for music theory to assume the status of an
ultimately,
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 as an difference, the derivation of the
quarter-tone appreciable
closed system of harmony and melody from "one natural principle,"
Rameau's supreme theoretical achievement, would inevitably be a lost
cause.8

Rameau, reluctant to acknowledge a between the

usually discrepancy
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 and real, are

mathematically acoustically imperceptible
to the ear, and should therefore be discounted:

Outre que le quart de ton est inap- Beside the fact that the quarter
son expression, si elle tone is inappreciable, its expres
pr?tiable,
?toit possible, d?routeroit encore sion, if it were possible, would lead

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 l'oreille ne l'aideroit ; the ear astray rather than assist it;
plus qu'elle
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 acoustics, or music as heard?was never defined unam
physical
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 (Rousseau, for one, But Rameau's
play vehemently disagreed).
fear was that the ear might be confused by minute changes; keyboard
instruments (and fretted string instruments, for that matter), with their
minimum intervals of semitones, therefore ensure that the ear
pregiven
stays on track, where enharmonic other
"quarter-tonal" dangers might
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 Rameau's
temperament.10
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 commentary on Mersenne's dictum. It is no
practical 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 Pluto to pronounce on Theseus, who has fool
by
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:

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 Quelle soudaine horreur What sudden horror
Ton destin nous inspire. Your destiny inspires in us.
O? cours-tu, malheureux? Whither are you running, one?
unhappy
Tremble, fr?mis d'effroi! Shudder, tremble with fear!
Tu quittes l'empire infernal You leave the infernal empire
Pour trouver les enfers chez toi. 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.
on the phrase "O? cours-tu, malheureux?" the Fates a chro
Starting sing
common-tone on a
matically descending progression beginning D-major
triad down to an A-major harmony. (To step out of the historical frame
work for aminute, 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
a L-RLP transformation.) For Rameau's own
progression repeated 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 itwould be problematic ifwe 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

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 i
semitone
minor

semitone
major

fifth third fifth minor major third

third
major

semitone
minor

matic-enharmonic
progression
is shown for
the
ofcomparison butis notdiscussed
in thetext.
Figure3. Rameau's
diatonic-enharmonic
and sake progressions,
fromRameau1750,93. (Thech
chromatic-enharmonic

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

/Tierce
C7mn\
rna/\

tierce
Ta.
majeur?. j^asse^onda/nentule
^asse^cmdarnentale
en,
succession
alternative
de
l'im
dc? d'itne
qui Hercemineure ?/?
^PRODUIT
ENHARMONIQUE
DIATONIQUE ENHARMONIQUE
CHROMATIQUE
PRODUIT
descend
bip
de
le
la
proportion
et
azanzupk
mes
ynonte
ensxa?e
d'une*
IS?rce-
>
Tnajenre

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 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.

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 Fates
1,2,3

? |,
^rfrfrfrfrfrfrfjF fe
Orch.

fr? - mis d'ef - froi !

Fates
1,2,3

Orch.

'W * J> J

#0^
4 #? ufe fe
FB ^ ^^^^

-?- itity ?& ^-' ff=

FB
^^

Example 2 (continued)

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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 in what temperament Rameau
exactly
envisioned this scene to be sung. From a theoretical the
vantage point,
neatest results?the greatest flexibility?would doubtless be obtained if
we assumed as Mersenne a hundred years
equal temperament, suggested
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
as he advocated in Nouveau of 1726. In any case,
temperament, syst?me
the chronological proximity of Hippolyte et Ariele (1733) right between
Nouveau syst?me and G?n?ration harmonique (1737), the treatise not
only inwhich Rameau came down firmly in favor of equal temperament
but also inwhich he discussed this scene, strongly suggests that this pas
sage was an in his considerations of the
important stepping-stone impor
tance of temperament within his theory of harmony.
In any case, we can see how the between intonation
divergence just
and temperament causes the delicate problem in this passage: themelodic
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
defined temperament in exactly those terms, as "a necessary
sagaciously
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 y
Harmonique puisse
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

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

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

Following
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 the music as written. These moments are shown inside the boxes
by
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
But for the continuation to the next note, an enharmonic
pattern. simplest
exchange is required (to F and El?, respectively).
Bearing inmind 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 notes
they are, the enharmonic 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 the motion of the fundamental bass.
guide
In fact, Rameau's derivation of enharmonicism, as shown above, means
by
of the extremes of the quintuple ensures that the fundamental
proportion,
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, ismarkedly different from the
interval of themajor 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 a similar
requires

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 singing <> ^g<?
voice ?

FB

singing
ftp ^ m

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^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 are not sounded. For this
they
reason, Rameau the same melody in two enharmonic variants,
supplied
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 The sole to the enharmonic differ
temperament. guide preserving
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:

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 Mais ne cro?ons pas d'ailleurs que But let us not believe that the ear
l'Oreille en soit la dupe, elle sent will be fooled [by enharmonicism].
dans ce d?faut de rapport toute la It senses in this lack of relationship
duret? occasionne, on y est all the harshness that is there. One
qu'il
du quart de Ton, sans is struck by the quarter-tone with
frapp? qu'on
s'en rendre compte, on en out being aware of it, and one is
puisse
est r?volt?, parce qu'il n'est pas shocked by it because it is not natu

naturel, parce quel'Oreille ne peut ral, because the ear cannot perceive
1'appretier; cependant l'Harmonie it. However, the common harmony,
commune, par laquelle ce passage by which you pass from one mode
d'un Mode ? l'autre a lieu, en to the other, modifies the harshness
modifie la duret?, le moment de la of the quarter-tone. The moment of

surprise passe comme un ?clair, & surprise passes like a flash, and soon
bien-t?t cette se tourne en this surprise turns into admiration,
surprise
admiration, de se voir ainsi trans as yourself transported,
seeing
port? d'un H?misph?re ? l'autre, from one hemisphere to the other,

pour ainsi dire, sans qu'on ait eu le as it were, without having had the
tems d'y penser. (Rameau 1737, time to think about it. (trans, modi
153 [Jacobi 1968, 3:91]) fied from Hayes 1968,178-79)

The enharmonic in this reveals itself as a mode of percep

explanation
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" thatEdmund 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
Rameau's in the enharmonic a common har
Following description,
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 [Link] this would mean for the passage inHippolyte 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,
asAlan 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 amajor 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

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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 dissonance. That is
cognitive
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 on the diatonic mode, but cannot
impinge
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 an note, can be success
produces arbitrary leading
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 tones are and each inver
leading possible;
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 inmode 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

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 (a)
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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 succeed one another when no

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

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 1
Jllj?
\>mrm
fia
J?
^m

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

Example
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 described above. The sound remains the same, but the
changes
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, which shows a so
"L'enharmonique" (1728), progression
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 For the connoisseur, he continued,
gibberish.20
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.21The 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 as Rameau's note and Example 3 shows, traverses
reprise, explains
a of diminished-seventh chords in close succession. A mod
progression

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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 For Rameau, however, this passage was
ascending.
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 themelodic continuation
toA 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 passage, and its should not be over
complex importance
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. Ifwe 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 intom. 12 of the reprise.
Instead, by changing enharmonically to Bb and Db, they "transport us,"
as Rameau it earlier, "from one
hemisphere to the other," in a rather
put
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 inmind
when he explained that the diminished-seventh chord contained elements
of the dominant and the subdominant, added in (f ): inserting the C instead

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of the Db (and Bl?) would simply mean to replace the subdominant com
with a clear-cut dominant. (For other of this passage, see
ponents analyses
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
can the enharmonic quarter-tone fully
temperament provide, making
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 consequence of the corps
temporal
sonore offered by nature, has indeed led us astray. In this sense, Rous

seau, in Diderot and D'Alembert's summa of

writing Encyclop?die?the
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 as he had done many times before, that
explained,
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? Thanks, then, to these two different
rentes manieres suc manners of consider
d'envisager successively
cessivement le m?me accord, on ing the same chord, one passes
passe d'un ton ? un autre qui en from one to another one which
key
fort on donne aux seems remote, one gives to the
paro?t ?loign?, quite
parties des progr?s diff?rens de parts progressions different from
celui auraient d? avoir en the one that they ought to have had
qu'elles
premier lieu; & ces passages m?na in the first place, and these transi
sont capables, non when are
g?s ? propos tions, properly handled,
seulement de surprendre, mais de capable not only of but
surprising
ravir l'auditeur quand ils sont bien of delighting the listener when they
rendus. (Rousseau 1755a. 688)23 are well Hone [Link] 1QQR ??(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

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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
was a feature, one that would alert us
"hearing nothing" positive actually
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 is exactly how we the enhar
"nothing" recognize
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, The ear recalls from the

nothing
il ne rappelle rien. C'est le produit enharmonic It is the product
genus.
de deux extr?mes tr?s-dissonans of the two extremes, very dissonant
entre-eux, auxquels m?me la nature between each other, to which even
a d'abord refus? la succession nature has at first refused immedi

imm?diate, d'o? il n'est pas ?ton ate succession. Therefore, it is not

nant que l'oreille ne puisse 1'appre astonishing that the ear cannot
tier. (Rameau 1750, 96-97 [Jacobi detect it. (Briscoe 1975, 175)
1968.3:214-151)

Given the conclusion above from the examination of diatonic enhar

monicism inHippolyte et Ariele, it is not difficult to see how Rameau
envisioned the cognition of the enharmonic as a that is unde
progression
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 any natural succession?and the ability of our
complicates
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 inRameau's
theoretical When Rameau claims that the ear "recalls"
explanations.
(rappeler) nothing of the enharmonic genus, there is a sense that suggests
that there might have been a time when it did.24More strongly, perhaps,

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

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 on both sides, are well known (see, e.g., Didier
pamphleteering
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
wholesale. This could, of course, in itself be a bone of con
explanations
tention?given the self-evidently historic importance of the commission,
itmust 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
we see Rameau Rous
tery." And indeed, do take particular issue with
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 ismost 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 did not exist; ancient was lim
harmony accompaniment
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 denied.
consistently
Rameau could hardly argue that the Greeks did not possess the quarter

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tone, but instead he tried to pick holes in the appreciation of the ancient
on the basis of his
genus. Whereas Rousseau reported, 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 It is, of course, in these
things.29 vastly
divergent assessments of the same sources that their underlying world
views come to the fore: Rousseau's sense of the loss of ancient
nostalgic
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 themajor 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 de Musique, que c'est par son seul
syst?mes pendant
canal qu'ils ont pu juger des effets de det Art (Rameau 1756, 5 [Jacobi
1969, 5:313])]. Their lack of harmony was, inRameau'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 The row about enharmoni
harmony.
cism was so and its intricacies were so arcane, that even Diderot
public,
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 seenfor 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 que nous savons aussi we too can correctly use a tritone,
joues,

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 un triton, une super an fifth, and that the
placer quinte augmented
flue, et que l'encha?nement des handling of dominant progressions
dominantes nous est familier. Ces is familiar to us. Those enharmonic

passages enharmoniques dont le modulations about which the dear

cher oncle a fait tant de train, ce uncle has made so much fuss are

by no means
n'est pas la mer ? boire, nous nous we man
superhuman:
en tirons. (Diderot 1772, 443-44)31 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 or human At any rate, the heavy theoretical
principles passions.
weather that Rameau tended tomake 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 theenticing pos
that the quarter-tone used to make an acoustic difference. In other
sibility
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 Melody, by imposing on it?by

posant de nouvelles r?gles on itself?new rules,
perdoit imposing
insensiblement de son ancienne lost its ancient energy,
imperceptibly
?nergie, et le calcul des intervalles and the calculation of intervals was
fut enfin substitu? ? la finesse des ultimately substituted for the sub
intonations. C'est ainsi, par exem of intonations. It is in this way,
tlety
ple, que la pratique du genre enhar for example, that the practice of the
. . .
monique s'abolit peu ? peu. enharmonic genre was gradually
(Rousseau 1755b, 337)32 eliminated. (Scott 1998, 265)

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 For Rousseau, for whom melodic was tantamount to emo
flexibility
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
the achievements of harmony as a of combinations," but its
edged "gain
introduction meant a "loss of ("[Des
simultaneously energy" 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 in the service of harmony, which is now
simplified
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 are nonsense. ... A more subtle metaphysics is
explanations only
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 et les r?gies ne sont le mat?riel de l'art, il
Principe que
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.35While the passage was
clearly written in eighteenth-century tonal harmonies (not ancient Greek
melos), the orchestral are written in such a way as not
parts really largely
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 in reality.) Moreover, unlike the other exam
place examples
ined, the enharmonic moment does not introduce a harmonic shift; the
enharmonic notes mark an without in any
merely implication cadencing
new It was therefore least in Rousseau's musical
key. possible?at
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, themusical epoch following Rameau's French Baroque
did come closer to an ideal that was modeled on Rousseau's ancient
again
Greek music, while retaining, but subtly setting back, the achievements of
modern harmony. It should be borne inmind that Rousseau's explanation
of the Furies' as based on the shrill enharmonic
screeching quarter-tone

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must already count as a deviation from his ideal of a purely melodious
music. The power thatmelody 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 within
possible only
the minor mode. Just in case there might still be any doubt about who is
meant, Rousseau?himself, a citizen of Geneva?added a Franco
famously,
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 on Gluck's were written down from memory
explanations Orfeo
(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
the enharmonic on which the Furies' screeching
reproduce quarter-tone
hinges. Yet, for him, no less than for Rameau, the keyboard instrument
stands for the effects music can produce in us.
emblematically
For Rameau, as we saw, the keyboard instrument stands for a barrier

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

demarcating perceiving,
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
this play of characters, as the views of the petit-faiseur
liberty of short-circuiting
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
be misguided to equate the pr?te-nom, an ill-informed but presumably
clearly
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
laQuinte pour les moins exp?riment?s, & dans laTierce 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 leMonocorde, 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 laVoix,
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

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 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. Inmany 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 laMusique, 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 amicrotonal 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

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 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. InNouveau 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."
[Link] 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.

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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 [This difference
alt?ration" [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 (as part of the Nouvelles
in 1728 suites de pi?ces de clavecin), that is to say,
between the modified mean-tone temperament Rameau espoused inNouveau 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
from the same volume, which also introduces an enharmonic passage,
phante"
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
. . , et bien
entre et le R? b?mol.
l'Ut di?ze 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

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 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 des trios au
?toit le plus doux
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 ins?rer une quatri?me

d'en 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
lemiolement, 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 [Link] 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

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 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 Guidoof Arezzo in particular: "Il rendit un fort

mauvais service ? lamusique" (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 lam?lodie ainsi que du discours qu'elle imite; et c'est
de cette mani?re que l'harmonie rend en partie ? lamusique 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, the feeling always present in it, to strengthen
to render 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

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 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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